Photos with lots of emotions

On August 10th, 2019, I opened the website chuabang.com and found the article "Hanoi: Great ceremony of Ullambana, filial piety 2563 - 2019 at Bang pagoda", so I immediately opened to see it. I have known the content of the news, so I just glanced, mostly looking at photos. I sequently viewed each photo from top to bottom.

Through the images, I felt that the ceremony was solemn, impressive and very emotional. I was intently watching when I saw a picture that caught my attention and stopped to observe it carefully. It was a photo of a woman, about 30 years old, wearing a bronze shirt and a girl, about 5 years old, in a yellow shirt sat close to her. The woman, her slightly bent face, seemed to cry while the little girl, sitting next to her, surprised looked at her. It was the very real photo with a little art but much emotion. I was certainly that the photographer did not intend to take art photos, but only to take pictures for news. But there were times when they suddenly took photos being not owned by photographers. I used to take art photos so I have known this. In order to take a photo of art and having its soul, the photographer must spend much elaboration, take it over and over again. Sometimes, the photographer can achieve in art aspect, but the soul is difficult to describe. Of course the picture above cannot be a work of art, but, in my opinion, it was very impressive. 

About ceremony of Ullambana, not only the Buddhists but also most Vietnamese people know about it.  It has become a national cultural festival of people. Previously, Buddhists came to the pagodas to attend the Ullambana festival because of belief. Today the pagodas organizes the ceremony of Ullambana to more educationally. It means that during the ceremony, the focus is on the organized parts. Those who attended the ceremony to feel the pious spirit through the example of Maudgalyayana. The ritual of attaching roses on attendants’ shirts and blouses symbolized the happiness and unhappiness of a child who still lives with or loses his parents. The robe-offering ceremony for monks and nuns revised the merit of blessing the parents, and blessing for grandparents and relatives who had passed away. It was the very meaningful Ullambana ceremony and a pious educational lesson for people of all ages. In the ritual of attaching roses, the speech of meaning of attaching roses was explained. It was an emotional part for the attendees and many people cried. I thought the girl in the photo might think about her father's highly grace. She probably regretted her making her parents miserable, and her making trouble because she did not repay for her parents and they had passed away. The ceremony was able to touch the feelings of the children towards their parents' nurturing virtues; therefore, naturally, her emotion surges cannot repress the tears of repentance. That sad feeling was really reflected in the girl's face. However, if the photo was only about that issue, it would be as normal as many other photos. The highlight here was the presence of a little girl, with innocent face and eyes, which contained lots of questions in it. The girl sitting next to her was probably her daughter or niece. When a little girl saw her mother or her aunt crying, she looked in a very innocent and special face; especially her eyes were looking at  relatives. Because of these eyes, the picture became highlights and left an impression on me. The two emotions happened at the same time. A person who perhaps missed her parents cried; another who was very surprised because she did not understand why his relatives cried. In addition,   just in that emotional moment the photographer took it. If he took the picture after a few seconds, perhaps he would not have a soulful one. The emotion of innocent girl like that suddenly appeared and disappeared very quickly, if there was a noise just ahead, behind or beside her, she would forget everything and turn her face to that direction. In fact, if she knew someone coming to take a picture, I would definitely not have such a photo, because she would turn her eyes towards the photographer and that lovely moment would be hard to repeat a second time.  As a result, the talent of the photographer was to capture the opportunity to produce valuable and meaningful photos. Certainly, everyone had different feelings when they saw the photo. However, I felt very impressed. After seeing that photo, I suddenly thought of writing this article. First, I would like to express my love for the photo with the innocent and cute face of the little girl; second, I would like to thank a person taking this picture. Hopefully, the photographer will have more impressive and emotional photos.

Translated into English by Huynh Thi Khanh Phung

Thanh Luong