Issue 012 · Spotlight

Crossings

Paul Evan Green
July 2026

A barefoot child in a green shirt runs at night across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling scrollwork, casting a long shadow — Paul Evan Green

A train roars past a stop sign, a vendor steps onto the zebra stripes, a child runs barefoot across a midnight plaza. Paul Evan Green finds Saigon where it crosses.

Words by Jack Ross

Paul Evan Green has been freelancing since 1989, and street photography has stayed the part of it he does in his own time. A family friend handed him a Leicaflex SL when he was a teenager in Sydney. He wore it out, went to art school, and worked up through medium and large format — a Plaubel Peko Supra, a Mamiya C220. The paid work went where paid work goes. The street work stayed his, and the pictures move at the speed of something nobody was waiting on.

Two women in conical hats wait at a railway crossing behind a red stop sign as a blue-and-red train blurs past, one standing with her hand on her companion’s wheelchair — Paul Evan Green
Two women in conical hats wait at a railway crossing behind a red stop sign as a blue-and-red train blurs past, one standing with her hand on her companion’s wheelchair
A young boy in a yellow shirt sleeps stretched out on the seat of a parked scooter, arms folded behind his head — Paul Evan Green
A young boy in a yellow shirt sleeps stretched out on the seat of a parked scooter, arms folded behind his head

He spent seven of the last thirteen years in Ho Chi Minh City, part of it leading photo tours in Saigon and the Mekong Delta for Vietnam in Focus. So he was not passing through, and a good share of those years went on showing other people where to stand. He has just moved back to Sydney. These frames are what came home with him.

A mother stands with her two young sons dressed in bright yellow, a bicycle parked behind them — Paul Evan Green
A mother stands with her two young sons dressed in bright yellow, a bicycle parked behind them
A barefoot child in a green shirt runs at night across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling scrollwork, casting a long shadow — Paul Evan Green
A barefoot child in a green shirt runs at night across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling scrollwork, casting a long shadow
A woman in a conical hat hauls a cart stacked high with galvanized ducting pipes down Bui Vien Street — Paul Evan Green
A woman in a conical hat hauls a cart stacked high with galvanized ducting pipes down Bui Vien Street

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Paul Evan Green in Saigon

Ask him about influences and he gives you a reading list rather than a style: Atget, Sander, Sudek, Kertesz, Walker Evans, Koudelka, Arbus, Davidson. Photographers who worked slowly, mostly on foot, and who took it as given that an ordinary person doing an ordinary thing was enough to build a picture on.

Vietnam is a vibrant, energetic and friendly environment for street photography. Backgrounds are colorful and historically significant.

— Paul Evan Green

Backgrounds. Not subjects, not moments. The wall behind the person and whatever the city has already put there. It is an unfashionable answer in a genre that mostly talks about timing, and it tells you what he is doing while he waits: reading the set, not scanning for the incident.

A street vendor in a green conical hat crosses a zebra crossing under a shoulder pole strung with bags of rice crackers — Paul Evan Green
A street vendor in a green conical hat crosses a zebra crossing under a shoulder pole strung with bags of rice crackers
A vendor at a District 8 market holds up a large red snapper head as a customer leans in to inspect it — Paul Evan Green
A vendor at a District 8 market holds up a large red snapper head as a customer leans in to inspect it

Seven years is long enough to stop hunting. What he carried back from Saigon is the work of someone who had already learned where to stand and then went and stood there, off the clock, for years.

Two men on a motorbike carry large wrapped flower bouquets through a market street, the background streaked with motion — Paul Evan Green
Two men on a motorbike carry large wrapped flower bouquets through a market street, the background streaked with motion
A cable-stayed bridge fans out against an orange dusk sky, a lone van crossing beneath its lights — Paul Evan Green
A cable-stayed bridge fans out against an orange dusk sky, a lone van crossing beneath its lights
A street cleaner in a painted conical hat sweeps the road past a pile of giant pink rose sculptures — Paul Evan Green
A street cleaner in a painted conical hat sweeps the road past a pile of giant pink rose sculptures

He is in Sydney now, flying drones, building a new series and rebuilding a freelance base in a city he left thirteen years ago. His photographs have run in books and magazines on art, food and architecture. Whatever comes next will show up at @paul_e_green.

Motorbikes and pedestrians wait at a level crossing as a blue Vietnam Railways locomotive passes through the street — Paul Evan Green
Motorbikes and pedestrians wait at a level crossing as a blue Vietnam Railways locomotive passes through the street
Scooter traffic seen from above, riders weaving in every direction across the road — Paul Evan Green
Scooter traffic seen from above, riders weaving in every direction across the road

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