Hoi An Street Scene

The streets of Hoi An were busy, mainly with tourists, but this bride dressed in red (along with her husband in his white suit) stood out as they strolled around with members of the bridal party and their photographic entourage.

Blooming Laos

Blooming Laos was a Photographic Exhibition on Saturday night at iCat gallery.  Three Korean photographers exhibited there work.  Some of the portraits were very good and captured the essence of life in Laos.

My friend and colleague Virginia is the Special Needs Co-ordinator in the elementary school, was also at the exhibition.

iCat gallery is operated by my friend (and Helen McIntyre's friend) Catherine O'Brien, and holds frequent exhibitions.

My Photos On Exhibition.

WIG - Women's International Group is an organisation here in Vientiane is a group that supports people to meet, learn about Laos and raises funds for community projects.  One of their major fundraising events is the WIG Calendar.

I supported them through entering two photos into the calendar competition and on Friday night they were exhibited along with about 60 other photos at iCat Gallery.

One photo of blue monk bags in a window at a monastery was purchased by a Korean family from school - they were very excited - and their daughter Jae Rin (aka Diana), in my advisory, won a prize for the best junior entry.

My other photo of colored silk drying was purchased too.  However neither made it into the calendar. 

There were some amazing photos, capturing the richness and diversity of life in Laos. The winning photo was titled Serenity and is shown below.

PechaKucha Night

Just back from my first PechaKucha evening. Japanese for chit chat, PechaKucha is a social forum for exchange of ideas, through 20 images, shown for 20 seconds each. (There is actually a PechaKucha group in Albury/Wodonga - not that I knew about it!!)   http://www.pechakucha.org

It was an inspiring night with 9 interesting and amazing speakers.

I am off to explore openstreet maps, no more google maps for me,

http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100 

as presented by Matthias, a fellow Team Dai rider who has used his 8 months in Vientiane to map many of the unnamed and not on google maps or a physical map, locations and streets in Vientiane. (Previously working in the Galapagos Islands, he mapped significant areas there too)

I have mentioned Tessa Bunney's http://www.tessabunney.co.uk/photography before, tonight she shared some stunning portraits from Icelandic puffin hunters to images of Laos hill tribe women used for an Oxfam campaign.

There was a Japanese lady explaining her passion for Laos culture and coffee and a young Laos women who had studied in Australia and has just opened a cafe here.

Jana, from Atlanta, a teacher in the elementary school at VIS shared her iphone photography that she shares on instagram #RealLaosProjects.

There was a theatre director, a Laos film maker, an independent publisher, and a poem with images from a restauranteur.

Overall an inspirational evening.

Photographers in Laos

iCat gallery presents exhibitions from local artists.  At the moment she has mounted  Kin Khao, a collaborative photography exhibition featuring two Vientiane based photographers.  The images are thematically arranged and capture life within and beyond the landscape and the interactions of people with the landscape in Laos. The photos also capture and convey the challenges currently facing the country. 

There were some wonderful market images by Mick Shippen.   (I love taking market photos -so they were very inspirational)

Tessa Bunney, an English photographer currently based in Laos, worked closely with ethnic communities to present some fascinating images.

Catherine O'Brien (in the photo) curates and organises the exhibitions in a lovely open gallery  space below her apartment.  Catherine teaches art at VIS and is from Australian, and of course because it is a small world is a good friend of the McIntyres from Stanley.

Visit their websites for further inspiration
www.tessabunney.co.uk
www.mickshippen.com.
https://www.facebook.com/icatgallery/