Adventure to Sapa

by

  Yusuf

I went to Sapa a couple of weeks ago. Took an overnight train there directly after landing in Hanoi. Sapa is beautiful, and I felt I must share some pictures from Sapa with you. My visit to Sapa was the Crossing Bridges III Project jointly organized by www.fotografer.net of Indonesia, www.clubsnap.org of Singapore, www.photomalaysia.com of Malaysia, and www.photo.com.vn of Vietnam. This third annual photography oriented expedition was aimed at fostering friendships amongst photographers from photo forums in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. We've been doing it once a year for the past three years now. It was a great success and we made friends with many photographers in the four participating countries. Perhaps POTY members can also join us in the next joint Crossing Bridges project which is planned to be in Sarawak, Malaysia. I used to be a very active member of POTY but since I bacame an Administrator of http://www.photomalaysia.com I dont post as much in POTY as I used to. But I have many friends here and I hope you'll enjoy my pictures from Sapa in North Vietnam. Go to Vietnam. Especially to the more remote parts in the north near the Chinese border. The mountain people there are a joy to shoot and there are several beautiful valleys with paddy terraces around Sapa. When the sun is low on the horizon and there are breaks in the cloud cover, these terraces are lighted up in a beautiful way. The first picture is just a sample of the lovely landscapes of Sapa. My photography skills are somewhat lacking to capture the true beauty of these rice terraces. You have to go to Sapa to see it for yourself. And here's another view of the beautiful Paddy Terraces of Sapa We trekked up more than a thousand rocky steps in the dark and in the rain, up Ham Rong mountain to have dinner at a Dzao Village. The dinner wasn't to my taste at all, but the dance performance staged by their dance group was really great. This picture was shot handheld with the 1DsM2 at ISO 1600 and the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L. No perceptible noise. Here's another handheld shot of another Dzao dancer, without flash also at ISO1600, with the Canon 1DsM2 and the image stabilized EF 70-200 f/2.8L. I'm quite impressed by the extremely low noise from the Canon sensor and Digic processor. And this girl in the crowd was also shot with available light The Dzao or sometimes pronounced Dao or Zao are one of more than a dozen tribes of Hill People of Vietnam. The Dzaos are noted for their elaborate dressing which feature intricate weaving often decorated with coins and beads. The weight of the coins a Dzao woman wears is supposedly an indicator of her wealth. Dao women keep long flowing hair which is shaved just above the forehead, and tied up into a distinctive red turban. Their religion includes the worship of the spirits of their ancestors and often their rituals include the sacrifices of animals. The next picture is a Hmong beauty. The H'mongs are another Hill Tribe in Vietnam. They constitute one of the largest ethnic groups in Vietnam numbering about half a million. They live in the mountainous areas in the far north of Vietnam. They are animists and worship spirits. There are several sub groups of H'mongs and because the women of each sub-group wear colourful dresses which are subtly different between tribes, they are grouped according to their dresses as either the Black H'mong, the White H'mong, the Red, the Green and the Flower Hmong. Their dresses are extremely colourful. This pretty H'mong lady I met on the road out of Sapa is wearing a large chain-link necklace made of silver, huge silver earrings and lots of silver bracelets as well. I've played around with the image to give it a different flavour. Dunno if anybody will like it. Life is hard in the mountains of Sapa, and the harsh living conditions is etched into the face of this elderly H'mong lady. We should thank our God for the easy life we have here in our cities. You can tell that they are H'mong ladies because of their unique dress, and silver trinkets adorning their ears, necks and arms. Strangely however, you wouldn't be able to identify H'mong men. The men blend quite unobtrusively with other nondescript men in the village. H'mong ladies however, will usually attract a foreigner's attention because of their colourful dress. They are often the targets of cameras as they walk the streets of Sapa. Some will usually demand "One Dollar" if you try to photograph them. Some will ignore you and will nonchalantly go about their businesses. The ladies I like to shoot are the shy ones like this particular lady. She hid behind her friend as I aimed the big white Canon in her direction. I kept it pointed in her direction as I waved and tried to get her attention. Eventually her curiosity got the better of her. She peeked and I tripped the shutter....heh, heh, heh.... Here's another H'mong from the rural market of Quang Phu Chau. She was making a kind of thread from strands of material cut from the base of a palm frond. The thread will be woven into baskets, mats,hats, etc. which she will sell at the rural market to earn money for provisions like sugar, cooking oil, salt, etc... Here's another mountain lady selling the base of the palm fronds I mentioned in the previous picture. Many of the handicrafts that the Hill Tribes make are derived from these palm fronds and from strips of bamboo. She's not dressed as a typical hill person, and she may well have left the mountains to live in the lowland village, but I thought she'll make a good picture with her bicycle in the background, and the stuff she's selling simply put down on the muddy ground at the edge of the market..... I have some Indonesian friends who have been experimenting with conversion of a DSLR to dedicated Infrared photography. The IR filter is placed directly over the sensor . The next picture is a sample from a Canon 20D permanently modified for IR photography. This article is getting a bit too long so I'll just post one more picture in the form of a link here. This picture may be offensive to some people but it should be viewed in the context that in many hill tribe villages, as in the tribes in Africa, South America and even Sabah and Sarawak, this sort of situation where little children (and in some cultures, even adults) run around naked, is very common and not offensive at all. It is only here in the so called developed cities where hippocritically clean people who do their dirty deeds behind closed doors will say that this is dirty. I post the link here in the interest of artistic photography. These kids were simply standing there outside their hut, and I just loved the way the evening light fell on them, so I had to make the picture and share it here. Please do not click if you are offended by nudity. (Now, I'm betting that most people will probably be like me and will click the link) If you don't mind nudity, click here to see a lovely picture.....(I think)...