WORKSHOP FILLED: APPLICATIONS ARE CLOSED

GREG GIRARD: “THE TRANSITION TO NOW: PHOTOGRAPHING HANOI AND HO CHI MINH CITY (FORMERLY SAIGON)”
Hanoi (December 1-3) + Ho Chi Minh City (December 6-8, 2025)

One more photographic adventure of a lifetime in South East Asia with legendary photographer Greg Girard awaits this fall! Come write a new defining chapter of your photographic practice with Greg at the start of December as he and a small group of photo peers explore contemporary Vietnam, embracing all its complex historical layers starting with 3 packed days in beautiful Hanoi – the Ascending Dragon capital city –, then working our way down south to Ho Chi Minh City – aka Saigon – for 3 more intensive days of photographing there!

Participation is limited to 12 photographers. The workshop is currently filled, and registrations officially closed.

DESCRIPTION

Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are two cities where time has flowed hard and their very different histories shape today’s physical and social landscape. The aim of our workshop is to examine what this very specific “now” looks like in each city and its surroundings, what life lived looks like for its inhabitants, and what it looks like for us as visitors. Some places loom larger in the imagination than others and no doubt our expectations and imagined realities will be challenged during our eight days in Vietnam as we set about trying to show these places as they are.

A JRNL style newsprint publication featuring edits of the new work participants created during the workshop will be published by FotoFilmic.

– Greg Girard

Banner images © Greg Girard – Top: Buildings on Bat Su Street, 2009-2010, “Hanoi Calling” book cover (Magenta Publishing, 2010); bottom: Toshiba sign on the Saigon River, Ho Chi Minh City, 1993.

SCHEDULE

[subject to change]

Monday, Dec. 1 [Hanoi Day #1]
Morning/early afternoon: Introduction, participants’ portfolio reviews + assignment presentation/discussion
Afternoon: Introduction on Vietnam photography by Ha Dao, Photographer & Managing Editor at Matca
Evening: participants start photographing their assignments

Tuesday, Dec. 2 [Hanoi Day #2]
Morning: Greg Girard’s lecture
Afternoon: 1:1 individual meetings with Greg Girard (30 minutes per participant, Group A)
Afternoon/evening: participants continue photographing for their assignment

Wednesday, Dec. 3 [Hanoi Day #3]
Morning: One-on-one/individual meetings with Greg Girard continue (30 minutes per participant, Group B)
Afternoon: Group assignments review/critique
Evening: participants continue photographing their assignments

Thursday, Dec. 4 + Friday, Dec. 5 [Hanoi -> Saigon]
2-day Traveling Recess from Hanoi to Saigon: participants can either spend an extra day photographing in Hanoi (Dec.4) then fly out to HCMC/Saigon (Dec.5), or directly relocate to HCMC/Saigon (Dec.4) to get an early assignment start there (Dec.5).

Saturday, Dec. 6 [HCMC Day #1]
Morning: Greg Girard’s lecture
Afternoon: One-on-one/individual meetings with Greg Girard (30 minutes per participant, Group A)
Afternoon/evening: participants continue photographing their assignments

Sunday, Dec. 7 [HCMC Day #2]
Morning: 1:1 individual meetings with Greg Girard continue (30 minutes per participant, Group B)
Afternoon/evening: participants continue photographing their assignments

Monday, Dec. 8 [HCMC Day #3]
All day: last assignment group review/critique + final editing session for the FotoFilmic newsprint publication

ABOUT GREG GIRARD: 

Greg Girard is a Canadian photographer who has spent much of his career in Asia. His work has examined the social and physical transformations in Asia, especially in its largest cities, for more than four decades. He is the author of several photographic books. City of Darkness Revisited, published 2014, revives an early collaboration with co-author Ian Lambot, and updates their influential book, City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City (Watermark, 1993). Based in Shanghai between 1998 and 2011, his photographic monograph, Phantom Shanghai (Magenta, Toronto, 2007), with a foreword by novelist William Gibson, looks at the rapid and at times violent changes in China’s largest city as Shanghai raced to remake itself at the beginning of the 21^st Century. Other recent titles include JAL 76-88 (Kominek, Berlin, 2023), Tokyo-Yokosuka 1976-1983, (Magenta, Toronto, 2019), Hotel Okinawa, (The Velvet Cell, Osaka, 2017); Under Vancouver 1972-1982 (Magenta, Toronto, 2017); Hanoi Calling (Magenta, Toronto, 2010); and In the Near Distance (Kominek, Berlin, 2010), a book of early photographs made in Asia and North America between 1973 and 1986. The International Centre of Photography in New York featured his series “Half the Surface of the World”, a survey of US military bases and their host communities in Asia, in 2012. His work is in the collection of National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Vancouver Art Gallery, M+ Museum Hong Kong, and other public and private collections. National Geographic Magazine in a special issue in 2022 cited his photograph from a story on gene editing, titled ‘The DNA Revolution’, as one of this century’s ‘100 best photos’. He is represented by Monte Clark Gallery, North America; Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong; and Kominek Gallery, Berlin.

https://www.greggirard.com/
@gregforaday