During the day, bangkok is a bit in the messy side, especially if you are off the normal tourist route. But at night you can’t see the trash….. people start to come out and it can often be shoulder to shoulder walking down the street. Get into the malls, and the temple of capitalism is fast at work grinding out profit for the high priests…..

Occasionally you will meet a disabled beggar, there are not too many so I always give some coins. Many people say these people are controlled by local mafia, but that doesn’t deter me. They are obviously desperate, and there is little else I can do to help.

The food is amazing anywhere you go. One of the real benefits of living here a long time is that my body now has resistance to most nasty bacterias…..  but on the whole food is pretty well cooked. I once knew a girl who travelled to Thailand on holiday for two weeks, and didn’t eat Thai food once because she was afraid she would become sick…. what a tragedy! Thai food has some of the most exquisite flavors in the world, certainly worth risking being sick for! The street fruit is worth a  try too, watermelon goes for 10 baht a bag (about 40 cents US) and if you have never tried Durian in season, well there is a reason the Thais call it the king of fruits….. once you get past the smell, you just fall in love with this fruit, its addictive, like a drug!

I met some people today who were in Bangkok only for 1 day (to save time on a tour). Another tragedy, this city would take weeks to get your head around, and even longer to just absorb the culture and feeling of the place.

Next post I should show you some Kuala Lumpur shots at night…………….

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I still remember 11 years ago sitting in a  classroom with my Thai language teacher in Chiangmai. I was on the verge of tears. I thought that I would never learn this crazy language.

The Thai language is a tonal language. This means that the same word said with a different tone, can mean totally different things. For example the word “mai” said with a  low tone (l) means “new”. “Mai” said with a rising tone (r) makes a question.  ”Mai” said with a falling tone (f) means “to burn”. “Mai” with a rising tone (r) spelt a different way means “silk”. So if I ask a Thai person the following question “Mai (r) mai (l) mai (f) mai (r)…. aka mai mai mai mai, I have asked the question “does new silk burn?”
And tones aren’t the only problem with this language…. there are strange consonants. There is the sound that is a cross between a b and p . And then there is the sound which is a cross between a d and a t ….. and the list goes on.

The short version is this, eventually I did learn to speak Thai. In fact 4 years later, I had a weekly radio show teaching English in Thai. I must say, that wasn’t all plain sailing though. One time my radio announcer asked me “how do you feel living in Thailand?”. I wanted to answer “The immigration department calls us aliens on the immigration forms, and I feel like an alien sometimes.”  Instead though a simple mispronunciation  I said that I felt like a man with different breasts………   The announcer collapsed with laughter as did half of Chiang Mai.

Playing with words

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These language differences make for some great word plays, and therefore humour. I find it quite handy to play the dumb foreigner and play with word pronunciations. The Thai do it too, but with a  bit more finesse.

You can imagine how handy it is standing in an elevator listening to people make comments about me, like “he’s got hairy arms” and acting like I don’t hear anything. Then as I get off the elevator I say something in Thai like “I don’t have hairy arms…. you should see my wife!” I love the look of shock on people’s faces!

All this goes to say that, language is vital for connecting with people. Even if you are a tourist staying in a luxurious hotel, making a little effort can get you a long way…..  Some people really do try hard when they come to Thailand. I remember one time seeing a tourist wearing a cane rice steamer on his head, because he thought it was a hat!   He must have worked it out eventually since there were so many suppressed laughs on the street!

Two kinds of portraits

There are two kinds of travel portraits. One is the lucky portrait.

This is when you manage to catch someone in the distance with a long lens with that “faraway look”. Here you are left wondering “what was that person thinking about?” And then there is the intimate engaged portrait.

This is where you have connected with a person, and caught a moment with a person, got a glimpse of the real person, and a shot into the soul. This is just as important on the street as it is in the studio. Even when I am shooting 360 degree Virtual Tours (panoramas) having engaged people makes all the difference in the shots.

How do you engage people to get that intimate look?

Really, you have to spend time with your subjects. In the studio, I make time to talk with and laugh with people before and during a shoot, and even after.  Recently I shot a couple who said that the photo shoot was the highlight of their trip to Thailand!  On the street, on farms, in refugee camps, wherever, the key is to connect with the people you are shooting. I sometimes freak-out when I see a photographer just charge up to someone and stick a camera in their face….I usually talk a bit, make em laugh, ask about their family, work, day, etc and then ask if I can photograph them. Of course they know thats what I’m going to do from the outset, especially with my Nikon D700 and 70-200 lens round my neck!

How to talk to people

Fortunately, I was born with some crazy genes. I mean, I do crazy things. One day at a shopping mall, I picked up a naked mannequin and put her under my arm, and started walking around the mall… much to my kids’ dismay! Another time a joined a crowd of teenage hiphop/break dancers. A sight to be seen (not explained) really. Being a little nuts, really helps you connect with people. Tell a few jokes, and then click away at those smiling faces. I think this is why my photos have a certain look. Kind of a happy look. Even shots I take in refugee camps and difficult areas tend to have a hopeful feel to them.  Thats my trademark.  I think there’s enough sadness and depression in this world without making it look worse.

Everyone has a smile to give somewhere. Its fun being a photographer to catch that glimpse.

I was lucky enough to find a group of junior monks playing soccer in Southern China, and got a once in a lifetime shot.

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What does it take to build a temple like this one? This built by the Shan people in Southern China.

Again, the detail in this photograph is achieved by taking 54 photos and making a HDR panorama. The HDR means that we get a complete color and light  range and the panorama means we get one huge file! This  one as a Tiff is about 150MB. Thats a lot of pixels and one very clear picture. The computer screen hardly does it justice! I wonder if we could print  it up to the actual size  of the temple? Maybe not quite….

The Shan people of Burma have been suppressed and brutalized by the Military regime for more than 50 years. But just across the border in China, the Shan people have been free by the Chinese government to prosper. As an ethnic minority, they are helped by the government to prosper.They are even allowed more children than the Han Chinese who are restricted to one child by government policy.

In the city of Manshi (Dehong) in Southern Yunnan this beautiful Shan temple stands on the hill overlooking the city. I honestly felt awed by it.  I wonder if I will feel the same when I one day photograph the Taj Mahal?

The building feats that men are capable of, are amazing. But only when they are free to do them.

I long to see what the millions of Shan in Burma are capable of, once they are freed from the iron fist of greedy men.

I only hope they use their creativity to express their freedom and joy to their Creator.

This one man was just so excited to see me as a potential for buying the nail clippers in his hand. I snapped the shot, and paid him by buying the clippers. But check out those eyes. What an amazing guy. Wish I had spoken Chinese. I’d have loved to get to know him.

And then there are those gazes where you just wonder “what is that person thinking?”

I think this is why I love portraiture so much….. its a window to the soul, connecting with the eyes.

I shot this 54 shot HDR panorama from the window of my hotel at dusk. I didn’t have my tripod, so I jammed the camera into the window frame, and got dead still shots even though some of the frames were over a second long.
The photo below says it all, tall skyscrapers in the foreground and foundations for brand new ones in the foreground. The green spot in the middle on the left is the phosphorous lighting of a building site. Building never stops, men (and women) are at work 24/7.

I love cityscapes. They were the first kind of photos I made when I was learning photography. Its pretty amazing what man is capable of doing!

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Chinas economy is growing at a massive rate, I was frankly, quite shocked.

But in the Deep South, on the border of Burma and China is a whole different story. We met Kachin people running across the border from the  Burma Army gun. They were living in Warehouses and rented shacks. Where does a refugee get money for rent? Here on the Chinese border they have no rights, no opportunity to work. Here they are at the mercy of all sorts of economic forces.

One lady (her name was Sisi) and her family travelled 25 kilometers from her village to get to the border. She bought with her all her savings and food she could carry with her. It lasted a little over a week. When we found her, she was planning to return to her village in Kachin State to see if she could find some potatoes to bring back to her family at the border…..   During her interview with us she said…..”I quite expect not to return from Kachin State,  I will be captured and used as forced labour.”

Many women have been raped by BA soldiers inside Kachin State since this conflict has arisen, another fate possible for thousands of women like Sisi who have to return to the region out of desperation.

We  left behind money for Sisi and about 200 other refugees that she was leading. The next day we arranged for delivery of rice and staple foods to 2000 more people in that immediate region.

There are now also thousands of people hiding in the jungles of Kachin State. We are working with local women’s networks to find and care for the most vulnerable.

I work with an amazing organization called Partners Relief and Development.