Saigon Streets 1966: One More Time

Since folks have expressed their interest in seeing more reruns of my Saigon photos, here are three shots of young kids I encountered while I roamed the streets of Saigon.

Kids are great the world over. They are friendly when you are. These guys were great subjects. Wish I could remember the circumstances.

What do we have here? Looks like two very young schoolboys. I don’t think they saw me.

Whoops! What happened? Did one of them drop their homework in the puddle or did they find a treasure floating in the puddle?

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Saigon 1966: A Day in the Life

Here’s a series of never before published photos from my time in Vietnam way back in 1966 (and a few weeks into 1967). These images aren’t examples of my best work (the negatives were horribly dirty, etc). But the series does tell a story of ordinary people commuting, snapshots of a day in their lives.

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Flash Fiction 109 – The Tyrant and the Musician

“Shall we destroy his guitar sir?”

The street musician lay sobbing in the street at Charles’ feet, clutching his fingerless hand, trying to stop the bleeding and the terrible pain.

“No, let him keep his guitar. He will never play again. Let his guitar remind him of what happens to those who defy me.”

Charles wiped the blade of his bloody sword on the man’s tunic, sheathed the sword, turned around and walked away.

– The End –

This week’s flash word is “around” and the upper limit is 75 words. I just made it with 74 words.

Flash fiction is fun. Hop on over to Flash in the Pan where you can join in the M3 Flash Fiction Challenge.

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Flash Fiction 108 – Nun for Me Thanks

“I have to be home for dinner, it’s raining and my shoes have holes in them, so the answer is no, I won’t go to the store for you. You have a lot of nerve even asking but then again I’m just a kid who wants to be left alone and you’re a nun. What chance do I have?”

– The End –

 

This week’s flash word is “left” and the upper limit is 75 words. My offering is 59 words.

Flash fiction is fun. Hop on over to Flash in the Pan where you can join in the M3 Flash Fiction Challenge.

 

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Canh Sat Revisited: Saigon 1966

Here’s a photo featuring Canh Sat aka Vietnamese National Police. We (US Air Police) paired up with Canh Sat at some of their checkpoints on the civilian side of Tan Son Nhut Airport, Saigon, Vietnam. This is one of those posts.

I know I never published this particular image before. Here’s the link to another shot featuring Canh Sat (and me too) that I published a couple of years ago.

I’ll keep digging for unpublished photos from my time in Vietnam but I don’t think there are too many of those. I’ll also run encores for awhile because I enjoy revisiting some of these images and hope that you do as well.

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Flash Fiction 107 — Breaking the Fast

“You hungry Yag? Give me a minute and I’ll let your breakfast out of it’s cage,” said Roger as he leaned forward and slowly turned the key in the lock.

– The End –

 

This week’s flash word is “forward” and the upper limit is 75 words. My offering is 30 words.

Flash fiction is fun. Hop on over to Flash in the Pan where you can join in the M3 Flash Fiction Challenge.

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Saigon Streets 1966: A 58 Chevy

Seems that folks enjoy revisiting my Vietnam photos from 1966. Me too. Not only do I have the opportunity to have another look, I get to apply image editing techniques that I’ve learned over the past few years. Let’s get to it.

The juxtaposition of a whitewall tire equipped 1958 Chevy with a pedicab in front of a fancy downtown Saigon storefront makes for an interesting image. I published an earlier version of the photo (scroll down to the fourth image) more than three years ago in April of 2010.

There’s a big difference between the two versions. Take note of the three GIs walking into the building lobby. They are all but lost in heavy shadow in the earlier version. Now compare. The shadows in the newer version are open and inviting. The image is sharper with nice contrast and a wee bit of tone. I think the photo is much improved the second time around.

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Flash Fiction 106 – The Final Journey

Helen woke up one morning determined to cut her wrists and embark on the final journey. But since she hated traveling alone, she slipped her father’s old straight razor into her purse, grabbed her coat and went out looking for a suitable companion.

– The End –

The Hot Flash word is “embark” and the upper limit is 50 words. My offering is 43 words.

Flash fiction is fun. Hop on over to The M3 Blog where you can join in the M3 Flash Fiction Challenge.

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