Photo Tours and workshops with Australian Photographer Adam Monk

Halong Bay in the far North of Vietnam has got to be one of the wonders of the world, especially when it puts on a rainstorm like this  as it did when we arrived at the tail end of my Vietnam and Cambodia Photographic tour a few weeks ago.

When we arrived at the dock and got onto our boat the sky was mostly clear with a few clouds on the horizon… those clouds very quickly overtook us and put on this spectacular show…

These images were all shot hand held with the Hasselblad H4D-60 and a combination of the 28mm f4 and the 100mm f2.2  More images of Halong Bay to follow

Just to finish off the series of the Hoi An fishing trip on the recent photographic tour to Vietnam and Cambodia, I have the last images in the series.

After beating the fish out of the sides off his nets and collecting the catch from the bottom, the fisherman came over to our waiting boat to show us what he had caught for the day and to chat to our guide.

He was very shy and obviously not used to westerners with cameras (especially big cameras like the hasselblad H4D-60!), but he knew our guide and we were all polite and respectful so he warmed up to us.

As is the current  custom in Vietnam, we all gave him a small tip, which would have amounted to more than he would normally make in several days fishing, but for us the experience was priceless!

Continuing on from the last post  on the Fisherman of Hoi An from my Photographic tour of Vietnam and cambodia…

The Art of Fishing

As we continued down the river we started coming to more and more of these huge fishing nets suspended between 4 poles, they were beautiful, more like a work of modern art than a fishing net.  Since they were suspended horizontally across the water it was difficult to see how they were used to catch fish… unless they were flying fish!

Patience is rewarded, and after passing many of these mysterious nets we finally got to see one in action.  The fisherman appears in his canoe, standing up and rowing with a single sculling oar, sometimes with his foot… which is an impressive sight.

He paddles up to a small covered platform on stilts off one corner of the net, climbs in and begins peddling a type of windless contraption made of bamboo which winds in a rope attached to one of the four corner posts.

The whole net arrangement tilts sideways and is lowered into the water until it’s completely submerged.  Later on that day he comes back and repeats the whole process, but winding in reverse, which of course raises the net, hopefully with a heap of fish in it.

At this point all the seagulls have a party as the net is completely open at the top and provides an easy meal.  The fisherman then gets back into his canoe and paddles under the net, and using a long stick and his hands – while controlling his canoe with his foot – shakes all the fish down from the edges into the middle of the net, where there is an access hole for him to get them out into his boat.

All these images were shot on the Hasselblad H4D-60 with either the 100mm f2.2 lens (35mm equivalent of about 70mm) or the 28mm f4 (35mm equivalent of about 18mm), hand held of course, as there is no point in using a tripod on a boat!

Don’t forget to click on the images for a much better view of whats going on!  More Hoi An fishing stories next…

Well so much for regular entries whilst on my photographic tour of Vietnam and Cambodia!  There just never seemed to be any time with so much to see and do.  So here I am back in Cambodia again, post tour, researching next years tour… honestly, i’m working!

Hoi An Fisherman

One of the Highlights of Vietnam for me was an early morning river trip we took with a local photographer I found whilst wandering the streets of Hoi An in Central Vietnam.  Thai Tuan Kiet was born in Hoi An and runs a photographic gallery on one of the main streets, that features his own photographic work shot over many years, he unfortunately doesn’t have a website (yet) but his work is beautiful.

I got talking to him and it turns out he does day tours for Photographers in the countryside around Hoi An and particularly up the river to the fishing villages where no tourists go…  Luckily our tour has a lot of flexibility, and everyone was keen to get up at 4am to grab this opportunity… perhaps not keen, but certainly willing… Lucky for hotel wake up calls!

We had a perfect morning for our boat trip, no wind and some beautifully shaped cloud that gave the sky some fantastic personality.  The fisherman were all very friendly and keen to show us their catch for the day so far.

I took the Hasselblad H4D-60 out on the boat and shot all morning with it hand-held, its just such a lovely camera to use I was loathe to put it down.  In fact the only time I used the canon 5D Mk II for the day was when we visited the fishing village and I needed something a bit more manoeuvrable.

All these images have just had a quick workup in Lightroom on the laptop, so when I get home to a nice big screen I’ll spend some more time and refine them further.

To see all the current photo tours I have running go directly to my Photo Tours page.

Travelling through Vietnam right now on my Photographic tour of Cambodia and Vietnam.  We left Cambodia a few days ago and I have just a few minutes to put up a couple of images from some of the temples of Angkor.

We spent 3 days in Siem Reap exploring some of the ancient site of Angkor which is over 400 square km, so we didn’t get to see all of it.

Some of the temples in the complex are over 1500 years old and the amount and complexity of the carving is outrageous, the Khmer builders  decorated nearly every square cm with intricate bas relief carvings, so while the sheer size is impressive, its the level of detail that really captures my imagination.

Angkor was also a great place to play with the Hasselblad H4D-60, and here I finally put it on a tripod!

Photography tour dates

The dates are set for the Bhutan Photographic tour for this year.  The tour has changed somewhat from last year and is now a full 15 days in Bhutan with a maximum group size of 10 people, so it will sell really fast.  The tour commences 12th October and runs until 26th of October 2013,  for complete information and the itinerary of this photo tour to Bhutan go to the Bhutan Photography tour page.

To enquire or to book please call me on (+61) 415 854 179 or  email am@adammonk.com

Bhutan Tour Dates for 2014.

The new dates for my Photo tour of Bhutan for 2014 are out now.  The tour runs from March 1st to March 16th 2014, and all the current information can be found right here>>

Monks in Thimpu

Since there are so many Monks in Bhutan I can hardly only put up one image, so here are a few more.  Mostly photographed in the Dzongs and temples of  Punakha, Trongsa, Thimpu and Bumthang.

Path to Enlightenment

It seems the Monks are used to being photographed, I guess they are an easy target, but if you are on the path to enlightenment being magnanimous with a group of photographers is just one small test along the way.  Either way they were all very friendly and obliging, or perhaps gracious is a better description.

Don’t forget to click on the images to see the bigger (and better) version.  All three of these images were shot on the Canon 5D Mk II   with a Canon 24-105mm f4L

Bhutan Photographic Tour 2013.

The  dates for the Bhutan photo tour for 2013 are up!  I have redone the whole tour for 2013 and reduced the number of participants to a maximum of 10 people to ensure plenty of personal contact time.  You can read about the new Bhutan photo tour for October 2013 on this page

Over 10% of the population of Bhutan are Buddhist Monks, so when you are there you tend to see a lot of them about.  The Dzongs, which are old feudal fortress temples dotted all across Bhutan,  are now used as centres for Government offices and are also house the Monk bodies of Bhutan, quite aptly symbolising the close relationship of the counties government and its religion.  In fact Bhutan is one of the only countries that has its religion (being Buddhism) written into its constitution.

Buddhism in Bhutan

The Buddhism of  the majority of the population Bhutan is what they call middle path Buddhism, that is they won’t kill animals, but they occasionally will eat meat if one of their livestock dies from an accident or old age.  As a tourist in Bhutan you are usually served meat or fish with most meals, as the Bhutanese assume most Westerners want to eat meat, but the great irony of this is that all the meat for tourist consumption is imported from India!

This image shot in Thimpu Dzong, with the permission of the subject, with a Canon 5D Mk II and a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L lens

Bhutan is a country of super friendly people, I’ve said this before but it really is such a noticeable difference to other places I’ve been that it bears repeating.  Not that the people of other cultures are unfriendly (at least not all of them) it just seems in Bhutan people have an innate openness to strangers that for someone from a western country like me it can appear quite startling.

It seems that as a result of this I have many many images of people.  I am somewhat used to (and not surprised by) people refusing my request to take their picture, usually with lots of gestures to the camera and nodding on my part, followed by a solemn shake of the head on theirs.  I find this perfectly understandable, it must be weird having a total stranger come up and want to take your photo.  That almost never happened in Bhutan.  Instead I experienced happy acquiescence and in many cases with kids, insistence that I take their photo.

Vegetable Gardens of Punakha

These two images are of a lovely old lady who had been tending a large

vegetable patch out in the countryside in the region of Punakha.  I took a couple of covert shots with the 400mm lens as she walked up the path towards me, but those shots lack connection as sneaky shots often do.  

As we came up to each other on the narrow track I stepped aside for her and with my 3 words of Bhutanese and much gesturing I asked her if I could take her photo.  She simply smiled and nodded.

Shot on a Canon 5D Mk II with a Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L Lens. If you would like to visit Bhutan with me next year I run photo tours to Bhutan every year.

I have a few places left on the photography tour to Vietnam and Cambodia I am leading later this year, departing Perth 27th April 2013 and arriving back in Perth 11th May 2013.  This tour will be a combination of fantastic photo opportunities, cultural experiences and culinary delights combined with lots of free time to explore these locations in your own time and to download images, To read more about this photographic tour (with the full itinerary) click HERE>

Photo Tour of Bhutan 2013 dates released

We have also finalised the itinerary for the Bhutan Photography tour for 2013.  This photo tour will be a full 15 days in Bhutan from October 12-26 2013 with a completely re-designed itinerary specifically to enhance the photographic and cultural experience, you can read about the full Bhutan photographic tour for 2013 here, or you can call me for more information on (+61) 415 854 179, or email me at am@adammonk.com