No Expectations

Photo of the Day - October 14, 2008

by Kip Cole on Monday, October 13, 2008 at 21:37 UTC

The new faster pace of life

Vietnam is a country going places. No one seems to know exactly where it’s going but the energy and activity are at 11 on the dial. All this within a generation of a major conflict. Which makes me wonder how the combatants of that era, now the older generation, make of the pace of change.

Sometimes making an image can take hours - waiting for the right light, exploring the angles, defining the composition. Other times it’s over in a flash. This is one of those photos.

Walking down a road near the Temple of Literature in Hanoi I saw these three old friends sitting quietly together as I think they probably do every day. One of them is selling lottery tickets; it’s a very common activity. The traffic was streaming past as it does in Vietnam. I had the idea that with a slow shutter speed I could capture the speed and energy of the city in contrast to the slower pace of the three friends.

Generally for street photography I have the camera set to aperture priority (Av) because depth-of-field is the main creative dial on the camera for that kind of photo. I knew I needed a slow enough shutter that the traffic would blur, but fast enough to capture the men crisply. I judged that 1/25s might work.

Then looking at the scene I thought that taking the photo standing up would give too much of a ‘standard’ perspective since thats the view of the world we all share. Additionally, I would get the contrasted framing of the traffic and the men. So I crouched down to give a more intimate perspective and took the shot.

Just one shot. Maybe 10 seconds from idea to execution. As I was walking away two of the men stood up and walked away - the shot I saw in my mind was no longer there.

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