I fell in love with Vietnam. Gentle people, beautiful scenery, and a palpable sense of history.

Vietnam is also all about manufacturing and hi tech. Making computer printers, below:

But still exporting enormous amounts of rice. Below: rice farmer.

The XDCamEX, I discovered, has some real magic inside when you boost the gain and play a bit with the color matrix and saturation. The gain can seem quite organic in certain cases, almost like film grain. I was tempted to go all the way with this and shoot all of Vietnam at 18dbs of gain and this sort of reversal retro look. But in Hanoi it suddenly struck me as inappropriate for a people that have moved on, and are looking forward and not back. I’m still questioning my decision but I think it was the right one.

One thing I’m not questioning is my decision to buy the EX. It’s been a very good creative tool for a project like this.