Some assignments never go according to plan. On a recent assignment to the city of Hue in Vietnam for the Wall Street Journal it was supposed to be pretty straight forward. The writer, John Krich, had given me all the information and contacts and all I needed to do was to visit these old houses and shoot them. Simple.

But oh no, it was the middle of a very hot Vietnam summer and the country was going through one of its worst droughts to date. Most of Vietnam’s electricity comes from hydro-power and with the government selling all its extra electricity to China and Laos the result is not enough for its own people leading to planned blackouts of entire towns.

Hue was not spared from this. From 5.30am till around 2pm one part of the city would be without power and from 2pm to 7pm the other part would be. Turning up and expecting power was no longer a luxury so I had to work out which house would have electricity when and when I would have to make sure all batteries and laptop was charged. Shooting in a room in 40 degree heat with no fan is not the most pleasant experience!

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During a March 2010 assignment for the Wall Street Journal Asia to Kampot, Cambodia, I took the opportunity to dash off to Kampot’s famous salt fields after I had finished the assignment. At these fields Cambodians produce salt they way they have for centuries. Brine is poured on to flat ‘fields’ made of compacted mud and then left to evapourate. The salt crystals are then scraped off and stored in large wooden sheds from which it is sold.

For a full selection of images you can visit my website www.lukeduggleby.com or my archive.

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I had been told about this incredible island by a friend in Bangkok. A tiny place in a remote region of Indonesia that hunts whale, sharks and dolphins using spears. It was a place I had to visit and so in April 2010 I had the opportunity to go. It took 2 days for me to reach from Bali and that included a flight! But after plane, bus, boat and truck (in that order) I arrived.

For centuries the village of Lamalera on Lembata Island, with Flores to the west and Timor to the east, has hunted in this way. They are legally allowed as they are catagorised by the IWC as Aboriginal Whaling and really the amount they catch a year, at the most 20 large whales, is miniscule.

But with the opposition to commercial whaling that Japan creates every year often means that this little village also gets branded with the same label. The fishermen are very aware of this as in recent times several western activists have gone to the village to seek alternatives. The issue here is the balance of the village. I have never seen a better example of community sharing, something completely lost in the west. Every catch whether small fish or a 60ft whale is carefully divided and distributed throughout the village, the size of your share are in proportion to your role in the catch. The strong, the old, the young all receive their share. This meat is then either partly consumed or used in a weekly barta market to exchange with inland people of corn and rice. No money is exchanged. It is a place of complete equilibrium and no matter what your feelings for whaling are any interference in this unique way of life will upset this incredible balance.

As one local man put it ” The issue here is not the conservation of whales but the conservation of an ancient culture”. I couldn’t agree more.

To see more images please visit my website www.lukeduggleby.com or my archive

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A recently completed body of work came from the Dhammakaya Temple located in Pathum Thani Province  on the outskirts of Bangkok. Over several months I visited their incredible ceremonies one by one and was awestruck by each. It’s one of the world’s most influential movements, staging Hollywood-style epic ceremonies involving hundreds of thousands of participants and observers, yet few are even aware of Dhammakaya, despite its worldwide centers, millions of members and 24-hour satellite broadcasts. Even in its home base of Thailand, most people know of its influence and prominent members, but little of how the temple actually works, why it attracts such reverent followers or the exact philosophy it follows.

The ceremonies are a photographers dream although their sheer size makes them tricky to cover all the angles in one go. But I was lucky enough to be given fantastic access to the ceremonies that truly left me astounded. Writer Ron Gluckman (www.gluckman.com) came a long to several of the ceremonies to write a piece about the temple.

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