Written and Photographed by Duy Tran

Robert Dodge.  He was a foreigner in Vietnam, he couldn’t go unnoticed.  Which created very engaging faces in the portraits.  He traveled much more extensively than I did throughout Vietnam.  He had guides along the way that took him from the North in Hanoi all the way down to the South in Saigon (aka Ho Chi Minh City).    I was very impressed with the look people had because they were so engaged.  They gave him their full attention.  A reason why it wasn’t so bad for him to be a foreigner.  The people in his Vietnam were content and happy.  It was very interesting to see Vietnam, my homeland, from Mr. Dodge’s point of view.  The way people looked at him was not something I would ever be able to experience because I am Vietnamese.

Colin Winterbottom.  He shot the most breathtaking quintessential, almost haunting, images of Washington DC.  He literally makes the city come to life the way he shoots the different sculptures scattered across the district.  He captures it all only with infrared film which creates a ghostly effect with the lighting and add a bit weather with the natural graininess that the film stock brings.  His vision of DC was a great empire composed of towering monuments and colossal structures that reminded me of the epic city of Rome.  The thing that was interesting about the way he worked was that he always got permission to every location that he shot at.  I was surprised to hear that because he had gotten some “impossible” angles of some of the most famous monuments.  Because I live here, I may have taken it for granted.  His work has helped me realize what makes DC such a great city and what impact it has on the WORLD!

To learn more about the artists, visit them at:

www.robertdodge.com
www.winterbottom.com