[X]PRESSPHOTO

Photo by Justin Mott

The following is an excerpt from my travel diary on a recent three-month trip I took to Cambodia and Vietnam:

Recently I’ve been working on a project with the help of Tri translating. I met a family in the river community along the Red River. I’ve been spending a lot of time with this family documenting their lifestyle. They are a family of 5, mom, dad, two boys and a girl. The brothers are ten years old and the little girl is 6. They attend a charity school because they can’t afford the $60 per year for public school. The dad works unloading bananas for about 20,000dong a ton (around $1per hour) and the mom sells crab noodle soup on the sidewalk. The family has opened up its home to me, which I almost sink every time I walk along the three-plank bamboo dock and onto the 15ft one-room wooden riverboat. I’ve posted some of the pictures on the clubs website and many of the guys want to join me to do a story on the family. The other day was a little out of control with five photographers tagging along with Tri and I to visit the family. I don’t want to overwhelm them, plus I can’t take picture inside there tiny home anymore without one of the photographers ending up in my frame, never mind we’re going to sink the boat. The father is a very stern man and for a few days I was little uneasy shooting him but he finally showed his smile and is slowly opening up, it’s a shame I’m leaving.

This moment was captured after a week of shooting in the cloudy weather the sun finally appeared. From my two weeks by the river I had never seen anyone swim in the murky water until this day. Nam, pictured in this frame, took off all his clothes and jumped into the water and his sister followed suit. The children played in the water for a while and the moment just reminded of the essence of being a child, no matter what condition one lives in.