Singaporean documentary photographer Amrita Chandradas, under The Everyday Projects, photographed Vietnamese women and their migration journey to Singapore as married women. This work, together with other women and migration stories, was published in the National Geographic magazine February 2021 issue. Every week Visual Stories Asia chats with visual professionals to reflect on their latest assignments. The interviews have been condensed and edited for clarity. Here is Part Two of her notes:

So how did your visual language develop as you got deeper into the assignment?

The visuals become stronger when you spend more time in the same place. At the same time, you were dealing with uncertainty – from impromptu things happening and wanting to photograph them in their natural state.

The only clear visual I had was photographing the unnamed Vietnamese women, caught in an unhappy marriage, with the Singapore skyline by the waterfront.

I spent time over-communicating with her about the context of the story, and built a relationship after several meetings. Interestingly, that waterfront was a place she and her husband used to frequent a long time ago.

And this image was one I was really clear how I wanted it to look, from the framing to the lighting and being highly familiar with the location. Everything else, my time photographing in Vietnam and working with the foreign bride agency, was on the go. Just going with the moment.

That’s fascinating. At the same time, by going with the moment, how then do you visually respond instantly to a scene?

Sometimes, while working, you can get this mental block. Like, how do I approach this place differently? How do I create something where the light is not so great? Or when there’s nothing much going on? Or how can you frame this to be a lot more interesting? I don’t know and there is no specific answer.

However, at the foreign bride agency, there was a lot of waiting. There were hours where I was not shooting anything and I just spent time talking. But things were unfolding. One girl might speak to another girl – and there is a slight smile, or a slight emotion from their conversation in Vietnamese.

And once you’ve hung around these places long enough, you can find different perspectives to make it more interesting than a straight on photograph. But to me, what’s more important was the image that would tell a story.

Appreciate you trying to answer because some visual professionals do give vague answers to that question. And you mentioned that you worked with a great editor in this project. How did she push your visual language?

First, Jennifer Samuel was super communicative with many text messages exchanged between us, encouraging me to try different things.

Second, all your images captured need to be in a hard drive and sent back to Washington DC. That itself made you question what you were shooting. Why did I shoot this? You dig into your entire process and it pushes you, and you ask: what else could I have done? This process questions your practice in some way.

Thirdly, when you send all your photographs, you too make a selection of images you think is good. Jennifer would have made another selection and then inform you why some images make the story better.

She doesn’t just assign the picture, she tells you what she thinks about the image, why it works or doesn’t work. But at the same time, she would ask: “What do you think?” And I’ve never been asked that before. I was fortunate to attend the National Geographic seminar last year and sat beside Jennifer as she went through the edits as well as meeting the other women photographers from this project.

Seems like there is a great peer and mentor support from this assignment. What was one lesson you took away from this experience?

Besides the resilience and strength of the Vietnamese women I have photographed, I have learnt to adapt to changing situations. If things don’t go your way, just go ahead, still shoot and communicate. Do whatever you can and try your best. Don’t panic. I learnt how to look at things differently, step out of the box and not just have this particular outline that you should be constantly following.

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Amrita Chandradas is a Singaporean documentary photographer. In 2014, she won the top 30 under 30 documentary photographers showcase by Magnum Photos & IdeasTap. Her work is seen at National Geographic, The New York Times, Timeout Singapore, BBC World, British Journal of Photography, NPR and Financial Times.