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Shuttle boat in Ha Long Bay

Picture was taken in Ha Long Bay, Vietnam. The red stream is earth soils carried by the streams in the mountain flowing into the bay.

The wash from the oars makes this photo for me. Actually, it just makes an excellent photo... superb. In a tranquil sea the composition and colors and texture would be strong enough, but this sea is spectacular. The shadows on the right work very well. 7/7 and I'd give it an 8 for originality if I could. I would be very very proud of this.

The picture tells us a few things from a technical perspective: the camera was likely hand held, it was shot at 210mm, and judging from available light and noise content, probably shot at high ISO and of reasonably high shutter speed to avoid camera shake. If my observations are true, it might explain the dark reflection of the right-side nearby cliff - a little too dark. Setting the camera to bracket mode might have allowed post-processing to lighten the dark area, but given the moment-to-moment change of the boat's position, there was probably no time for anything but a quick click and hope you got the shot.

So, being at the right place at the right time is only half the battle. The final prize of a masterpiece goes to those with a prepared mind that chance favors. If this had been my shot, I would have wished for the rest of my life for it to be different; that I would have bracketed, and manipulated.

Cuong, I enjoyed this image and glad that you made POW with it. The image has a strange abstract feel to it and the colours are fine which adds to the dream like composition the dark bank on the top left looks like a face thats sticking it's tonue out at the boat folk as if to say good riddence. I like it it also for the social aspect too as I like images with people going about their daily tasks and I suppose this is as common s duty to these two boat people as a road sweeper in London, Rome or New York except more appeasing to the eye. when I return to the far east later this year I will be looking for images similar to this, whether I get them is another thing!

Simply fantastic !

After seeing how many mediocre landscapes are so easily considered great on this site, it is truly refreshing to see such a masterpiece on the frontpage today.

Excellent in both departments indeed - originality and aesthetics.Of course, I could say that the colors, the light, and the composition are just amazing, but that's too obvious, I guess.

When I saw this picture a week ago or so, I thought I needed to look at this picture a lot more before writing anything about it. Thanks to this POW, time has now come to try to put my feelings in words.

(shuttle boat in Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam, by Cuong Tran)


First, I too wondered, like Michael Chang, whether a lighter right side would have been better, but quickly concluded that the right side wasn't a main areaa in this picture: its darkness adds drama for me, and actually brings the eye more naturally to the boat.

Then I also wondered how it would look if it was flipped horizontally. In this case, the flip makes this a very different photo, imo. For those of us who live in countries where we read from left to right especially, the left is identified as the past, whereas the right is the future. This may sound pompous and unimportant, but I think, it isn't in this case. Flipping the image would show a boat coming out from the chaos into the light, as we would expect from several mythologies. As it is here, on the other hand, the boat is returning "to the past", as if the present was too dark, unpleasant: therefore, the feeling I get from this image is that Man is returning to His Origin, and that he finds the light in it somehow... (Please excuse such a subjective and romantic interpretation, but this photo really moved me, and I'm just trying to explain why.)

Conclusion: This is one of those rare landscapes with a soul, which can take my mind away for hours of viewing. And I'll go as far as to say at this point, that this is my favorite picture among ALL landscapes I've seen on this site - no hesitation. I can only dream to ever meet such a beauty in front of my lens. Congrats to the photographer of course, and I'm really glad to see this image given the attention it certainly deserves.

Just a little remark regarding the content of the photograph

Many of you comment on the fantastic lighting, or write about the dark and ominous bank on the right. You are seeing things that aren't there. The picture 'only' shows a uniformly lit (overcast sky, I guess) patch of water where two diffenently colored bodies of water mix (or rather, don't mix). You can actually see a line of flotsam/foam at the border.

This is not a reflection of a spectacular sunset, however much it might look like one at first. Of course this doesn't stop it from being a great photograph!

As for the missing detail in the black part on the right, if you make it lighter in an image editor, the surface ripples become quite visible. The detail is there, it is just hard to see.

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