Golden hour on the Mekong River
/I was sitting drinking a coffee by the riverside, and I noticed the light was getting interesting so decided I needed to take advantage of this by grabbing a boat and going out to photograph the small fishing boats I had seen around. The view from the riverside was serene (apart from the eyesore of the new Sokha hotel they are building across the river that seemed to manage to get itself into most of my shots somehow...grrr...
Mekong river people. This small boat is their workplace, as well as their family home
My initial idea was to take some sunset shots with the city backdrop of the small boats from the bigger boat, however, as nice as these shots can be, knowing myself, this wasn't going to satisfy my craving for close up action...so after a few minutes sailing around, I asked the skipper to approach a small boat and see if I could get aboard to utilise the 24mm lens to get 'amongst' my subjects.
Another small boat approached to see what I was up to
My only concern with doing all this was if the camera dropped into the river....I had lost an M9 last year due to rain damage in Hong Kong...so the thought of the Leica going for a swim in the Mekong river was not a good thought....however, the picture is far more important than the gear (apart from the fact that I would never have got the SD card back anyway if it had fell in!)....so I decided to take the risk and cautiously climbed over and onto the small raft to join the welcoming family on their boat with the M9P, a 24mm and 35mm.
You can see from these pics by Steve Porte that boarding with expensive gear could easily go wrong
They didn't speak any English, nevertheless we managed to somehow communicate and they were quite happy for me to hang out on their boat for 45 minutes and shoot a small snippet of their life.
The light was great, as were the subjects
Another BTS shot of me working above, taken by Steve Porte
A proud Captain on his ship
Silhouettes are standard shots in this light
Black and white worked well in this light
Both husband and wife took equal turns rowing, fishing and looking after their kids
Fishing the Mekong with the Sokha hotel complex behind
River kids...(who can't swim....could be dangerous in the Mekong...it has a very strong current)
Could have done with an even wider than 24mm lens for this shot I think
Great way to see the city from the river
There is now a part 2 to this blog post with more images, you can see that by clicking here:
http://www.f8photography.com.hk/blog/2013/01/mekong2/
If you wish to see other images and blog posts from this trip and other Cambodia trips you can see a selection by clicking here.
Thanks for taking the time to visit our blog, if you like our blog and website, please ‘like’ us on our public Facebook page and share this story with your friends with the Facebook and twitter links below. You can also subscribe to our blog here.
F8 Photography provides commercial photography and photography and video training workshops, more details can be found via the ‘courses and workshops’ link and upcoming events via the front page of our website.
