Hello travel Hivians!

I saw this travel contest about the place I want to visit again! I immediately tough about my trip to Vietnam back in august of 2012!
During that trip I ended up in Höi An, a little village on the coast in the middle of the country!

While I was walking trough the city I saw some flyers of a photography tour that you could book! It was organized by an France photographer and his Vietnamese wife, who were living in that city. You could choose a sunset tour and a sunrise tour! I almost never book tours during my travels, I think most of them are just to touristic! Normally I can find my own way while I am traveling, but this photo tour was also a workshop photography! The guy was a professional photographer and along the way, he would tell you how to set you camera and give you tips how to make a nice composition! And he was showing a place in and around the city that was not really good accessible! You needed to take a small ferry somewhere in the backstreets of the city! Always good to travel around with a local!

The reason that I want to revisit that town is to see how I have grown as a photographer in the years after this workshop! It was my first encounter with a professional photographer and he inspired me big time! He encouraged me to continue growing in photography! I really want to meet him again and go out for a shoot with him! Here is the website of Etienne Höi An photo tours! ! If you are around there, I really recommend him!

This is how the tour went!

4 o'clock in the morning!

Yes, that was the pickup time at the hotel! And that was oke, because it still was 25 degrees Celsius back than! It was a very hot summer! We had temperatures of more than 40 Celsius!

While we were waiting for the boat to pick us up, I already started taking pictures! The colors already were amazing!

During the trip we saw a couple of these fishing nets! These are nice subjects for in sunrise photo's! But not if you are on a boat! Than you only can take snap shots! Still, they looked oké!

During the boat trip we talked a lot about photography and we needed to tell the guide. Etienne, where we wanted to take pictures of ore what we wanted to learn during this trip! I told him that I find it difficult to photograph people on the street! So he gave me that as an assignment that day!

I started out safely by photographing the surroundings!

But I got a comment from Etienne that I wasn't doing what I suppose to be doing!
I really needed to go to the people and take pictures of them, street portrait style!

So I started out taking pictures of people in the distance! To overcome that shame a little bit!

Then I did a candid portrait!

And portraits of the other people of the group!

But eventually It started to feel good and I could take some pictures from close up more!

We came across some kids and they don't mind to be in a picture!
I love how they look at me here! Lookinh up at the tall Dutchman!

Than these old men showed up! What a charismatic face they have! Very beautiful!

Thank you for reading my post! And if you want to see all the places I have ever been to, just click on my Pinmapple profile!

And if you want to follow my daily life, I often post stories and pictures off all the tings I do in life on my Instagram account!