Patrick McDermott | Visual Journalist

Currently on a one to three week road trip depending on a certain final decision I make… Unlike my adventures in Asia, the cell phone and email both work!

Paris…how I have missed you.

Morning walks along the Seine, cups of espresso, afternoons at the Louvre, and a glass of Bordeaux in the city of light…

There are very few places in the world that I hope to one day live in, but Paris is on that list. For those of you who have not had the chance to visit Paris, do make it a point. No life should be lived without spending a few days in Paris.

And as I sit here at a corner cafe with a cup of espresso (maybe a few…), I find myself an ocean away from everything I knew so well, once again in this city at the beginning of a new chapter in my life. In a few days I will travel by train to pitch a long-term project that is in short my dream assignment as a photographer. My spring will be spent along the cobblestones, a visit to the Alps and Pyrenees during the summer, and a few cross-Atlantic flights mixed in for some very special weddings… I have indeed taken the road less traveled but look forward to seeing where it takes me. Until then, here are a few from the ‘City of Light.’

Over the last three months, I have had the privilege to live and travel in Viet Nam (with a brief stop in Thailand).

It is by far one of the most amazing places I have traveled to. The people are incredibly welcoming and the culture is amazing. Where else can you enjoy a cup of coffee served in a shot glass found within another cup of hot water? (And the coffee is amazing! Something that is extremely important in my professional due to the small amount of sleep I tend to get while on the road.) Or enjoy a bowl of pho on a busy street corner as the constant stream of motorbikes hum by?

It saddens me that I have not produced a body of work during my time here that comes any where near to capturing the aura of this country. But by the same token I was able to take some time away from my camera to do some much needed thinking, and I am a better person as a result. As Chase Jarvis once posted “Live a life without your camera for a predetermined time frame – a month or two or three. For me, this made me miss shooting soo much. I noticed things in the world that I longed to photograph. And when I picked up that camera again, I was hungry.”  So I hope that in the near future I can return and work on some of the stories that are so desperately needed to be told. But for now, check out the work of Justin Mott and Kevin German. Both are based out of Viet Nam and are doing amazing work.

So I’ll end here with a few photos from my last few days in Viet Nam…

Quick update: In the next few days I will be flying to Europe to pursue an amazing long-term photo essay. I am extremely excited about this project…but I can’t say much more than that right now. Hopefully it will find its way into the land of the yellow border at some point in the future.