UPDATE (January 2018) – You can find Part 2 of ‘A Visit to Hoi An, Vietnam’ here.
Taking on a self-appointed shooting project or challenge is a great way to develop your personal photography.
For example, in an earlier post I talked about how limiting myself to using a single prime lens during an outing really helped me to slow down and consider the composition for a scene. Another example might be to choose a theme, like black and white, and go out and capture thinking in terms of highlights and shadows.
A quick look at this post and you would think that the theme for our day out shooting in Hoi An was “Yellow”. However, the colour’s pretty hard to miss when you’re here; after all, the place is known as the Yellow City!
Hoi An was once a major trading port in Vietnam, dating from the 15th to the 19th century. Its incredibly well preserved Ancient Town area is a UNESCO world heritage listed site and is where most visitors tend to go. The reason for the yellow walls on so many of the buildings here depends on who you ask – some will say it’s because the colour absorbs less heat, others because it’s a colour that represents royalty. One thing for certain though is that it does offer a bit of brightness and cheer, even on those gloomy, wet weather days (it’s rainy season here from around October to February).
The following captures (with a view towards the Japanese Covered Bridge) were taken during an early morning walk along the Thu Bon river.
Floods do happen here on occasion – three weeks prior to our visit, Typhoon Damrey struck the east coast of Vietnam, causing major flooding in the city. The night before the following photos were taken, there was light flooding on the street beside the river – the colourful litter on the ground in the photo below are the paper boxes holding the floating candles that were washed ashore.
Scenes from a Vietnamese restaurant…we were recommended the Morning Glory restaurant by a colleague of my wife’s – we liked it so much we went there twice.
Did I mention that the walls are great backgrounds for portraits?
