The Best Light in Saigon Is Not Where You Think

Saigon street photography is harder than it looks when you arrive with a landscape photographer's eye. Day One in Ho Chi Minh City gave me forty-seven attempts and one frame worth keeping. Day Two gave me Ton That Dam Old Market at sunrise, the best directional light I found in this city, and sixty frames in two hours. The difference was not the location. It was the lesson inside it: a landscape photographer's instinct to find a position and wait for the light to arrive is exactly wrong in a market. In a market, the light moves with the vendors. You move with them. In this video you will see the shutter speed decision I make over and over inside that market, the exact difference between freezing a moment and recording it as motion, and why the forgotten photographer makes the better portrait. I also walk through a second market the same morning that refused to be photographed at all, and why the difference between the two is the entire lesson. Pentax K1. DFA 28-105mm zoom. Kase filter kit. Day Two of the Vietnam recon trip. 00:00 One Frame in Saigon 00:54 Coffee Before the City 02:16 The Old Market at Sunrise 03:00 Learning to Move With Light 04:48 The Market That Refused Photography 05:51 The Question Beneath the Journey For a deeper breakdown of reading and using directional light in the field, the free ebook is the clearest starting point I know. https://www.steveaustin.ca/ebooks/ Use code SteveAustin for 15% off DxO PhotoLab and the Nik Collection. Every frame from this trip goes through it. https://www.dxo.com/ Like this video and subscribe to Steve Austin Photography for more field work from this journey. Subscribe to Steve Austin Photography:    / @steveaustinphotography   https://www.steveaustin.ca/ebooks/ https://www.steveaustin.ca for prints   / steveaustinphoto   The Last Good Light:    / @thelastgoodlight   The light does not wait. And neither should we. #saigonphotography #vietnamphotography #directionallight #marketphotography #streetphotography #landscapephotography #photographyeducation #photographytips #travelphotography #pentaxk1 #morninglight #hochiminhcity #photographytutorial #canadianphotographer #steveaustinphotography