Monday, June 8, 2015

Weekend shoot at the Ho Chi Minh City Botanical and Zoological Park

This past weekend was the first client shoot that I have done since getting to Vietnam. I did this shoot free of charge since a friend had asked me and I do not have a work visa. This was for pictures of a beautiful little girl that will be turning one in a few weeks. Her parents and a new friend of mine went to the local zoo to take pictures for her upcoming party.

The day started out like any other day here in Vietnam, Hot and very humid that the sweat is dripping off every part of my body. The drive to the zoo was yet again playing Frogger in the main streets of Ho Chi Minh City all the way there and with the wind in my hair it actually felt pretty good till we parked the motobikes and then the heat came swamping back around us almost instantly. Note to self is that 1.5 Liter of water is added to camera bag no matter the weight of the bag.

The cost of entry to the botanical and zoological gardens was only 50,000 dong. This is why I could see it being a very popular place for the weekend and the place was super packed with people. The first impressions were that the botanicals here were pretty neat with the topiaries that formed many different types of animals. They were in almost perfect conditions very small holes in the leaves that have just yet to be filled in. you could see that the base of the branches where there so that just in a few weeks they would be perfect. The grasses and local plants provided plenty of shade and places to sit and have a picnic lunch which most of the people were doing since it was almost noon.

We started taking pictures almost right away so that the little girl would still be fresh and awake knowing that the heat would take a toll on everyone. An outfit here and few pictures here and yes I think I became more of a sight taking pictures of the little girl than I of the little girl. The sight of a grown man laying on the ground with the camera almost on the ground was more of a sight than the precious little girl he was taking pictures of. I did notice about 6 or 7 people taking pictures of me taking pictures. Oh well when they saw the great pictures that I got for the clients they may not have been so wowed but floored at the result of changing the perspective of the camera to get the awesome shot.


The Botanical gardens is some of the nicest flower beds I have thus seen so far. The heat started to take a toll and we did not get to see the whole park but the botanical side of the zoo and gardens is very nice with all the different types of plants and flowers that were in bloom the gardens were awesome and then to have the animals around were just icing on the cake. As far as a city zoo and botanical gardens go the city does a great use for the space that they have and try to bring some exotic animals to Saigon for all to see. 

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