#36: Mom's love

I discovered I have a lot of mom-baby photos taken on the mountainous areas, perhaps I found it quite attractive when seeing an ethnic "colorful" mother carries her baby on her back - it is really fantastic - giving a pure, loving, peaceful feeling to those who see them. All these photos are from different mountainous areas of northern of Vietnam. I really wish I could have moved farther to the south for similar images, I will, definitely, when I return to Vietnam. This one was taken in Ha Giang, north-western of Vietnam.

This was taken on Sapa, north eastern area - a very famous travel destination for foreign tourists, and for the Vietnamese as well. Even, the H'mong people here are just exactly the same root with those from the north western area (above), but since this place is much more famous for its commercial tourism industry, the ethnic people behave differently. If those in other areas feel free and enjoy being photographed by the tourists, these are definitely not - they always try to hide their faces before a camera, unless you would pay them some little money. But well, the good news is, this does not happen to everyone, just to some who had been "spoilt" several times. But in some points of view, well, they have right to protect their private images ( if you do not think that they just want money), just like people here in the US, don't they?. Still, it is something bothering (not a lot) as a tourist. This mom and her little baby were trying hard to hide their faces from me and two other foreigners. She said I might take the photos of them and "sell" them for commercial purposes. I tried to convince her hard that I just wanted to take the photo of the child because "he is so cute". But then she protected her child real carefully, just like a hide and seek game, until, the boy tried to sneak his head out of mom's arm and looked at me, and OOPS, I catch ya! I was bad, I am sorry, but I promise not to sell this photos any where, I will keep it as a wonderful moment of a mother and a child!

This was also taken in Ha Giang. The young mother was giving her child some candy which was given by me. Before going on this trip, I called for friends on blog to donate me candy, clothes, toys...whatever are good for the mountainous children - candies are specially welcome. And on my driving way, or any destination I reached, I gave all the kids I met candy, as a little surprising gift, and sure, they were surprised: "who the heck are these people giving us candy?"!! They tore the covers and ate them immediately. I was so happy seeing them enjoying my little gifts.

This is in Sapa, taken in a place that is far from the central, so as you see, they did not try to hide their faces from me anymore, they just....did not care. The mothers here are so young, just like around 20, and they have their bare naked kids running all over. The fascinating this is, most of the kids do not have pants, just the shirts, don't know why. I remembered trying to give some people the pants for their children (because I thought they did not have them), but then they just used the pants as something like...scrubbers. I realized, THEY DON'T NEED THE PANTS, even when the weather was really cold (as it was when this photo was taken). This is a very popular image on mountainous areas - A mom with a little child on her back, and bigger kids with...no pants around!

Ok, so let's move on to the...city. This photo is one from a set taken for my friend as a gift. It was an extreme overcast day, so the colors were not really good and I boosted some tones up. But we had fun! I posted this one in some previous entry, you can look in the archive with the video "behind the scene", and there is one comment for this entry, saying: "The best part of this photo is the mom's smile!"

Well, this one, there should be an entry about it, some lines are not enough. It is also my very first photo from my 5D. Do you see they are about to cry? They are not mother and daughter, the girl is the best friend of the woman's daughter. And the daughter, it was the moment she was about to be announced as the MOST BEAUTIFUL girl in the beauty contest of her university - which is my university too (the Institute for International Relations). I did not know the girl and her mother as that time. I was there just to...test my new camera and tried to take some photos to write blog. I remembered the mother was standing aside of the stage, feeling so emotional looking at the best moments of her daughter, the friend was there holding the mother's hand. They were both about to cry. Well, while other "photographers" were waiting for the beauty crowned moment, I was the only one who paid attention to the mother. I was thinking to myself - this is more precious than those boring crowning moments. So, all of a sudden, I jumped up on the stages, people were quite shock to see that, no one dared to do that actually, some "reporters" were shouting at me, telling to suck my butt off them so they could take some photos, but I ignored. If had not jumped, then I would have never caught the images of her mother. But this leads to a wonderful aftermath, the girl and the mother wanted to thank me, and we made friends with them - I discovered what I did was the best thing to them, Miss Beauty had lost her father just some years ago, and mother is all she is having - their love is more special than others. And we became friends, best friends, great friends, they are just so wonderful that....definitely, they will have an entry about it! Thanks to this photo that brings me the most wonderful people on earth!

My favorite of all - it's my aunt, my favorite aunt. She is the least lucky person in the family - poor - divorced (drunk and violent husband - thanks God she got rid of him), bad health - she is in the Emergency now for serious asthma. I pray everyday for her getting better. She has three children, while the two older ones lived with her ex husband, the third girl has been living with her until now and she is everything to my aunt. Can you tell it from looking at my aunt's face as she is holding my cousin? They are pieces of my heart, please....get better!

The following are the series from a charity center. This place accommodates hundreds of homeless and disabled elderly and dumped babies. Approximately about 5 babies are taken care by one nurse, these nurses are actually the mothers!. The trip to this center is one among the activities of the beauty contest as mentioned above. All the contestants would show and give little help for the people here. Those are some contestants with the babies - I caught a wonderful moment, didn't I?

I also posted this one somewhere in the previous entries. I love the way the baby looks at the girl, as if she (or he) is trying to say: "Hi, you are really beautiful!", just like looking at her mother!

The baby in her (his) "mother"'s arm, hey, look at that happy smile, oh my god, that melted my heart....

Well, I had an entry about this photo series already, I love this back lit photo the most. The baby is just 2 month's old, but already showed a great potential model.

Taken at the botanical garden. Not much to say about it, just a peaceful moment!