The Faces of Southeast Asia

I captured this Cambodian woman's portrait while traveling to the town of Battambang via boat on the Sangke river. It may look here like the river is very dirty and strewn with trash, but the local fishermen use plastic water bottles as makeshift buoys for their fishing nets.

I took this photo of a Cambodian mother and son on the same boat trip. I really enjoyed the photo shooting angles allowed by our position on the boat. Being so low to the water, and at eye and working level with the local people helped me capture some memorable shots. Using a fast shutter speed helped as well since at times we were zipping by at a fast clip!

I really love this photo and the story behind it: Liz and I were walking down a street in Hoi An, Vietnam when of course, a torrential downpour erupted from the sky. We frantically looked for shelter, and suddenly found ourselves under the tent of a local Bia Hoy (the Vietnamese equivalent of warm home-brewed beer) vendor. I snapped this photo of a school girl laughing on her bike while sipping on a 5¢ glass of warm suds.



















I met this young boy inside the walls of a small monastery in Pakse, Laos. He was the apparent ring leader of a band of 4 boys who spent their afternoon shooting their slingshots at rival gang of similarly aged Lao girls playing across the river. He let me take his portrait only under the conditions that, A) he not smile (to appear tougher) and B) I show the image to him before we bid farewell.













I photographed this Cambodian mother with her two children from the back of a moto-bike cruising the dusty back roads outside the town of Battambang. I passed many friendly locals throughout the day, but no shot came out better than this cute waving family.













Again we find ourselves dust-covered and parched on the outskirts of Battambang, Cambodia. While stopped to admire a very large pig wallowing in the mud, this group of siblings wandered up and eyed my camera. I asked if they would like their picture taken. Answers ranged from excited to wary to uninterested, but in the end they all glimpsed the screen on the back of the camera and trotted away giggling.














This pair of Cambodian schoolgirls were walking through a monastery, and as is typical of curious kiddos their age, shyly began to wander closer and closer to me as I took some photos of the temple. I offered to snap their photo, and they promptly threw their arms over eachother's shoulders to strike a pose. I just love the differences in facial expressions each girl decided to show. Of course they were delighted to see their photo afterward. This was a very memorable capture.