shuttle boat in Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam

Picture was taken in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. The red stream is earth

soils carried by the streams in the mountain flowing into the bay.

Excellent colours and comp. Top rates.

Incredibly beautiful. Composition is great, and color is even better. Congratulations.

Simply great!

Fantastic image. Do yourselves a favour and look at the LARGE version.

National Geographic? Beautiful instant.

Great perspective and excellent comp.!

Sooo beautiful,I love it!

The wash from the oars makes this photo for me. Actually, it just makes an excellent photo... superb. In a tranquil sea the composition and colors and texture would be strong enough, but this sea is spectacular. The shadows on the right work very well. 7/7 and I'd give it an 8 for originality if I could. I would be very very proud of this.

Really very beautiful image, and very original.

To me is beautiful abstraction and surreal dream. Congratulation.

This is really extraordinary. Thanks for such a beautiful photo.

Great

Original and outstanding image!

Great!

Composition, side light, refection, etc. are excellent. Congratulations!

Cuong, this is beautiful: the boat slowly escaping from the darkness of the shadow on the right and "racing" to the bright light on the right is simply superb!

I'd say it should be mandatory to view on large. There is so much more detail available that you just don't pick up on the smaller version. Interesting to view and very appealing, as well.

Yes, both a beautiful and surprising photo, and one that's compositionally near perfect.

 

The picture tells us a few things from a technical perspective: the camera was likely hand held, it was shot at 210mm, and judging from available light and noise content, probably shot at high ISO and of reasonably high shutter speed to avoid camera shake. If my observations are true, it might explain the dark reflection of the right-side nearby cliff - a little too dark. Setting the camera to bracket mode might have allowed post-processing to lighten the dark area, but given the moment-to-moment change of the boat's position, there was probably no time for anything but a quick click and hope you got the shot.

 

So, being at the right place at the right time is only half the battle. The final prize of a masterpiece goes to those with a prepared mind that chance favors. If this had been my shot, I would have wished for the rest of my life for it to be different; that I would have bracketed, and manipulated.

Cuong,

I enjoyed this image and glad that you made POW with it.

The image has a strange abstract feel to it and the colours are fine which adds to the dream like composition the dark bank on the top left looks like a face thats sticking it's tonue out at the boat folk as if to say good riddence.

I like it it also for the social aspect too as I like images with people going about their daily tasks and I suppose this is as common s duty to these two boat people as a road sweeper in London, Rome or New York except more appeasing to the eye.

when I return to the far east later this year I will be looking for images similar to this, whether I get them is another thing!

 

Regards

 

Hu

A very interesting scene with the stillness, motion, and beautiful warmth of color. Good choice for POW.

Beautiful! This same photograph in on the Potomac River or Hudson Bay would not work as well because the boat would be a john boat, the people would not be wearing the Vietnamese style hats. Right place right time and right environment as well. Congrats on this POW.

An ikonic image of what we all think Viet Nam should look like. Commercial, but without creative compromise. And color! So rare in documentary photography (at least around this site).

 

Excellent work that needs no extra blurb to make it a winner.

It's interesting to see how a photographer can take daily events or people going about

there daily business and create or capture something "Epic" in appearance. Simple and vey

natural ingredients....water, earth, sun, and people. Smashing.

Beautiful picture. I spent a day photographing the islands and boats in Ha Long Bay and never got a shot close to yours. This is a place where colour works better than black and white would have I think. The boat the people, the water and the oar marks in the water blend perfectly. Surreal as someone said.