The Photographs Not Published

Writing & Photographs

I took a few images the other week to accompany a story on street kid restaurants in Southeast Asia, but I guess in the end the paper decided to cut down the writing and run it without pictures. So it goes. The original piece by writer Mike Ives can be viewed HERE. The photographs above are from Koto Restaurant in Hanoi, a model for the types of establishments the writer is talking about. And for the blog, an excerpt:

The KOTO story began in 1996, when a tour guide named Jimmy Pham moved from Australia to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Pham, a Vietnamese Korean who grew up in a working-class, single-parent household, saw street kids selling coconuts near the Saigon Opera House. He bought them noodles and listened to their stories. A week later, the 24-year-old was renting them an apartment.

For the next 3 1/2 years, Pham supported street kids in Vietnam and Cambodia by subsidizing their rent, clothes, medicine and books. Handouts helped the kids survive, Pham says, but it wasn’t enough. In 1999, to help them find steady employment, he opened a sandwich shop near the Hanoi Railway Station, where street children were earning money by shining shoes and selling postcards.

Pham had worked in his mom’s butcher shop as a kid, but he didn’t have any formal culinary training. So in his sandwich shop, he showed his chefs food photos from Woman’s Day magazine. “They made terrible milkshakes and bland sandwiches,” Pham recalls with a laugh. “But there was a sense of ownership.”

The following summer, KOTO moved to an 80-seat space overlooking Hanoi’s Temple of Literature. Pham’s brother donated money for tables. Andreas Pohl, an Australian working in Hanoi for AusAID, helped Pham apply for embassy grants. Pohl’s wife, Tracey Lister, a professional chef from Melbourne, volunteered to train Pham’s staff and design a cafe-style menu. By November, KOTO kid-chefs were cooking lunch for then-President Clinton. (He ordered a grilled veggie, hummus and pesto sandwich, a mango lassie and a latte.)

Brave New Hanoi

They are called “New Urban Areas” in local parlance. Entire cities cropping up on the outskirts of the capital. Construction sites as far as the eye can see. Dusty lonely places with buildings like towering sentinels. I couldn’t imagine ever living out there. But then again, as the saying goes: if you build it, they will come.

Young workers from the outer provinces stay in makeshift homes or camped out in the hollows of the unfinished buildings. Some apartments and office blocks are complete and nice new SUVs cruise down the widened back roads and along the main highway that cuts through the district. Others are on hiatus. Even more have become workers’ quarters. Legal and illegal.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these New Urban Areas recently and finally had a chance to get down to one of them today. I was a bit rushed and these are just the initial few images, but I’m hoping to get back a few times in the following weeks. There’s a story lurking around here somewhere. I just need to make some friends and get some access and find it.

Quickly Around Hanoi

I had an opportunity to walk around Hanoi the other day with a traveling amateur photographer, sharing tips and tricks of the trade with him and generally just kind of helping him come away from his vacations with better images to show, etc. He was a super nice guy and we ended up hitting it off pretty well. Always a nice thing when you’ve agreed to spend the larger part of a day with someone. Funnily enough, because his equipment was so much nicer than mine, several people confused our roles and thought that I was a photography student. I like to think that my innocent, boyish good looks had more to do with that than the fact that my walk-around camera is being held together by gaffer tape, a little crazy glue and some voodoo (note to clients: my commercial camera is actually solid gold with the brand name inlaid in diamonds).

I didn’t shoot much while we walked around, opting instead to point out nice frames and scenes and moments that I was noticing throughout the day. I let him do most of the shooting. It was his trip and the images rightfully belonged to him. The few pictures above came about as examples for other things I was trying to describe. Examples and nothing more. But still there’s something that I like about them, for whatever reasons. All in all it was a fun day. I don’t walk around this city nearly often enough.

Oh You’re So Silent Aaron

Sometimes despite the amount of work and other stuff floating around there’s strikingly little to say or talk about. Or maybe there’s a lot to talk about and I just don’t feel like getting into any of it right now. Either way. A few interesting shoots. Mostly boring jobs these last few days. Trying to find some information and access on something else that will be divulged obviously if anything actually comes of it. A friend the other day commented that no matter how much work you do here, it’s always like starting at square one when you begin a new project. Nothing carries over. You’re nobody most of the time. Which is usually fine but sometimes frustrating.

After Thanksgiving

Friend’s house. Green bean casserole with homemade mushroom cream sauce. Dried cranberries with sweet onions. Duck cracklins. Arugula salad with pomelo and fried cashews. Bleu cheese and garlic mashed potatoes. Banh My and chorizo stuffing. Onion rings. Roasted chickens and stout gravy. Candied yam pot de creme. Fried apple pie. Beer to go. No game on the television. Arguments, laughter and everything else. Cigarettes on the balcony after. Ride home. End Thanksgiving. Diet.