Little Vietnam

After the Vietnam war ended in 1973 Australia took in tens of thousands of Vietnamese refugees-a markedly different story to the situation today where the xenophobic Liberal (by name but not by nature) government has an appallingly harsh policy towards refugees. As so often happens with these migrations they settled in clusters in the big cities and in particular many settled in one suburb in western Sydney,Cabramatta.
During the eighties and nineties Cabramatta gained a deservedly unsavoury reputation for drugs and gang crime but then the police and the Vietnamese community made a major effort to clean it up and the transformation has been remarkable.
In so many of these initial settlement clusters around the world the migrants gradually move out and the areas lose their unique cultural identity.Many Chinatowns and little Italies across the world are shadows of their former selves.Not Cabramatta however.It has become even more Vietnamese as the years have passed so that today the main shopping streets in the centre of town are totally lined with Vietnamese shops apart from a few Australian banks,health insurers and telcos.The predominant language is Vietnamese and it is a sea of Vietnamese faces.When I visited this week there were very few European faces.It was like being in Ho Chi Minh City -I really should say Saigon because I am sure no Vietnamese in Cabramatta uses its new name- without the motorcycles parked everywhere.It is not a tourist destination,it is a working Vietnamese suburb in a big city.
I had my camera with me and I here are a few glimpses of little Vietnam.It's a very colourful place so I have chosen black and white as I felt that in these shots the colour is a distraction.
The last two photos were taken in a restaurant serving Chinese food.Those are ducks being prepared and the menu above the girl contains some special delights including "Spicy Pig uterus" - yes,really I passed on that one-and "Jelly Fish and Pig's trotter".Not your standard Aussie fare then.

Confronting

I found this photo a few weeks ago.It was in a slide file with the other slides from the same film.It was taken in the north of Vietnam in 2004 and had been overlooked for 11 years.When I returned from that trip I was very busy with work and I had the film processed and filed the slides and forgot about them.At that time there was not a lot you could do with slides except look at them on either a lightbox or with a projector.You could make prints but they were very expensive.The expansion of internet has totally opened up the way we view and use photos.

The photo was taken with a Leica M6 using a 90mm f2.8 Elmarit lens-a superb and quite compact lens.I do not know what film was used.I am not going to pull the mount apart to check but I suspect it was Ektachrome.
There is something special and unique about film.In many ways I wish that I was still using film.Apart from its look and wide dynamic range it encourages a measured and contemplative approach to photography. However it is expensive and digital is just so convenient.Perhaps too convenient.

I find the photo very confronting.It is the very cold hard stares of the two girls that I find disconcerting.The look is a look of resentment not a look of fear.Just examine those eyes.It makes me think that maybe I should not have taken the photo.
It was taken in the country north of Sapa towards the Vietnam/Chinese border.The girls are from a minority hill tribe.I cannot remember which one.The minority peoples have been harshly treated by the Vietnamese government.They are extremely poor.I cannot blame the girls for resenting me.Here I am a westerner with my fancy camera treating them as if they are exhibits in a zoo.I do worry about photographing in these environments.It worried me in Myanmar two years ago.I try to be respectful and to elicit an unspoken assent when I take these photos but it leaves me with a guilty feeling and a growing disquiet about the inequality in the world.
Perhaps I should not be writing this after the previous story where I tell of the problems with losing power for 4 days and not being able to watch TV or toast bread.These girls had probably never seen electric power.It's all relative and it should not be.
I am off to southern India later in the year.It will be interesting to see how I react to photographic situations there.

Extremes

I went to the local cinema in Avoca on Friday to see The Salt of the Earth a 2 hour documentary on the life of famous photographer Sebastiao Salgado.He is a superb photographer and it was a very engaging film but I did find it depressing.He spent much of his life photographing human misery-famines,atrocities and appalling working conditions.He produced amazing photos-many of them now famous but all the misery has left him depressed and pessimistic about mankind.He has now moved onto photographing the unspoilt parts of the planet.Seeing his photos it was easy to share his pessimism and this is reinforced by events all around us.So much brutality and suffering and so much nastiness and greed and so many people behaving badly and dishonestly.
Even on a day to day level the way people behave on social media and on forums is appalling.Look at the photos of Lewis Hamilton in the post below and remember he is not a teenager - he is the World Champion.It is as if all ethical checks and balances have been abandoned.Bullying and trolling are almost the norms it seems.No wonder so many people have retreated to watching videos of cats playing the piano and similar.

Fearing a blue mood I sought refuge in my photo archives and I found some photos of extremes -innocent,benign extremes. 
Extremes on two wheels.
Firstly Moto-Cross at Appin in NSW a few years ago.Taken with a Canon EOS camera and the beautiful Canon 70-200m F2.8 lens with a two times converter on Fuji Velvia film.That lens was special.Now I wish that I had not sold it but it was a monster.To think that I carried it around all over the world.

And by way of complete contrast three girls cycling home in the then beautiful town of Hoi An Vietnam.Taken with my Leica M6 on,I think Fuji Velvia film,from the back of a pick-up truck whilst on the move.This was taken in 2002.
Hoi An still has World Heritage listing but it is now completely spoilt by crass over development as I found out when I visited in 2012.It nearly made me weep.Lesson - do not return -you may well be disappointed.Does not apply to Paris.