The Terra Galleria Blog – QT Luong

The rest of the World Heritage sites are scattered around the country. My schedule was made possible by two factors. South Korea is a country of compact size – an hour by plane from north to south. The transportation infrastructure is very efficient and quite inexpensive. In the morning, I took a high-speed train from [...]

When traveling to a country for the first time, I often select places to visit based on the UNESCO World Heritage list. The international program lists and helps preserve sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of humanity. What makes it significant is that although listing of a site is approved [...]

Last fall, before I traveled to Vietnam for a family visit, I noticed that most flights had connections in Seoul. Thanks to my wife and sister-in-law influences, I’ve watched a few 15-episode Korean TV dramas, but I’d never been in the country, so I was curious to check it out. While on the Asiana (excellent [...]

Here’s something a bit different from what I usually post: an advertising photo shoot with models and lights. Although in the past I haven’t actively sought assignments (not even mentioning my availability for them), I was still occasionally contacted to create commissioned images. In this case, what led to the job was my great familiarity [...]

Although they are not as tall as the coastal redwoods, the giant sequoia trees still reach impressively into the sky. I found it difficult to convey the sense of cosmic height in daylight images. The usually blue sky isn’t visually that interesting, there are almost always harsh shadows or dappled light on a part of [...]

Last year, I spent some time in Cedar Grove, Kings Canyon National Park, trying to find out whether it was another Yosemite Valley. In the previous post, I reported about my explorations of the Cedar Grove valley floor. In this post, I am describing some of my findings on the Cedar Grove rims from a [...]

On the occasion of a return to Lexington, I walked the Freedom Trail and the Black Heritage Trail in Boston, before taking again a trip to Acadia National Park – for a third consecutive year. While in Acadia, as I was getting ready to set-up a time-lapse, I downloaded hurriedly a 32GB memory card on [...]

As seen in the two previous posts, there are plenty of sights and views in Saigon – more “interesting” than “spectacular” – however what interests me the most in that city is simply to observe and capture simple moments of life. In many places, I’ve been threatened verbally for taking photographs of people. In my [...]

I am always drawn to high viewpoints, because they provide an entirely new perspective. The immediacy and chaos of the street immersion gives way to a more detached experience where greater urban patterns emerge. Just one decade ago, there were not too many high viewpoints available in Ho Chi Minh City, but since then a [...]

The temples and pagodas of Ho Chi Minh city provide an oasis of calm and tradition in a sprawling metropolis with mostly nondescript architecture. In general, they are be quite dispersed, and best explored by motorbike-taxi. The exception is in Cholon, the Chinese district of the city. There, more than a dozen temples can found [...]