Smoker

One of my main ambitions for this tour of South Vietnam and Cambodia was to photograph the people of the area and it is probably pretty obvious from my blips of the last few days that this is what I have been doing.

Today was a full day of street photography in the markets and narrow streets of Phnom Penh.  We walked for miles, took photographs for hours and are now thoroughly exhausted, but I think the whole group is pretty happy with the images they have captured.

After yesterday's look at the horrors of Cambodia's recent history, it was not pleasant to see the way the locals treat their livestock.  One of the markets included an area for poultry;  the birds are delivered alive and leave oven ready and their treatment during the process is quite terrible.  I like to believe that, in the UK, we treat our animals far more humanely.  The rest of the market was very enjoyable with every imaginable kind of product for sale.  People were generally very happy to be photographed, though many were very shy or thought that they shouldn't be photographed because they considered themselves ugly.  Others were very willing to pose for the camera, like this gentleman I found in one alley.  Although, unlike most of my other photographs today, it doesn't show much of his environment, I love the pose and his confident look straight at the camera, and the lighting and colouring were particularly attractive.  The shot is straight out of camera with no editing at all.

This is our last night in the city.  Tomorrow we move on to Siem Reap and there will now be less people photography and more landscape photography, I expect.