Portrait of a Street Vendor Photo

Photographer’s Note

One of the things that bothered me when I was visiting Vietnam was the amount of children selling goods to tourists on the streets. Selling their goods does supplement the family income but boarders on being exploitive. Having taken this image in the late afternoon I sure hope this little girl had gone to school earlier in the day. She caught by attention by the intensity in her eyes as she looked for her next potential client.

snunney, Cretense, leo61 has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

brevbrev14 (372) 2007-01-29 8:54

Hi SPiros, another beautiful portrait from you..
The look of this little girl seems the look of an adult person...there is agreat intensity...you are right..
VEry good work!
ciao!
Valeria

sothy81 (8540) 2007-01-29 13:33

Hi Spiros, this is a great portrait of the child vender. Very nice sharpness, with great facial expreission of the girl. Nice background colors too. Very nice Spiros. Sothy

atilgone (4749) 2007-01-30 2:51

Hi Spiros,

Very nice portait. Well composed. Good POV. TFS
Kind regards

snunney (35808) 2007-01-30 4:42

Hello Spiros,
An excellent capture of this little girl. She does look very intense, there also seems to me to be a certain sadness in her eyes. A good striking pose and nice use of dof to lift her from the background.

Cretense (57478) 2007-01-30 7:51

Hi Spiro!

Excellent portrait once again, with a very natural, relaxed result. Your technique is great and so is your comp. I like those eyes, allthough a little bit sad. Congratulations!

Hercules

Furachan (0) 2007-01-30 17:00

Forget school, Spiros - these kids for the most part do this, and nothing else, often pushed into it by callous and borderline sadistic parents (I've seen the mothers browbeat their sons into going back into a restaurant to "bther the tourists some more." This is one of the great sources of shame in Vietnam, shame on the government for sure for a) doing almost nothing about it and b) ruining a lot of tourists' first eperience of what is a stunngly beautiful place. After my first visit in '85 it took years before I could get myself over there again, the street kids were that bad then... It's quite a bit better now, also I hate to admit it but the wife and I have become much better at avoidng them - a few words of Vietnamese help...
By the way if you go back to French colonialtimes right through the American war to the present time, this was always a problem in Vietnam "Mister, Mister! Madame!" A problem, and an irritation.
That said, you really captured something very real here, and you caught her in a kind of heroic pose too.
Best wishes,
Francis

leo61 (44102) 2007-01-31 0:35

Hi Spiros.
Good portrait of this young seller.She looks very selfconscious and I like her pose.
Regards,Leo

tonyp (217) 2007-01-31 1:52

Beautiful portrait! I love her stand and the determination in her eyes.
Very good capture, great composition of this picture.
Cheers,
Tony

vincz (19073) 2007-01-31 5:11

Very nice catch. The facial expression is great, a bit sad maybe. The quality of the picture is excellent, great soft tones, good choice of DOF, great details.