Featured Photographer

Paul Evan Green

Reading the set, not scanning for the incident.

Street & documentary · Sydney, Australia · Seven years in Saigon
Their website Their Instagram
Photo © Paul Evan Green
The work

The wall behind the person

Ask Paul Evan Green what he photographs and he says 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.

FRAME 01 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
Saigon at night. A barefoot child runs across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling stone — the pattern was there long before the child was.

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

From their feature — Streets & Stories 012
02Two 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
03A young boy in a yellow shirt sleeps stretched out on the seat of a parked scooter, arms folded behind his head — Paul Evan Green
04A mother stands with her two young sons dressed in bright yellow, a bicycle parked behind them — Paul Evan Green
05A barefoot child in a green shirt runs at night across a plaza inlaid with dark swirling scrollwork, casting a long shadow — Paul Evan Green
06A woman in a conical hat hauls a cart stacked high with galvanized ducting pipes down Bui Vien Street — Paul Evan Green
07A street vendor in a green conical hat crosses a zebra crossing under a shoulder pole strung with bags of rice crackers — Paul Evan Green
08A vendor at a District 8 market holds up a large red snapper head as a customer leans in to inspect it — Paul Evan Green
09Two men on a motorbike carry large wrapped flower bouquets through a market street, the background streaked with motion — Paul Evan Green
10A cable-stayed bridge fans out against an orange dusk sky, a lone van crossing beneath its lights — Paul Evan Green
Portrait of photographer Paul Evan Green
Paul Evan Green Street & documentary · Sydney, Australia
Read their Streets & Stories feature → His own website →
Who they are

Freelancing since 1989

A family friend handed Paul Evan Green 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. He has been freelancing since 1989, and street photography has stayed the part of it he does in his own time.

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 — so he was not passing through, and a good share of those years went on showing other people where to stand. Ask about influences and you get a reading list rather than a style: Atget, Sander, Sudek, Kertész, Walker Evans, Koudelka, Arbus, Davidson. He has since moved back to Sydney.

See more of his work

Crossings, and the years around it

Seven years of Saigon is more than nine frames. His own site carries the archive; Instagram is where the newer work appears.

Instagram @paul_e_green New frames, first. His website paulgreenphotovideoart.com The full archive.

Vietnam Streets features Paul Evan Green as a community photographer. We are not an agent and take no commission — everything here links straight to him.