Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life – Confucius

A fortnight ago, I had an assignment that could easily live up to the best job in the world.

As a commercial photographer you get to travel around and being in Vietnam is an added plus as it is the “Hidden Charm” according to the tourist association. (The slogan is about to be replaced, that explains this abandoned site.)

Before you think it’s all play and a bit of work then let me tell you a few tales.

One location assignment we went to was a factory in the city outskirts. Heavy machinery, hot sun and no air conditioning plus and a very long day equals the feeling of sitting locked inside a Finnish sauna.

After the second day my two assistants were completely exhausted and it was far from glamourous. However, we came back with portfolio grade material and I was over the moon. The client was a pleasure to work with and they let us be creative with our light.

Still life at the factory

People that know me can testify that I am obsessed about light. Light is not just light. It comes in various intensities and colours. Controlling light and you start creating images, not taking them.

All in all, a great, hard working assignment.

Equally challenging assignment, was the annual lingerie calendar for Vera.Background information: We had one day only, to come back with enough images to create the annual calendar. The day was booked and despite whatever weather condition, we had to deliver the goods. The location was a SunSeeker yacht valued at $2mill plus and rental fee was high.

It may sound glamourous to photograph lingerie, but the real story is that you work hard throughout the day to achieve the goods. For this day, it was misty in the morning and overcast the rest of the day with dull light. We worked until we did not have enough sunlight, and again, rewarded with more portfolio pieces for our hard labour.

Model Isabelle Du for Vera's annual lingerie calendar

I feel very fortunate that my clients are all easy to get along with and together we create good results, which bring us back to the story, the trip to Ho Tram.

I will post images from the assignment once we have the retouched ones ready, but in the mean time, here are some from my morning stroll.

These were taken after we had completed two full days shooting. First day I was up for 19 hours and the next day 18 hours as my work doesn’t end when the set is over. Always back up and copy to a spare drive so the work is always on two separate hard drives. Knock on wood, I haven’t had a situation were I’ve lost work.

The real perk for this assignment was to stay an extra night and wake up to the most wonderful view. The master bedroom in the beach front villa is located on the first floor and from the bed at night I could see the lights from the fishing boats in the horizon. In the morning I woke up at sunrise and had the full ocean view to take in. Stunning.

Then the morning stroll capturing the images below, before heading for the incredible blue tiled pool. The pool is one of the most beautiful made pool in Vietnam that I have seen and swimming in it’s blueness is a zen like experience. The bliss lasted till lunchtime. Time to travel back to reality. I do love my job.