Written By - Gabriele De Capitani
Hostel Living
Dolphins Hostel - Hoi An , Vietnam
As many of you might already know, one of the ways I managed to stretch my savings for so long during my trips has been by volunteering. I subscribed to an Organization called Worldpackers and booked my first exchange in a Hostel in Hoi An. While my initial job was to greet guests, engage with them, and invite them to join events and pub crawls, I was quickly moved to managing the social media side of things. This was my first time properly living in a hostel, and I must say, I absolutely loved it. I met so many interesting people, ate some weird things, always found someone with whom to go on a little adventure, and never felt alone.
This brings us to this picture, possibly my absolute favourite from that time. This is my friend Fin. I met him while playing foosball and pool in the common area; little did I know at the time, but a few months later I would travel for 14 hours to see him in Germany. One morning, I had him write in a special book of mine while I sneakily framed it and took this picture. The water bottles in front of him and in the foreground are a great reminder of the constant heat and humidity of Southern Asia; the girl to the right is checking in at the hostel, while the man in the back just rented a scooter and is about to go on his own little adventure. All these elements, I think, are a great representation of what any traveller might experience: people leaving, living their own experience, others bonding with new friends, all the while faces show up to start the cycle again. I chose a B&W silhouette for this picture as I thought to Archetype my friend, having him be the representation of any one traveller, reflecting on his experience and writing it down before moving on; around me, people live their own stories.
Dolphins Hostel - Hoi An , Vietnam
While meeting people and having fun at parties is definitely a big part of hostel life, once a year, Dolphins Hostel organizes a food donation for the poor people of Hoi An. People gathered in front of the hostel doors, making it almost impossible to walk through, and when the donations began being distributed, they rushed inside. I was asked to document this moment and, while I can’t say I’m very comfortable photographing people in need, I felt like I had control over my work and would be able to portray the moment appropriately.
In the instance captured by this photo, I was fortunate enough to capture someone staring right into my lens. I thought this would be quite a powerful moment to share, almost like the viewer is being judged for watching something they weren’t meant to. The three women wearing the traditional agricultural hats remind us of the location the scene takes place in, and with the volunteer and recipient in the foreground, the main subject feels a bit suffocated and rushed along by the commotion of the moment.
Tiger Tiger club - Hoi An , Vietnam
Speaking of meeting people and having fun at parties, you might expect some crazy party pictures of people doing amazing dance moves or being very drunk. While that may or may not have happened, I have instead decided to share this simple table.
The thing is, this isn’t a particularly good picture: there isn’t great separation from the background to the subject, the framing appears off, nothing very interesting is going on, and it probably means nothing to most people. The reality is that I took this picture very quickly just before leaving, purely because of a memory. This table and chairs probably have many stories to tell.
A group of new friends sitting after a long night, happy and enjoying life, but deep down, upset they weren’t able to get over their fears of talking to members of the opposite sex, like they had promised each other they would. As they sat there comforting each other with the usual excuses, something extraordinary happens.
As if out of nowhere, someone sits at the nearby table and the group goes silent. Without a word, but with an extreme level of telepathy, an incredibly coordinated and improvised plan, comparable to something out of an “Ocean’s 11” movie, comes into action, and one lucky member of the group manages to overcome his fear and make a move. As if the sky were a paid actor, it starts to rain, making everyone else run away and leaving the tables and chairs wet, while giving the two of them some well-wished privacy to chat the night away.
Perhaps this table has seen something like this before.
Whether this story is real or not doesn’t really matter; it takes more than an apparently unimpressive picture to prevent imagination from building around it. The chairs are positioned in a way that alludes to people sitting on them, the lighting in the back illuminating a scene that hasn’t happened yet, and the chairs in the very foreground just asking for someone to dramatically appear on them. Leading then to the water on the chairs, which alludes to the idea that rain (which falls there every night exactly for 2 hours from 8 pm, by the way) must have caused everyone to leave.
I think It’s always the viewer’s imagination that decides what to make of a picture.