Window or Aisle: Etienne Bossot

There are not a lot of guys who will make me want to get out of my bed at 4:30 am! Not to mention when I am away from home, in a cute hotel in HoiAn, Vietnam.

But Etienne Bossot is one of them.

Last February I was in Vietnam for two weeks, looping around my schedule to make it on time for the Full Moon Festival in HoiAn on February 5th. I was rushing from Hanoi in the North to HoiAn in the Center, just to see the paper lanterns on the HoiAn river. Trust me, it was worth it!

The concierge in the hotel I was staying in heard I was a photographer, and one morning slipped a colorful flyer on my table while I was having breakfast. It was a HoiAn Sunrise photo tour in a fishermen village. The truth is that I was debating if to take the Sunrise photo tour or the Sunset photo tour because I didn’t really want to wake up that early. But after meeting Etienne for sweet-condense milk coffee in one of the cafes in HoiAn at the same day, he convinced me to take the Sunrise one! I thought to myself, where else in the World I can do it, if not there, right?

These days Etienne is busy launching more photo tours in NorthVietnam and North Laos and running some online tutorials. Looking at his website and all the great tours Etienne has to offer, makes me miss Vietnam and go visit again!

I’m really excited to have the opportunity to feature Etienne on Window or Aisle? and share with you some of his breath-taking images.

Thanks Etienne!

Where are you from? I am from Avignon in South of France.

Where did you study photography? I actually never studied photography. I moved to Vietnam over 5 years ago and it quickly stroke me that I was losing something, living here without a camera. The thing is that after I bought my first camera I caught the photography virus, a strong one, and it never left me!

What made you want to learn it or do it? The beauty of Vietnam and South East Asia, and mostly its people. Being stuck in the mud in a rice field, busy capturing a farmer in the setting sun… the world stops around me when I am busy doing things like that, and this is what makes me continue. I have also been teaching photography with workshops in HoiAn for  the past 2 years, so I have to be on top!

If you weren’t a photographer what would you do? I moved here selling wine to resorts… I would probably be doing some sales and marketing somewhere in Asia (being stuck in an office all day long, having a boss,…) hahaha.

Where do you get your inspiration from? I do spend a lot of time watching and following travel photographers I know and like. But what really inspires me and moves me is photojournalism. A dream I had when I started, becoming one. I know this is not what I do now, but I aways keep these styles of photos in mind when taking photos.

How do you usually approach a new project? It’s more something I find, see or hear about. I do not think I am mature enough to start a huge personal photo project that I will do until the end. I am also quite busy with the photo workshops here in HoiAn and launching the new tours in South East Asia… so I guess a personal photo project is something that will come to later.

What are you working on right now? Still editing wedding photos(…), and marketing the new tours in South East Asia.

Window or Aisle? Window of course, admiring the landscape and wishing I had my camera with me!