A view from the bridge at Hanoi by Loes Heerink

A photography book filled with amazing pictures showcasing the diversity in colors and the life of street vendors in Hanoi. Photographer Loes Heerink spent hours waiting on bridges in Hanoi to capture the street vendors who walked underneath.

In Hanoi there are a lot of street vendors who roam the city with their bicycles trying to sell goods, from vegetables to flowers. Photography © Loes Heerink.

She recently launched a Kickstarter project to publish a book of these images. Words and photographs by Loes Heerink, below.

I want you to see what I see, the art that street vendors create every day. I am going to publish a high quality photo book with images from street vendors taken from above. I plan to have around 100 images in the book. With your help this project will be a success and you will be able to enjoy this colorful book filled with images from the roaming vendors of Hanoi!

I have lived in Hanoi for some years. Photographing the street vendors became a little project of mine. I would spend hours on top of a couple of locations in Hanoi waiting for vendors to walk underneath the bridge. I once spend five ours on a location with no shots.

This project started my fascination for the women carrying their goods. They have no clue how beautiful their bicycles are, no idea they create little pieces of art every day.

The street vendors in Hanoi are often female migrants that spend most of their days trying to make profits on selling fruit, vegetables, snacks and other small items. In the book I will highlight the beauty of Hanoi's vendors with pictures. All of the pictures are taking from different locations in Hanoi.

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I have had a lot of time to observe the women from a distance and they all seem to know each other; it seems to be a very small circle. Photography © Loes Heerink.

I wait on a couple of bridges in Hanoi and some restaurants with a balcony for hours on end to capture the street vendors. I love to see how the women have stored the fruits and vegetables on the bikes. Photography © Loes Heerink.

Most of the vendors are female migrants, who come to the city to earn a living. Photography © Loes Heerink.

I hope people will see the art that vendors create every day through their work. Photography © Loes Heerink.

I once talked to a vendor after she sold me bad fruit. She said the man at the market had sold it to her, but she needed to get rid of it otherwise she wouldn’t make a profit during the day. Photography © Loes Heerink.

This woman is in her late 70s. She still moves around the city selling fruit. She can’t carry the weight on her bicycle, so after collecting the fruit from the market in the morning she drops most of it at a friend’s place. She goes back multiple times during the day to restock. Photography © Loes Heerink.

Buoi, the woman carrying the fake flowers, walks 10km every day. She is a Christian and wanted to go home for Christmas but it is difficult to earn extra money at the end of the year, when the demand for fake flowers is not very high. Photography © Loes Heerink.

I started this project for two reasons: I want people to see the beauty I see, and I hope they will look a little differently at street vendors. Photography © Loes Heerink.

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More information

Heerink Loes

Loes Heerink. My name is Loes, I am a communication officer living in the Netherlands. In my spare time I love to practice photography. The idea to this book started in Vietnam. I spent a lot of my mornings shooting all the images I already have but it is not enough to publish a book. Once I started the project I felt vendors were so underrated, they get up early, have to work hard and long hours, and they make Hanoi so much more colorful than it already is. The fruit and vegetable vendors are little pieces of art that look different every day. I will promise you I will put my all in the making of this book.

Published on: November 5, 2016

Cite: "A view from the bridge at Hanoi by Loes Heerink" METALOCUS. Accessed

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