Vietnamese basket boats on a nightly beach

This picture was shot during a holiday in Vietnam. We travelled that day from Hoa An to Quy Nhơn, a tour of about six hours without stops. When we arrived in the evening, we went for a walk over the beach where these Vietnamese basket boats were resting on a nightly beach from a hard day at sea.

If you have ever been to Vietnam, you have seen these baskets. The origin of these baskets is unclear, but many believe they were born out of ingenuity during the French colonial era. As the story goes, when the French levied taxes on boats in Vietnam, fishermen couldn’t afford to pay them – so they designed circular woven “baskets” that just so happened to also function as boats! The local fisherman go out to sea in these highly manoeuvrable “boats” and as a tourist you can pay for having a go in them in certain touristy places.

We had seen these baskets from far away, but this was the first time that we were up close with the ingenuity. It was already dark and I wanted to make a photo of them. The picture is black and white just to emphasize the history behind these baskets. I did not have my tripod with me, so it was therefore tricky to have a high enough exposure time to avoid any movements. This was the only picture that did not show the tremor in my hands. The F-number was all the way to 1.4 and with an ISO of 100 to avoid any grain, the exposure time was 0.76 seconds. The lens I used was my 50 mm lens and did not use any filter in front of the glass.

Lesson learned: Bring a tripod next time!

In post I did not do anything other than adding the watermark. So, the picture was made on the spot, without any fancy settings and without any post processing. That made this shot a great impulsive photo!

Camera settings:

Location