The Vietnamese love colors. When it starts raining, for example, many motorbikes stop and the drivers take on raincoats of all possible shades including quite delicate ones like lotus pink or apricot or teal, etc. Women, especially older ones, often wear dresses with floral patterns, men do not shy away from any colors. Even state propaganda is full of shades: posters with Ho Chi Minh made in shades of pink are reality. For this reason, I like photographing in color in Vietnam.
At the same time, this Vietnamese passion sometimes creates a cacophony of colors. What's worse is that cheap goods (like plastic furniture of street restaurants) are usually brightly colored, and abundant on the streets. Also, shop signs in Vietnam are a disaster from the point of color.
As a result, I sometimes don't photograph scenes just because the colors are just terrible.
Some areas of the streets can be so chaotic, dirty, and colorful at the same time that might look rather like a fever in the flesh. The black-and-white format, thus, can work like a remedy.
That also means the bw mode allows you to re-discover streets you already know from the new side since many places you considered boring or even ugly might open up their hidden black-and-white beauty.
So, on July 13, 2024, I decided to change settings on my camera to see previews in black and white only. In Saigon, it was the first try of this type.
Of course, it takes time for the eyes to adapt to the color-ignoring mode. But then it comes, the pleasant feeling of protection from the color hell of Asian streets.
The special mission to photograph things beyond the visible world also brings some extra inspiration.
Thus, on July 13, I headed to the central part of Saigon to stroll in Pham Ngu Lao, an area popular among tourists, and visit a disrepair residential building hosting bars and other venues.
"Just another gate" on my way turned to be worth photographing in bw from a certain angle. Maybe, it's not a masterpiece but worth uploading to photo stocks, for sure.
At last, the mentioned disrepair building:
The color isn't needed there, all the colors are just shaded of dirt and decay.
Deep contrast and people's legs, and no worries about high ISO - that's black and why, the noisier the better 😉
Drawings, clippings, scratches, and cracks are all worth exploring in the bw mode.
Mysterious corridors. Vietnamese youth in fashionable clothes, people search for inspiration here in the fields of photography and videography.
Trees grow on the building.
Some create a powerful root system right through the walls.
Not far from those roots, I met a lovely employee there, called Yu-Yu.
An employee with four legs and whiskers:
Although wearing Grab app uniform, he wasn't a delivery cat but a mascot of a cafe. After a hard day, Yu-Yu wanted to have time for himself on the staircase but people are so people, don't leave alone even for a minute.
I said bye-bye to Yu-Yu and left the building. It was already evening and my body's battery was empty so I returned to the hostel.
More stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out my previous posts on my personal Travelfeed or Worldmappin map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 on July 13, 2024, in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
