The 1000+ islands off the northern coast of Vietnam
are, understandably, considered one of their national treasures. Ha Long Bay, which boasts some spectacular views and caves, is located among them, and no trip to Vietnam is complete without choking down diesel fumes to ride the old boats in a sort of un-pleasure cruise around the Bay.
I was up early from the rumblings of the diesel engine on our boat when I shot this picture using a nighttime filter on the lens to accentuate the blue tone to the whole scene. The photography on this trip was well worth the discomfort, but so was the feeling that we were floating in some little cauldron of life ringed by all these little mountains. It made the scuba diver in me itchy to get down below and see what it looked like to watch all those mountain tops ascend from the sea floor. One look and sniff of the water, however, and I decided that a nice clear side-scan sonar image of the Bay would suffice just fine. The Thousand Islands are a natural treasure for – shall we say – their visual, and not their olfactory, splendor.
Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
Best Photo Ever Taken of a Tree Hunting a Tourist
Best Photo Ever Taken of Moonshine
Best Photo Ever Taken of Carb Crops
Best Photo Ever Taken of Unwise Seating Choices
Best Photo Ever Taken of Mongolian Ghers
Best Photo Ever Taken of Thai Temple Tops
I love this photo, but I admit I did not actually take it knowing it would turn out like this. We were in the Angkor Wat temple complex in Siem Reap, Cambodia, wandering/sweltering/dying of heatstroke around the hundred plus temples there, and I was just snapping photos here and there by this point in the day. Angkor is a much-photographed place, and is usually portrayed in either an artsy or Tomb Raider
-esque way. Humor is not a large part of the photography scene there.
But that night when I went through my photos, I realized how comical this one looked. The tourist, a Japanese one no less, looks positively hunted by the enormous tree. I found the contrast in the image and the stereotype (the Japanese tourists in Cambodia are fairly intense, and by intense here I mean that I have almost been crushed to death several times by them) quite amusing. Hope you do too.
Want more of the best photos ever taken? I’ve got a whole series of the most unexpected best photos you’ll find on the internet:
Best Photo Ever Taken of Moonshine
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Carb Crops
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Unwise Seating Choices
-Best Photo Ever Taken of Mongolian Ghers
Best Photo Ever Taken of Thai Temple Tops
