One day in the mountainous part of Vietnam on a motor bike
Corners
Here in Auckland, there is a retirement village in my neighborhood. The village consists of a mere few oblong and stocky blocks of flats. Almost every evening, when I return home from work I pass those one-roomed cells shut off from the external world by plastic sliding doors. Near one of the flats there is an old useless TV set which practically melts into the background in the gentle shadow of a nearby tree. The TV set is there in the rain and in the heat, very beautiful, almost like in the “American Beauty”.
It seems to me, now I start to realize why I used to admire photos by Stephen Shore. He was the first photographer in the world having exhibited in the Metropolitan Museum of Art inter vivos. A year ago I kept the browser window with his works in sight trying to understand why they seemed so much special.
I don’t know about you but I am often attracted by the harmony of static scenes being, as one would think, quite ordinary. It can be soft light, geometry of lines, a combination of colors, a combination of textures, or all said above in one. I mark such photos with purple tag. They represent a space for the lively play of fancy, the scenery for imaginary situations and characters. This is the way to obtain photos without people involved. No faces at all. The time-space, which has been stopped in a photo and fixed as it was, does not notice anything and continues its own existence. You are watching a film where static actors are shot on a static camera but there is no doubt that they are alive.
2. Auckland, New Zealand
3. Zeya, Russia
4. Zeya, Russia
5. Zeya, Russia
6. Heihe, China
7. Guangzhou, China
8. Kathmandu, Nepal
9. Nanchang, China
10. Zeya, Russia
11. Guangzhou, China
12. Katmandy, Nepal
13. Guangzhou, China
14. Zeya, Russia
15. Pekin (Beijing), China
16. Pekin (Beijing), China
17. Novosibirsk, Russia
18. Hong Kong, China
19. Zeya, Russia
20. Zeya, Russia
21. Zeya, Russia
22. Harbin, China
23. Blagoveschensk, Russia
24. Shenyang, China
25. Shenyang, China
26. Shenyang, China
27. Shenyang, China
28. Pekin (Beijing), China
29. The Great Wall of China
30. Pekin (Beijing), China
31. Pekin (Beijing), China
32. Xiamen, China
33. Xiamen, China
34. Xiamen, China
35. Xiamen, China
36. Guangzhou, China
37. Guangzhou, China
38. Guangzhou, China
39. Guangzhou, China
40. Guangzhou, China
41. Shenzhen, China
42. Shenzhen, China
43. Guangzhou, China
44. Shenzhen, China
45. Hong Kong, China
46. Hong Kong, China
47. Macau, China
48. Macau, China
49. Hong Kong, China
50. Hong Kong, China
51. Macau, China
52. Macau, China
53. Macau, China
54. Macau, China
55. Macau, China
56. Macau, China
57. Shenzhen, China
58. Macau, China
59. Macau, China
60. Macau, China
61. Macau, China
62. Hanoi, Vietnam
63. Hoi An, Vietnam
64. Macau, China
65. Macau, China
66. Shenzhen, China
67. Nanning, China
I would modestly remind you that any of the above photos you can get for private use (for your desktop or wallpaper), if you apply at the following address
A Beach in Hoi An, 2008
Here, in Hoi An, is a concentrated Vietnam. In the one hundred thousandth little city on the coast of the Pacific Ocean are hardworking Vietnamese people, who have relatively recently joined the race of the tourism business in South Asia, who are fighting for their place in the sun.
Only the beach is in this post. I will talk about everything else a bit later. In detail, as there are quite a few impressions which are reinforced with photographs.