A barber shop, Siem Reap, Cambodia. Street Photography in Siem Reap. Copyright © 2023 Terence Carter / Grantourismo. All Rights Reserved.

Street Photography in Siem Reap – life on the streets

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One of the things that keeps drawing us back to Asia is the vibrant street life and life on the streets in Siem Reap is no exception. In a large Western city, there will be masses of traffic and people, but they’re all going somewhere in a hurry, and the activity of living will generally take place behind closed doors. The slower pace and street life make street photography in Siem Reap amazing.

Not so in Asia, and especially Southeast Asian countries like Cambodia. I love how much life there is on the streets. Street photography in Siem Reap provides so many opportunities.

In a single day a local might eat every meal outside with colleagues, friends or family, get some clothes altered by a roadside garment worker, have some keys cut at a mobile stall, and get a hair cut by the side of the road.

And life on the streets in Siem Reap is especially lively. As we drove into both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap, I noticed numerous roadside hairdressing stalls. One man, two barbers chairs. All doing good business – people in Asia do seem obsessed with their hair. The salon, above, just a block from the centre of town, was doing a bustling trade. Haircuts, colours, hot shaves, all done with the accompanying blast of a music television channel.

The element that makes this photograph interesting to me is the guy in the black shirt in the centre of the frame. Is he a customer? A staff member taking a break? Or is he waiting for someone?

The lens on my camera at the time was my favourite close-up portrait lens, as I had just done a portrait session and was on my way to photograph a restaurant. I switched up to ISO1600 as it was nearing dark.

I love the gentle light of the late afternoon in Asia, particularly in contrast to the middle of the day when you’re better off having a couple of beers and a lie down rather than take photographs.

Many people think it’s too dark to make good photos at this time of the evening, but with how good digital cameras are these days in low light, I have no problem shooting at ISO1600 and sending it to a magazine. Never put that camera away!

Details: Nikon D700, 85mm F1.4D @ F1.8 @ 1/500th second @ ISO1600.

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AUTHOR BIO

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Terence Carter is an editorial food and travel photographer and infrequent travel writer with a love of photographing people, places and plates of food. After living in the Middle East for a dozen years, he settled in South-East Asia a dozen years ago with his wife, travel and food writer and sometime magazine editor Lara Dunston.

4 thoughts on “Street Photography in Siem Reap – life on the streets”

  1. Great photo.
    I love watching life on streets in Southeast Asia. There’s nothing else like it.
    I think the most hairdressing salons I’ve seen was in Vietnam. They are everywhere and truth to be told Vietnamese in Hanoi are quite stylish.

  2. Thanks, Jo! Agree – the street life in this part of the world is some of the most compelling in the world, especially in Vietnam and Thailand. It’s one of the things that has led us to settling in Cambodia for a while – we have a lot of quirky backstreet hair salons here too!

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