Saigon 1966: Directing Traffic

Here’s a photo that I don’t think I’ve ever published before.

Click to enlarge the image

I forget (it’s been 47 years — that’s scary) the exact circumstances but I think it must have been one of the gates into the civilian side of the airport. We often paired with the Canh Sat (Vietnamese National Police) at different gates around the perimeter.

Looks like the shot was taken during the monsoon season. You don’t know real rain until you’ve been through a monsoon rain storm. I wish I had photos of the day I was posted in an observation tower during one of the worst thunder and lightning storms I’ve ever seen. I needed an extra roll of toilet paper after that storm.

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The Look II Revisited: Saigon 1966

When I first published this week’s image 2 1/2 years ago as The Look II, that image retained the typical 2 x 3 ratio of a 35mm negative. I like square images when it makes good aesthetic sense so I played. Here’s a square cropped version of The Look II.

Please click on the image to enlarge.

I don’t think the girl was happy to see me. Whatever gave me that idea. Hah.

I’m having so much fun digging out the best of my photos from my year in the Nam. I hope everyone else is enjoying the revisiting as much as me.

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Saigon Streets: Two Boys and Mama San

I couldn’t resist. Yes I’ve shown this photo a few times but since I’m revisiting Saigon 1966, and this is one of my favorites from that era, I’m doing it again.

This image was a labor of love. I still have a print that was made way back. I never realized how good this image was until I scanned the negative and looked closer. The lab did a terrible job making prints and handling my negatives. The negs looked like someone had dropped them on the floor and walked on them all day.

I spent days cleaning all the dirt and scratches. There was a scratch across the woman’s face that I got rid of. I also dodged and burned both boys faces.

Interesting fact. I used Picture Window Pro to tweak the curves before converting to 8 bit and doing all the rest with the Gimp. I used the Gimp because I could use layers when I dodged and burned. It worked.

I liked this photo enough that a framed 5×7 print hangs on my office wall. Hope you enjoy this image as much as I do. It captures some interesting emotions (not to mention light and shadow).

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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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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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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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