While in Vietnam I rented a motorbike to take around for the afternoon.  This was right around the center of Vietnam - outside the towns of Da Nang and Hoi An.  There was lots of activity during the day, a lot of folks out in the fields working the rice paddies.

I saw this hand cart on the side of the road and stopped to take a few photos of it.  I was traveling on this trip with both my 35mm camera as well as my new Digital SLR (the Nikon D70) but for this motorbike ride I brought only with me my 35mm camera, with both black and white and color slide film.

There really is a simplicity to life out in the countryside of South East Asia, which is I know a viewpoint that is hardly original and over-glamorizes the peasant life but it’s hard to escape the feeling, running around in our over-connected lives when suddenly you’re face-to-face with a farmer tending to the fields with his ox-drawn cart.

This image can be seen along with many others from that Vietnam trip, 3 years ago this week.

This is a photograph taken of my niece Ellie, back in 2002. She was only one month old at the time with a head full of black hair.

I like this photo because, if you know Ellie, you can recognize her in this picture even though she is so young. Her cheekbones, nose and mouth still look similar today.

From a classical portrait perspective, this is also a nice shot (if I do say so) with a nice depth-of-field keeping her face mostly in focus but the background, including her seat, out of focus. Additionally, the focus is sharpest on the nearest eye which also has a glimmer of white from a reflection of light. These are all classical elements of a portrait.

I took this image with my Nikon N80 film camera with a Sigma f/2.8 zoom lens - one of their nicer pro-series lenses, but cheaper than the Nikon lenses I have since upgraded to. The Sigma lens was able to produce nice quality images but the feel of the lens didn’t match that of the Nikons or certainly of the Contax lenses that I had recently been shooting with.

A few other images from this day can be seen here, each of which was taken during this week, in 2002.

In 2005 I was getting ready to leave one job for another (this theme is especially relevant to me these days..).  I had a short trip planned between jobs - to Vietnam - and I decided to treat myself to a digital SLR for the trip.

I purchased a Nikon D70 since I already had a Nikon setup with some lenses, etc., and since I couldn’t justify the more expensive D100 (and certainly couldn’t justify the more expensive Pro models).

With my new camera in hand I trekked over to Japantown with my sister and nieces to test out the system.  I was so excited about the immediate feedback from the LCD screen and I even appreciated the extended focal length for shots like these, where I was shooting over a crowd onto the stage.  In retrospect, I should have carried around my 70-200mm lens a lot more as this shot would have benefited from a little tighter cropping.  I try to carry that lens around a bit more these days, though it does weigh a ton.

I fired off several shots of the drummers and eventually settled on the slightly slower shutter speed which helps convey the motion in the blurred hands.

This and other shots were taken on April 23rd of 2005, three years ago this week.

This photograph is from a 2003 road trip I took down to Las Vegas from San Francisco.  I was driving across the Nevada and California deserts when I came upon these large dunes.  I stopped and walked around the dunes and surrounding area for a while with my Nikon 35mm SLR, most likely an N80 model.  I shot this on slide film, probably Fuji Provia 100.  I really was not good enough to be shooting slide film (the exposure requirements are much stricter with slides) but I butchered my way through it.

These dunes are not protected so they are a popular recreation spot for those in the neighborhood with 4-wheelers and such.  While I was visiting there were a few tooling around and you can see some tracks in the sand.

I was really struck with how they stood out from the surrounding desert - which does not have the same pure sandy floor.  These dunes just rise out and stand in the middle of the flat surrounding terrain.

This photo reminds me of some of the images that you see out of Namibia, though that sand is much more orange - which makes me think of my upcoming trip to Africa.  I am really excited to be adventuring to someplace new, and on our itinerary is a visit to Namibia and the Skeleton Coast which is one of the driest regions in the world.  We’ll be spending a few days in the desert checking out the sites and some of the dunes there.

This Photograph was taken in Paris, France back in 2001. I was there with Dan (as he was preparing to run the Paris marathon). This statue is somewhere along the Tuileries gardens - I really can’t remember exactly where anymore.

At the time of this trip both Dan and I were taking a small break from work and so we were able to enjoy a few weeks in Europe (I later want on to spend a week + with my Dad in Germany). This is becoming more relevant as I’m wrapping up my last weeks at StubHub and am staring down the barrel of another break from work - which I’m really looking forward to.

The exact date of the photo is unknown as this was the days before digital so there’s no accurate timestamp.. but looking back at my journals from then it was definitely taken somewhere between April 6th to 9th. I believe I shot this with my Contax Aria camera (which I really do miss..) and shot on Kodak Tri-X film. I do miss the days of black and white - and as much as I say I’m going to get back into a darkroom it just never happens and instead I find myself in front of Photoshop.

I wonder if the sculpter could have imagined these reminiscings as he sculpted these angels?

This and more photos can be seen here in PicsfromTrips

Stay tuned for Photo of the Week.  My intention is to post a photograph taken sometime during the current weekly timeframe (say April 6th through 12th) but chosen from any year.  It’s a bit like a structured Random Photo feature.

I thought of this idea because I really like to click on the “random images” link at the top of the site.

Now that I’ve got the blog setup up and running let’s see how this goes.