• Wink wink! • Photo

Photographer’s Note

No, he's not blinking an eye, his left eye is just closed, permenently. Another thing that's permanent is the smile! I stayed 3 days in Hoi An and every time I passed by him, he waved me with this huge smile in his face.

This man is so nice. He used to be a fisherman on the Thu Bon, but growing old, he realized he could earn just as much money by just being nice to tourists. So, now he spends his days in this clean outfit, in his wooden boat (that you can see bottom left), smiling, taking passengers on his boat to go down the river and back and he tells stories the best he can (his english is probably just as good as my vietnamese).

In the background are the same boats that you can see in the previous post.

Hoi An is a small town and he's a bit of a celebrity there. You can find pictures of him pretty much anywhere on the web when searching for Hoi An. You can see him here, here
and here. I wished he had his conical hat on ;D

cheers!

ManuMay, Floydian, jorgi, bostankorkulugu, delkoo, mvdisco, Poet, jovejupiter, InasiaJones, nhanfoto trouve(nt) cette note utile

Critiques | Translate

Fransx (1453) 2009-04-08 7:10

Hello Marc,

Great expression on the man's face! Sharp and high defined. I don't worry that much of the background...the main subject is dominant.
Well done and regards.

Francis Xavier

sayeed_rahman (2299) 2009-04-08 7:11

Haha..interesting potrait Marc..wish you were closer..would have been a strong presentation..but like it anyways my friend

Cheers
Sayeed

ManuMay (11197) 2009-04-08 7:20

Hi Marc!

Wonderful, lovely portrait!!

This kind of captures, that I really thank you, brings me back to earth and reminds me that we all don´t need too much to be happy...even to earn money in my opinion he has a natural smile...what do we need to be happy, to live... a roof? some dress?? eat?? What more?????

Ahhhh! Just one cheap and simple thing...SMILE!!!!! ;))

Thanks again for this great!!

Have a nice (very nice) day!!!

Best wishes

Manuel

janusz2054 (917) 2009-04-08 7:28

Hi Marc

Fantastic nature smile and lovely portrait.
Regards
Janusz

everlasting (10938) 2009-04-08 7:30

Seesm to be quite a character that you captured marc, good use of DOF. I wonder if you had cropped the sky......?

Floydian (30970) 2009-04-08 7:39

Hi Marc,

Can you believe it, we photographed the same man, except that i did it in Februari..!!!
Mine is taken while he is sitting in his boat and back then he had no beard, but in mine (never uploaded it here) he has his conical hat on.
Amazing, a soul from Europe and a soul from Cananda encounter the same guy ;-)

Bit to the right, that good instead of a frontal shot, but also the pose of his head and of course that priceless smile...wonderful. I think that Elaine is right about the sky, cropping that out sky would haven given you perhaps a bit more.

Regards,

Henk

toto (18755) 2009-04-08 8:17

Bonjour,
belle photo de cet homme qui vous souri pour votre portrait.
Visage marqué, dent manquante, bien pris ce portrait de toute beauté.
Cet oeil fermé et ces dents manquantes et celle abimées lui donne un effet attendrissant et inquiètant a la foi.

Amitiés Thomas

jorgi (3800) 2009-04-08 11:18

Hi Marc,

only one thing to say here: the power of smile.
It is remarkable, don't you think? His face despite permanently closed eye and rare theeth looks so beautiful, happy, adorable. It is a real joy to look at it, a portrait where our eyes can rest from all day long of bussiness executives, doctors, hostests, etc always with serious expressions of great importance, so well trained that became permanent...
This man symbolises everything i would like to learn and be. Satisfied with what life offers me and make the best out of it.
Unfortunately this is not as easy as it sounds...so one can only admire this man.
Compliments for this fantastic portrait!

best regards,
jeri

bostankorkulugu (33830) 2009-04-09 0:00

okay, these are not the best teeth i've ever seen, but the smile is one of the best, with the "blinking" effect >:P... i dont know if this dull sky was needed here, but it is a good portrait anyway marc... cheers... korkut

delpeoples (6471) 2009-04-09 1:38

Hi Marc, what a unique portrait. The shallow DOF is great and also yoiur placement of the subject within the frame to allow us to see the life going on behind him. He may not be the prettiest old man I've seen, but possibly the one with the most character. You have done so well to capture that. TFS and have a wonderful Easter, Lisa

delkoo (34574) 2009-04-09 6:23

salut marc
c'est un cas de figure pour tous les dentistes du monde!!!

c'est le genre de personne que j'aimerais photographier, tellement hors du commun, personnellement j'aurais serré plus le cadrage mais comme tu l'expliques plus haut, l'environnement a aussi son importance.

didier

mvdisco (11581) 2009-04-09 6:58

Bonjour Marc,
Ça c'est une belle prise de vue et un magnifique portrait de ce viel homme, on voit qu'il a beaucoup de vécu, les couleurs et la position sont excellentes, bravo pour cette belle photo et merci de partager ...bon week-end de Pâques..
tous mes compliments,
Michel

albertojr (738) 2009-04-09 6:59

With that smile, he looks attractive, it's a beautiful portrait, the dress he's wearing is very Vietnam.. i would also consider cropping the upper white portion, other than that, i like it a lot. Nice portrait.

Poet (354) 2009-04-09 7:10

This man makes me smile, I especially like his teeth ;-)
In reading the reaction I noticed that Floydian and you photographed the same man ;-)))
I would like to see a smaller crop, but the posture of the man is great!
Gr. Reggy

bantonbuju (48762) 2009-04-09 13:58

a sheer beauty.. a life as it is...

i love that there is nothing else that would distract the viewer - just a wonderful person with "his world"...

that "screwed" sky atop? easily adjustable in the original...

bw, j.

scalerman (25783) 2009-04-10 13:21

Marc: this is what photography is all about - at least travel imagery - your shallow DOF here is really superb portraiture. best, c

jovejupiter (224) 2009-04-13 20:33

Beautiful! This fellow's posture, thin shape, black outfit and unique smile make this a great portrait. Great note too! I'd love to see more work like this on TE. Good job.

InasiaJones (20643) 2009-04-14 10:24

Salut Marc,

LOLLL! J'adore ton titre!...

J'avoue avoir passe plus d'une fois des deux cotes de cette etroite riviere, d'y avoir photographier un ou deux pecheurs, mais celui-la, je ne l'ai vraiment pas vu.

Quelle tronche geniale! Bien que tu demontres a quel point il est populaire avec tes hyperliens (je ne consulte jamais Flickr), c'est la premiere fois que je le voyais sur TE grace a ta photo. Ce genre d'icone me fait toujours sourire, tout comme la "moinette" d'Angkor Tom comme tu le mentionnes si bien.

Bon, avoir su, j'aurais bien souhaite contribuer a sa popularite en ajoutant ma version a ton theme, mais ce sera pour la prochaine fois... J'etais probablement trop occupe a manger mes banh xeo... :-P)

Alors tout ca pour te dire qu'il est bien reussi ton portrait, qu'il s'agisse d'une icone ou non, avec les batiments distincts de Hoi An que l'on peut aisement deviner. Si tu tirais un peu plus a droite, tu avais le pont japonais en guise de background, mais on ne l'aurait sans doute pas reconnu du a sa distance et sa petitesse, vs ta grande ouverture (tout a fait a propos par ailleurs...).

Qu'il n'ait pas son chapeau conique ne devrait pas te causer de souci ou d'envie, au contraire, ta photo n'en est que plus distincte, puis il est tellement plus elegant tout de noir vetu! Et de toute facon, je suis convaincu que tout comme moi, tes cartes sont pleines de chapeaux coniques...

C'est maintenant officiel, miss Van den Hogen viendra passer 3 semaines au Canada et on traversera le pays jusqu'a Vancouver.

Evidemment, je lui ferai visiter Quebec, alors si tu es libre le 26 ou le 27 mai, on pourrait souper quelque part, sinon un petit lunch rapide, sinon une rencontre photo, c'est selon ta disponibilite et ton interet.

A bientot Marc!

Andre

MichaelTrezzi (3170) 2009-04-15 6:36

Hello Marc,
what an wonderful expression on the old man's face. What a little is sufficient to make a man happy. That's amazing. I wish you came much closer and made a close-up of his face with all the wrinkles and shadows creating the fantastic smile. TFS, Kind regards, Michael

nhanfoto (676) 2009-04-20 6:32 [Comment]

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darek1978 (11397) 2009-10-03 17:17

Hi Marc,
Wonderful portrait to feel a story. Powerful aged face in the beautiful light. Simple blur in the background is also very effective! Well done!
Thanks for sharing,
Darek