Danang On the Waterfront Photo Tour

Itinerary

4:15am: Hotel pick-up.

5am: Drop off at Danang city beach. Fishermen are bringing their overnight catch in from the East Sea, rowing tiny coracle boats across the tide. On the beach, a lively market is already underway, as traders sort and sell the haul of fish, squid and shrimp.

5:30am: After an introduction to the tour and the 3 picture story, we’ll be focusing on shooting in lowlight. We begin with an establishing shot to set the scene as the sun rises over the East Sea, then move into the market.

6:30am: We now head through the waking streets toward the harbour. We’ll stop for a quick coffee on the way, review what we’ve learned so far, and feedback on some of the shots we’ve taken.

7:15am: We cross the bridge over Danang harbour, and have another chance for a great establishing shot, overlooking the scene. Hundreds of blue Vietnamese fishing trawlers, many flying the national flag, dock together here. The city’s modern skyline of gleaming office buildings and hotels forms the background.

7:45am: Time to enter the harbour, where workers are shuttling and loading ice for the boats. We’ll look in more detail at how to create a story around people’s work, with composition techniques for relationship and portrait shots. In the harbour, we then explore the boat building area, workers hammering, sawing and fitting the pieces of these huge vessels together. Huge cubes of ice disgorge from an ancient, growling machine and the workers use steel picks to send each block to the crusher. In the boatyard, both men and women maintain, repair and rebuild the huge teak trawlers, from oily mechanical innards to the huge orange planks that form their bows. We complete our picture story with detail and portrait shots from this enthralling corner of the city, and key to this is learning how to approach people and keep an eye out for the telling image.

8:30am: We head out of the harbour to a nearby cafe, with a local breakfast and time to review pictures take during the tour.

9am: Taxi pick up and return to your hotel