Hà Giang Landscape

OK, time for some variety. Hà Giang not only has wonderful people, it also boasts a very impressive karst landscape. It's a rugged mountain landscape, characterised by conical mountain tops. The highland close to Dồng Văn is a good example, have a look at the Google Maps satellite image below.

Despite all that natural beauty, I did not take many landscape pictures, because it was permanently hazy throughout our trip. Leading to very boring even grey images. There were a few exceptions, where the haze actually lent a beautiful atmosphere itself. The shot above is an example.

It was taken at the green arrow in the satellite image below. It's taken in South East direction, so you'll need to move the map to see the mountains it depicts.

View Larger Map

On the map you can see the strange karst landscape in the highlands. Think Ha Long Bay without the water. Or, as far as I can judge from pictures, from the more famous karst in Yunnan, China. (The border to Yunnan is about 2mi away from this point.)

Picture Sharing 2

The camera is such a great prop. Especially someone else's.

We had lunch at this place in Dồng Văn in Hà Giang province in the far north of Vietnam. One of the cooks was very photogenic. With 4 photographers, someone is bound to ask and get a shot. And show it to her, on the back of the camera.

Which is the moment I captured. She's shy but flattered, looking at her fresh portrait.

Technical: The lighting is simple - all natural, from the open shop front on the left. Classic window lighting I guess, but in a fairly dark room.

Picture Sharing

I've been posting a lot of what could have been posted on this blog to Google+. I will catch up and repost and expand some of those posts here.

One of my favourite images from the Hà Giang trip.

It captures one of the best things about it - the joy of digital photography not just to the photographer but also to the subjects. Whenever we turned around the camera to show our (their) shots, the smiles just beamed. It turned the one-way click of the shutter to real contact. And that usually rubbed off on the rest of the shots.

I tried to capture this many many times, but only this one worked. I simply tried until luck struck, and all faces lined up just right.

I hope to go back one day, and give some of my subjects a print. (No, that is not entirely altruistic:-)

Like the next post, this also shows what a great prop a camera can be - especially the back of someone else's camera. More to come!