As we’ve seen before, photos taken by American military personnel during the war often help to paint a picture of mid-1960s to early 1970s Vietnam. Such is the case with Bob Kelly’s album of 1967 Phan Thiet photos.
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In this collection of black-and-white snapshots, a famed French photographer finds beauty in tumultuous 1950s Vietnam.
Black-and-white photography is often considered more challenging than its color counterpart, as photographers must rely on contrast and light to come up with interesting and captivating shots. French photographer Raymond Cauchetier, however, makes shooting sans color look like a cakewalk. Cauchetier is perhaps best known for his work as a set photographer on Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 debut film, À Bout de Souffle (Breathless). However not many know that before participating in Godard’s breakthrough film, Cauchetier began his career as a hobbyist while serving in the press corps of the French Air Force in Indochina. His platoon had neither the budget for a camera nor a cameraman back then, so he bought his own Rolleiflex and started snapping away. When his service ended, Cauchetier remained in Indochina and what was supposedly a short vacation resulted in a host of intimate portraits of local residents and their daily life. It's as true today as it was in the 1960s: to experience Saigon life, head to the streets.
In this collection of old photos, shutterbug Rick Parker took a special interest in the daily lives of Saigon's residents. From a family of four squished together on a red Honda Cub to cheery ladies selling cut fruit on the street, Saigon in the late 60s – rendered in the distinctive under-saturation of film – appears as an idyllic paradise in these snapshots. Take a stroll down Saigon’s streets circa 1966-1967 through the photos below: A collection of pictures compiled on Flickr shows what life in Da Nang looked like way back in 1954.
The photographs, taken by Ronald B. Frankum Jr., an American author and historian, depict Da Nang's coastal city life the same year that French forces pulled out of Vietnam. Frankum's shots showcase street scenes, boats along the Han River, soldiers on R&R and an aerial view of the Marble Mountains before the nearby beachfront was covered in high-end resorts. It will come as a surprise to no one that Ha Long Bay was much quieter in the 1950s than it is today.
Thanks to the country’s ever-growing tourism industry, Ha Long is now filled with scores of white wooden boats plying the waters around its more famous caves. However, the following shots, taken by Raymond Cauchetier in the early 1950s, capture exactly what was so enthralling about Ha Long in the first place. The French photographer, best known in Europe for his candid photos of New Wave film sets, got his start in the French Air Force as part of its Indochina press corps, according to the British Journal of Photography. When he returned home, Cauchetier began hanging around with French film critics, including a young Jean-Luc Godard, and later launching his career through these friendships, however the photographer’s experience in Indochina is equally, if not more remarkable. Even without photographic evidence, it’s a safe bet that 1955 Saigon was a world apart from the frantic energy of today’s mammoth metropolis.
Long before the skyscrapers started going up and throngs of motorbikes appeared on the streets, the southern hub was a quieter, greener, less congested place. This is clear as day in photographer Raymond Cauchetier’s collection of black-and-white aerial photos from 1955, which depict the empty streets and tree-lined boulevards of old Saigon with a dream-like quality. From the Saigon River to Binh Tay Market to the wide thoroughfare of Nguyen Hue, everything looks a little more peaceful from above. |
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