If there’s a thing this writer remembers distinctly about the early 1990s, it would be nothing, because I was barely a person that could eat and survive by myself.
Which makes these photos taken from 1992 to 1994 all the more fascinating because they are a hodgepodge of the familiar and the strange. I can identify all the species present in the neatly arranged pyramids of fresh fruits; I recognize the shiny and hyper-ruffled wedding gown because my sisters got married in one of those; I can read the names of the deceased inscribed on tombstones — and yet, it feels strangely voyeuristic and surreal to marvel at these images, to transiently set foot in someone’s memories, because I’ve never lived these moments.
The shots are part of a collection of travel images taken by Flickr user Laurent KB, a French tourist who traveled across Vietnam in the early 1990s. Their subject matters are nothing new, but they are valuable as reminders of a crucial time, both for the one who photographs and the ones who were photographed, we can’t get back.
