Vietnam: Outside-in

I spent a few years living in Vietnam in the 1990s, a period defined by a frantic momentum. Modern office towers were emerging from the skyline of Ho Chi Minh City, and for a Westerner with a camera, the streets felt wide open. These portraits are the result of my daily interactions; they are, quite literally, the view of an outsider looking in.

What struck me most at the time wasn’t so much the rapid economic change, but the individual grace I encountered. Given the events of the preceding decades, I expected my interactions would carry at least a little awkwardness, if not friction. Instead, I found a level of decency and patience that I hadn’t necessarily earned.

The technical reality of the work was just as improvised as the city itself. I processed this film and pulled these prints in a makeshift darkroom, using gear and chemistry scrounged from backrooms and side-alleys. It was an unusual experience trying to produce archival work in a make-do space, using equipment that had its own history – kind of like frustration and satisfaction rolled into one. These images embody that environment as much as they do the faces of the people in them.