Luxury Yacht Building in Saigon, Vietnam.

I was lucky enough to visit the Saigon production facility of Corsair Marine recently to photograph a photo essay for Oi Vietnam Magazine. The images appear in the October 2014 issue of the magazine and the finished product is filed under my "tear sheets"page. 

The facility was amazing, located down a nondescript alley in Saigon's District 7 you would never imagine that 400 local workers were producing luxury, ocean going and racing catamarans and trimarans up to 52 feet long and costing up to $2M USD.

It was super cool to meet the management team and the employee's and a pleasure to document their great skill and craftsmanship.

Lights, camera's, action. On a movies set in Saigon, Vietnam.

It's always well to expect the unexpected in Vietnam. Last week as I found myself on a movie set in Saigon's District 1. The yet to be named movie has been filming for 6 weeks and has some way to go. The talent includes well known local actors Pham Duc Long and Thu An. It was hot and the work was tedious. It made me happy that I'm nowhere near good looking enough to be an actor!

The 1 o'clock call

I'm always apprehensive about photographing people at worship, and so it was last Friday when I was invited to observe and photograph the 1 o'clock call to prayer at the Muslim Mosque on Dong Du Street in Saigon. The worshippers, most men and numbering around 200, started arriving early. They would climb the stairs to the mosque, wash their feet in a pool of water and then take up their position on the prayer mat facing Mecca.

The service ran for a hot and sweaty 45 minutes during which I quietly made some frames of the proceedings. After the service I sat bare foot and cross legged chatting to various members of the congregation about religion and life. It was a fascinating encounter and I made several new friends who invited me to return any time that I wanted. 

In the shadow of the Caravelle.

The Mullah. 

Jep. A Cham Vietnamese.

Keeping time.

Abdullah.

One of two "mens rooms". Half a dozen women were segregated to their own room for worship.

Ishmael.

Ishmael.

Supplication

Farouk

A trip to a secret island

I spent a few days on Phu Quoc Island recently to shoot a photo essay for Oi Magazine on the mysteries of the Phu Quoc pearl industry. The photo's appear in the November issue of Oi Magazine. The main part of the shoot involved spending a day on a pearl culturing pontoon a few hundred metres off a beautiful stretch beach on uninhabited An Binh Island. The pontoon is built on stilts and is open on both sides. On one side the view was across crystal clear turquoise waters to the beach and on the other it was across a stretch of beautiful blue ocean to Cambodia in the distance. Not a bad office for the 40 odd people who work there. 

The workers daily commute.

Culturing the pearls

Culturing the pearls

Suspended animation.

A room with a view. An Binh Island.

And we went down to the river.

I had a hot but enjoyable day last weekend near the small town of Vinh Long in the Mekong Delta, two and a half hours south of Saigon. I was in the delta on assignment for Oi Magazine but after a wrap had been called on the shoot I went up river a little and found an interesting little scene playing out that is so typical of life on the river.

A boat had pulled up on the river bank and men were unloading large baskets of fruit. The heat was oppressive, as it so often is in the delta. The fruit baskets weighed 50 kilograms each but there were hefted effortlessly onto one shoulder, carried off the barge and up the river bank to a large building across the road where the fruit was peeled and put in wood fired kilns to dry. If it was hot outside it was hotter seemingly by a factor of ten inside the drying building where all of the work was done by hand.

The men were a lather of sweat as they unloaded the barge, their shirts stuck to their bodies and the sweat rolling down their faces like the river itself.

Despite the difficulty of their work and the working conditions everyone was incredibly friendly and welcoming, laughing and joking as they took a break for photographs.

"We were soldiers once, and young."

I met Mr Doan this morning, a super cool and interesting 70 year old man with a fascinating story to tell.

Doan grew up in Hanoi, but in 1954 during the French adventures in North Vietnam he was sent by his family to Saigon. He was educated in a Catholic school where he learnt to speak English and French. 

When the Americans came Doan, now a young man, got a job as an interpreter with the US Army. He worked for the US for the duration of the American War. 

Unable to leave with his employers when Saigon fell, Doan was rounded up by the victors. He cleverly told his interrogators that he worked as a driver, knowing that if he told them that he was an interpreter he would have automatically been assumed to be CIA and at best would have been packed off to a re education camp for ten years. Instead he was released.

Since the end of the war Doan worked variously as a driver, a motor bike taxi driver and once again as an interpreter. He is now retired and watches the world go by at the church on Sunday mornings, while at the same time educating curious photographers. with stories of a time long ago.

When we finished talking we shook hands and I walked off. After a dozen steps I stopped to look back. Doan had vanished.