THE COLOR OF INCENSE

Incense sticks play an important role in Vietnamese spiritual life. There are temples, pagodas, shrines everywhere. And at every home, each family have an altar, where they practice the cult on ancestor worship. The must for this practice is an incense urn, to keep the sticks straight for burning. And therefore, the demand of incense sticks has been throughout the history of the Vietnamese.

In the morning, the locals shred sticks out of bamboo shoots. Then, dye each bundle of sticks in a certain color. The sticks are then dried out in the sun in bundles. These bundles have umbrella shape in order to get as much light as possible. These sticks make a layer of deep red pattern on your photos.

It is the shape, and the color of these incense stick bundles that are truly photogenic. With a Vietnamese worker in her traditional conical hat sitting in front, you can never go wrong with any shot!
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The itinerary for our photo tour to Quang Phu Cau incense village is as following:

6:45 am: Our tour to Quang Phu Cau village departs from your hotel. Firstly, our drive goes through residential area in the city, giving you more chance to see Hanoi's city life. And the later half of the drive is in the countryside with rice fields and villages.
8:15 - 10:15 am: We will photograph the locals drying incense sticks. This process happens after dyeing.  The stage is a large courtyard of a family. The workers are mostly family members or people from the same community. The red colors of the sticks make the whole scene really eye-catching. Here, our photographic escort will be explaining the different process of making incense sticks. Then we will set up our camera and learn how to master the different camera modes. We will also be looking at the White Balance and make sure it is set correctly to take in the mesmerizing red color of Quang Phu Cau incense.
11:30 am: Our Quang Phu Cau incense village tour returns to Hanoi. During the drive back, we will see into the different shots that you have gathered.

Please note that this tour can depart in the afternoon, as the scenes remain similar comparing to the morning. In the case, the timings are as per following:

1:00 pm: Depart from hotel
2:30 - 4:30 pm: Photograph in Quang Phu Cau village
6:00 pm: Arrive at your hotel in Hanoi