Photographing North Vietnam

North Vietnam, Ha Long Bay, World Heritage Site.

The idea that one needs a huge camera with a billion megapixels to create wonderful images is nonsense.  I took two cameras with me on a adventure of trekking and exploring North Vietnam.  A little Canon A640 and an Olympus OM-4T.  As we trekked through the Hmong Villages and landscapes, walked the streets of Hanoi and ventured on a Junk in HaLong Bay I shot with both but these images were taken with this little camera bought at Costco.  I could post hundreds at this level and quality and have made many prints of the them as well.  Again, the idea that what we photograph and its qualities have virtually nothing to do with the equipment in many cases.  The “story” image is something that our mind, in a fleeting moment, discovers in the 360 degree cacaphony that we live within each moment.

My big Canon 5D Mark II is a huge asset in the commercial world.  But in many ways, its sheer size and bulk makes it a deterent to the images that one find at any particular moment.  The idea is to have the freedom to quickly record an idea…. the small, facile cameras such as the Olympus OM-4T (a film camera) with its tiny jewel like super sharp and fast lenses is one option, but in this case as we struggle through the jungles and floated on the junk the ease of the use of the small Canon A640 was a joy with its flip-out viewfinder.  My perspective is this:  The only thing that Henri Cartier Bresson didn’t know how to do was to put down his camera….

The direction for cameras for the traveler and the journalist in my view are incorporated in the work being done by Panasonic and Olympus.