Hanoi Report 3

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

Yesterday's photo shoots (as arranged by Ms Tu, aka "the Guardian Angel") were held at the Dinh Kim Ngan Jewellery Communal House, then at the superb Temple of Literature, and the purpose was to photograph two of my newly minted friends 'Tony' Trinh and Ms Lê Ánh Tuyết.

Ms. Lê Ánh Tuyết s a very well known Vietnamese singer, while Mr. 'Tony' Trinh is a Hau Dong singer, teacher and musician.

I was pleasantly surprised that none of the locations we chose required any prior permits or even casual permissions. We just walked in, unpacked our cameras and Ms Tuyết  and Mr Tony changed into Vietnamese traditional clothes.

Photo © Tewfic El-Sawy-All Rights Reserved

I've mentioned this elsewhere, but my Hanoi experience as a solo traveler/photographer is immensely liberating. No responsibilities but my own...in fact, I'm someone else's responsibility to a certain extent, and the feeling of not having a photographic group to take care of is a little disconcerting.

On these two photo shoots, I felt something was missing and felt they were over incredibly quickly in comparison to my previous workshops. Obviously the feeling was because there was no group photographers taking turns to shoot, and my directing the subjects on their behalf.

On a technical front, I am using the Fuji X-T1 as main camera with a whole range of fixed primes and one zoom, as well as the X-Pro1 as a second body to use when I deem it necessary. I found that my favorite lens for this type of photo shoots is the Fuji 56mm, but I occasionally experienced somewhat of a delay when the camera struggled to find the correct focus. 

These two photographs were made with minimal post processing. Perhaps at some point, I'll clone out the yellow electrical cable visible in Mr. Trinh's photograph. I used the Zeiss Touit 12mm for that one.