Welcome to my website and to my first blog post. I hope that you will visit often, bring others to hang out and that you enjoy what you see here. If along the way you would like to hire me I'm sure we could figure something out.
A short introduction.
I first came to Vietnam for personal travel in 2008 and almost immediately fell in love with the place. I returned in 2009 by which time I was completely in love. Like a lot of people who come here and get bitten, I was drawn by the sights and the smells, by the endless activity, by the energy and the vitality.
It was actually the way the heat and the smells hit me when the terminal doors opened each time I returned that became one of my indelible memories of Vietnam, one of many things that was to draw me back again and again. For me Vietnam became like that jazz song that is kind of resolved and yet it isn't, and it keeps pulling you in and pulling you in.
I soon devised a cunning plan to run my business in Australia from Saigon for longer and longer periods of time and this worked fine for a while until it appeared that my masters might notice that I was AWOL and rain on my parade. And so it was that after much hand wringing and number crunching I took the plunge, sold up in Australia and came to Vietnam to live and to start a new life.
To be open and honest with you, I wish I had done it sooner.
I guess I was after a more interesting life and I got it in spades. Here the variety of life is endless and it is fascinating, often heart breakingly sad and frequently hilarious. Its also a photography rich environment.
Living here and with the flexibility to travel the region I soon rediscovered my love of and fascination with photography which brings me to my website and this long, first blog post.
About a month ago I was photographing along the Vietnam/Cambodia border near a border crossing town called Chau Doc. In the morning I photographed a Khmer (ethnic minority) wedding with a pagoda I would guess was a couple of hundred years old, as a backdrop, and in the afternoon a senior Buddhist Monk's wake. Both times we were invited to join in the party after a wrap had been called on the photography and a good time was had by all, with the possible exception of the senior Monk. It was just one of those magnificent days.
Back at the hotel after a long and hot, but deeply satisfying day I was enjoying a drink when I happened to look down at my baseball cap which was sitting on top of my gear bag and for the first time I noticed the insignia on it's crest. It say's "Priviledge", the brand name for a jeans company supposedly. The word struck me like a hammer blow as I sat and reflected on the day that was, and as the Mekong rolled past with its moving feast of activity and life and I realized how very privileged I am to be here, in this place, at this time, doing what I love so much.
So that is a little bit about who I am and why I'm here. If you made it this far, well done. Give yourself a reward!
The Bride
Serious and not so serious monks. Somewhere near Chau Doc. Vietnam.
The smoking monk. Somewhere near Chau Doc. Vietnam.