A girl tourist zips one-handed on the highest section of zipline we rode at The Gibbon Experience. Here, she's probably only 100 or so feet up. A little further along however, at the highest point of this line, she'd be pushing 300 feet above the ground.
Location: Bokeo Forest Preserve, Laos
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
Father and son ride into the sunset on their motorbike.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, the lens I was using at this point in my trip was glitching out on me. Thus, this shot has a fuzzy 'film' on it and is very soft. Too bad too as it's one of my faves, otherwise.
Location: Lai Chau, Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
A minority woman sells banana flowers to the local tourist restaurants as decoration.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, the lens I was using at this point in my trip was glitching out on me. Thus, this shot has a fuzzy 'film' on it and is very soft. Too bad too as it's one of my faves, otherwise.
Location: Sapa, Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
I stopped this old woman along the side of the road and pantomimed my interest in taking a photograph of her. She obliged and thus gave me my needed foreground element to what I thought was an attractive view out over the Bản Giốc river.
Note the working old-fashioned waterwheels on the river supplying water to the brilliant green rice paddies behind.
Location: Bản Giốc region, Northeastern Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
Taken at 0-dawn-thirty from the balcony of my 8th floor bay-front room.
The slight 'haze' you see in this shot (and on a few others spread across the site) are from the 24-105mm lens I had at that time and the optical issue it had. I didn't know of the issue until after I had returned home from my trip and started looking at the shots on my computer. Destinations I visited later in the trip (like Vietnam) suffered more than those destinations I enjoyed at the start, due to the issue progressing over the 3 months I was away. That bum lens has since been replaced with a new 24-105 that doesn't seem to have any issues.
Save for a couple, I've chosen to not identify which shots on the site were taken with the old flawed 24-105 vers the new one - I'm hoping the images can speak for themselves, a bit hazy or not.
Location: Cat Ba town, Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
Here, a 'forest ranger' zips away from Tree House #1 with his AK strapped to his back. I'm trying to determine if his zipping into the fog asshole first was pure bravado or his way of passing a diss at the Fates or both.
Location: Bokeo Forest Preserve, Laos
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
A woman sells rambutans at the small town market.
Never had a rambutan before? Their white slimy center with the mild taste contrasts to their wild exterior. They're pretty common in tropical regions, but super exotic here in the continental US - expect to pay a high premium if you could find them at all.
Location: Luang Nam Tha, Laos
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
"Hello, Motorbike?" is something you'll get so tired of hearing in SE Asia. Those two words must make up the entire english vocabulary of legions of taxi men throughout the region.
Here, a motorbike man pockets the money.
Location: Luang Prabang, Laos
Lens used: 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 IS
Vietnam (in addition to much of SE Asia) is peppered with the ubiquitous yet quite remarkable karst pinnacles. There are a number of places where rivers flow through and under these outcroppings. While most of these waterways were shallow and the caves low, there are some with caves tall and rivers navigable.
Here, I got a shot of a local's boat motoring through one of these large caves.
Location: Ba Bể National Park, Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
The airport was modern and fully functioning, but under-utilized with only 1-2 flights a day, both in the morning. Amazingly, the airport grounds and runway were opened up in the evenings to the townspeople as something of a public park. People of all ages would congregate to play football, walk, work out and ride bikes. Though it felt somewhat odd at first to be standing out in the middle of the runway taking pictures, it ended up being one of the more engaging activities and sights I found in town.
Picture #1 in a series of 3.
Location: Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam
Lens used: 24-105mm f4.0 IS
