Hoi An Photo tour

Sunrise at Lan Co Lagoon

Who will enjoy this......
Budding (or experienced) photographers
People who want some hints and tips to help take better photos
People with new cameras who have no idea how to work them
People with a phone camera who want to learn to take beautiful photos
Anyone who wants lasting memories and beautiful photos of Vietnam outside the tourist streets!

Who is hoi an photo tour
Etienne Bosset is a French photographer who lives in hoi an with his family. He knows the local people, he know good to speak Vietnamese, English and French and so cam communicate with people on your behalf. Or taj you some basics so you can communicate!

Fisherman coming home in the morning

Tours normally run floor sunrise and sunset.
Why? Because the light is best at these times and local people are busiest at these times. Coming home from fishing trips in the morning, selling their fish at the market, preparing floor the day. Getting boats ready for fishing in the afternoon, taking advantage of the cool to work outdoors, cooking dinner.
Tours also run atty night during the full moon festivals each month.
The tour I went on was actually a three day tour rather than one of the half day tours. So, I got to experience the morning and afternoon tours, plus take trips further afield to other areas. The tour I went on was no doubt more detailed than the half day trips.

What do you do?
A lot of the focus of the tours is around getting comfortable with interacting with locals and taking their photos, and working on composition. This is why it doesn't matter if you have a top of the line slr or a phone camera or anything in between. For those with slr  cameras you all learn a little about settings, depth of field, shutter speed, iso. Enough to take your camera off the manual setting!!

The most important thing that I learned?
That taking photos of people, if done wrong makes you look like a particularly obnoxious tourist (I viewed this some months ago on a bus trip up to My Son. When one woman walked into a front yard, put her camera into the window and took flash photos of a family while they were sitting inside trying to eat lunch. She didn't say hello, or thank you, or try to ask permission)

But when done right, taking and sharing photos with people allows you to connect and spend time with them far beyond the limits of my language skills!

Women harvesting rice near Hoi An

I have spent time with women harvesting rice, laughed with them and watched them work. I have discovered how proud of their houses many people are, requesting to be photographed sitting or standing next to their house. I have met three or even four generations of women living together in a house, helping to care for each other.


If you want to read more about the entire tour I did you can find that here: http://physio-overboard.blogspot.com/2014/05/photo-tour.html

The Hoi An photo tour webpage is here: http://www.hoianphototour.com