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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fifteen: Making travel portraits that define personality and character. > Lat child, near Dalat, Vietnam, 2007
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28-DEC-2007

Lat child, near Dalat, Vietnam, 2007

The Lat people are a Central Highlands hill tribe. They are practicing Christians. I made this photograph just outside of the village church. He never took notice of me, or my camera. Many people often do not think I am taking their pictures because I always shoot from waist level, using a flip up viewfinder. They see me looking down into the viewfinder, but because I am not looking “through” the camera at them, and not masking my face with the camera (which can be threatening to some), I am able to get some very natural responses. He was probably waiting to see what I was going to do, and had no idea that I had already done it, again and still again. I was able to get a perfect response here, a mixture of boredom and sadness, and I link it to the primitive clapboard church and the fragile palm sapling he touches repeatedly.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/15s f/3.6 at 29.7mm iso200 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis18-Oct-2008 23:52
The sadness in the boy's face is echoed by the drooping palm. Glad you sense its message, Yves.
Yves Rubin18-Oct-2008 22:38
Beautiful and perfectly framed. BV!
Phil Douglis19-Jan-2008 21:00
You know a "peeking portrait" when you see one, Mo. You have several of them in your own collection.
monique jansen19-Jan-2008 10:04
A "Peeking" portrait.
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