We were given all the time we needed to photograph at will in this sacred space. Knowing that I had time, I was able to conceptually plan my shot well before I made this image. I found a vantage point that embraced an arched window, a ceremonial tree-like column, and an effigy of Buddha. It also offered the abstracting quality of back lighting. I had noticed that one monk was lingering in the room as a caretaker. He was going to stay there as long as we were in it. He was walking back and forth – all I needed him to do was to walk in front of that window. Using my spot meter, I moved my point of exposure around until my shutter speed registered 1/13th of a second, a speed that can usually produce blur in a moving person. It then came down to a matter of waiting. I composed this image, and when the monk passed before the window, I pressed the shutter button. At that instant, he raised his hand to his head, his motion giving the image its spiritual quality, a perfect blend of content and form.

The Hanoi Municipal Water Puppet Theatre is an arena of continual movement. That is what a puppet show defines – life in motion. There is one scene where a two foot long canoe of puppet warriors comes sweeping across the water tank that covers the front of the theatre. The arms of each of its paddlers are spinning in motion, and canoe itself rocks back and forth to the beat of the live music as it pursues the bad guys. My light source was the theatrical lighting, and 1/20th of a second works well under such circumstances. For me, the point of this image was its action, and 1/20th of a second is a perfect shutter speed to extend, rather than freeze, the moment in time.

The French built Hanoi’s Hoa Lo Prison in 1906 to confine Vietnamese political prisoners. Many years later, during the Vietnam War, the North Vietnamese imprisoned captured American fliers here, and the building became known in the US as the “Hanoi Hilton.” It is now a museum, and its dank confinement halls are lined with life sized mannequins, shackled to their beds. The French held their prisoners here for weeks or months before beating them to death or sending them to the guillotine. There is a palpable sense of ghostly spirits here in this prison. I was one of the few guests at the moment, left alone with these figures and my own imagination. I was able to express my feelings about this scene by gently panning the camera at one full second. I did not begin this pan until a fraction of a second after pressing the shutter release. As a result, we can see the figures themselves, huddled together, waiting to die. During the final part of the exposure the camera is moving, recording nothing but a ghostly blur. And that adds the spiritual connation here.

We visited the village of a hill tribe known as the Lat people in Vietnam’s mountainous central highlands. The highlight of the visit was a rousing series of tribal dances, performed by firelight. Once again, all of my fellow photographers used flash to record the appearance of the dancers. But their images will not replicate what their own eyes saw. Instead, they will show the dance stopped in time and bathed in artificial light. I chose to not to describe what I saw, but rather express what I felt. I made hundreds of images of these moving subjects by the light of a distant fire. This one best defined the essence of the dance – mysterious, energetic, primitive, and flowing over with energy. I shot the dancers at a third of a second. This particular image was a pan – I moved the camera while the shutter was open in the direction of the dancers. As a result, the figure in the center of the image seems to lunge directly at us, while his fellow dancers, both before and after him, dissolve into tendrils of flowing fiery light.