In mid-September 2019, I was invited to photograph northern and central Vietnam for a Vietnamese travel company called Ciao Travels.
Now, I didn’t get a lot of YouTube vlogging done as I was too busy taking everything in. It’s a country I had wanted to visit for a few years, so it was a dream come true.
And if you’re interested, I offer photography tours and workshops in a variety of destinations around the world. If you’re interested in learning more from me to help you get the best out of your photography, then get in touch.
By the time I finally picked up the camera to speak to it, I had already been in Vietnam for a week. That tells you something about the pace of the trip. I started in Hanoi, where the street photography came thick and fast, and then moved through places like Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh before ending up amongst the rice fields south of Sa Pa.
This wasn’t a casual wander with a camera. I was in Vietnam to work, and I was there with a clear purpose. I had been invited to photograph northern and central Vietnam on behalf of Ciao Travel, a Vietnamese travel company that sponsored the trip and helped make the whole thing possible.
Having local support made a difference from day one. I had a Vietnamese driver with me, and during the journey, he taught me a few words of the language. I only picked up half a dozen or so, but even that small effort mattered. It changed the way I moved through places, and it gave me a better feel for the rhythm of the country.
The variety in that first week stayed with me. Hanoi gave me energy, movement, and street life. Ha Long Bay and Ninh Binh brought more classic scenery. Then the north shifted everything again, because the rice fields around Sa Pa had that mix of shape, atmosphere, and human presence that makes a location far more than a pretty view.
That balance became one of the main themes of the trip. I wasn’t only interested in where Vietnam looked beautiful. I wanted to see how people lived within those places, and how daily life sat inside the wider scene.
Northern Vietnam quickly showed me that the best locations are rarely only about scenery. One of the rice field viewpoints I visited was a strong sunset spot, but it came with a catch. The sun slipped behind the hill at a certain point, so timing mattered. If I arrived too late or waited too long, the light disappeared faster than I wanted.
That small detail sums up a lot of travel photography. A place can be excellent, but it still needs to be read properly. Light, direction, season, and local knowledge all decide whether a scene works.
In this case, I had help. A Slovak photographer I met had already found the spot earlier and kindly showed me where it was. Before that, somebody else had told me the location was further north, which would have sent me in the wrong direction. That sort of thing happens all the time when you’re travelling. Advice varies, names shift, and a place that sounds simple on paper can take real effort to pin down.
What I liked most, though, was that the north wasn’t only about wide views. It was also rich in people photography. There were indigenous people working in the area, and I spent a lot of time making environmental portraits, photographing people as they went about their day instead of pulling them out of it. I prefer that approach when I travel. It gives the image context, and it says more about the place.
I hadn’t met anybody in Vietnam who was unfriendly or unhelpful, and that shaped the whole experience.
That matters because I heard the opposite from some people before I arrived. At one viewpoint, a Vietnamese girl mentioned that some visitors complain about the country, saying the service isn’t great or that people aren’t friendly. My experience was the complete reverse. Everyone I met was helpful. People pointed me in the right direction, gave their time, and made the country easier to photograph.
When a place welcomes you in, your photography changes. You stay out longer, look harder, and become more patient.
The rice fields south of Sa Pa looked strong at first glance, but they only came alive when the light sat in the right place. Because the sun dropped behind the hill, I had to watch the scene carefully and work fast when the glow landed where I wanted it.
That kind of location rewards preparation rather than luck. In northern Vietnam, I found that local knowledge and patience mattered as much as gear.
The portraits I made there weren’t studio-style encounters. They were rooted in place. People were working, moving through the fields, and doing what they would have done whether I had been there or not.
That’s where Vietnam felt special to me. The human element never felt separate from the landscape. It was all part of the same frame.
After the north, I moved on to Hoi An in central Vietnam. I had only been there for about two days, but even in that short time, the city felt generous with pictures. Markets, colour, old buildings, faces full of character, and a steady flow of activity gave me far more to work with than I could cover properly.
Hoi An has a visual richness that can be hard to resist. Some places ask for careful searching. Hoi An gives you scenes almost every time you turn a corner. That doesn’t mean the work becomes easy, because the challenge shifts. Instead of finding a photograph, I had to slow myself down enough to make a better one.
I spent part of my time photographing traditional fishermen. That was one of the most rewarding sessions of the trip because it took me away from the obvious tourist spots. With the help of my guide, I set up a shot that I had seen before but had never been sure how to reach. That help mattered. Without it, I might have stayed in the same well-known places as everybody else.
There’s a lesson in that. Travel photography often improves the moment I move one street, one river bend, or one hour away from the most photographed version of a place. Hoi An certainly had classic scenes, and I photographed those too, but I also wanted images with a little more space around them, something that felt closer to daily life.
The city also suited the kind of work I enjoy most. Although Vietnam gave me strong scenery throughout the trip, I found myself drawn more and more towards travel portraiture. Hoi An was full of faces, gestures, and brief moments that were easy to miss if I hurried.
One morning I stood by the riverfront with a 100-400mm lens on the camera, looking towards one of Hoi An’s classic views. The building across the water is photographed constantly, so I wanted something that gave the scene a bit more life. My plan was simple. I waited for somebody in a traditional conical hat to cycle past in the morning light.
That sounds straightforward until you stand there and watch what happens. People kept stopping in front of the building, which meant I had to keep waiting. It was around 8 in the morning, and it was already about 30°C, so patience had to win over comfort.
In the end, the frame came together. A woman cycled through wearing the hat I had hoped for, and the image clicked into place. Moments like that are small, but they stay with me because they remind me that timing often matters more than complexity.
I was wearing a traditional hat myself that morning, and I quickly understood why people use them. It kept the sun off my face and the back of my neck, which made moving around the city far easier once the heat built.
One thing this trip reinforced was how much I value the people who make a journey work. My driver helped me settle into the country and gave me a few words of Vietnamese. Other photographers pointed me towards locations. Guides helped me find scenes I would have missed. In Hoi An, local support helped me set up photographs away from the obvious routes.
That doesn’t make the work less personal. If anything, it gives it more depth. I still have to choose the lens, read the light, wait for the moment, and decide what matters in the frame. Yet local knowledge saves wasted time and opens doors that would stay shut if I insisted on doing everything alone.
Vietnam rewarded that approach again and again. I found that when I listened, asked, and stayed flexible, I got closer to the sort of images I had travelled there to make. Some of those were broad scenic frames. Others were portraits of people working, moving, and holding the place together through ordinary routines.
For me, the strongest photographs from Vietnam came from that mix. Scenery drew me in, but human presence gave the images weight.
There was another reason I came to Vietnam, beyond making pictures for myself. This trip was part of the groundwork for a future photography workshop. The images, the routes, and the experience of moving through the country all fed into that plan.
The idea was to build a tour around places like Hanoi, Hoi An, and parts of northern Vietnam that many visitors don’t reach. That combination made sense to me because it showed different sides of the country. Hanoi offered fast-moving street life. Hoi An gave colour, architecture, and layered city scenes. The north brought rice fields, valleys, and a stronger connection between people and land.
The sort of photography I had in mind wasn’t limited to one genre. Vietnam works well for a mix of scenic work and travel portraiture. On this trip, I leaned more towards portraiture because the opportunities were everywhere, but the wider views were always there as well.
If you’d like to see the kind of trips I run, you can find my current photography tours and workshops. This Vietnam recce helped shape how I think about taking photographers there, because I could see how much variety the country offers without forcing the pace.
That was the heart of it for me. I wasn’t trying to tick off landmarks. I was trying to understand how Vietnam photographs, and how I could build a trip that gives other photographers the same sense of discovery.
Vietnam gave me more than striking views. It gave me a country where street life, portraiture, and scenery sit close together, often in the same day and sometimes in the same frame.
What stays with me most is the sense of welcome. The places were memorable, of course, but the people made the work easier, richer, and far more human.
When I think back on this trip now, I don’t only remember rice terraces or riverfront buildings. I remember a country that kept giving me reasons to stop, wait, and pay closer attention. That is what makes Vietnam so rewarding to photograph.
