Pictures & ideas flourish at the flower market

I met up with Mike Robson this morning and we spent a few hours wandering around Bangkok’s fruit and flower market, taking pictures and pausing occasionally for a cuppa and a chat about photography in general and photo tours and workshops in particular.

Mike’s an ex-Marketing guru and a terrific source of ideas, all of which I’ll be taking with me as I begin to plan my activities for 2009. One of the projects I’m hoping to introduce next year is a one-day Bangkok workshop. However, we agreed that “workshop” sounds too much like work so I’ll be coming up with a title that more accurately reflects the sense of fun that inevitably accompanies photographing in Bangkok. Perhaps I should call it a “funshop”?

“Happyshop”?

I’ve been contacted several times recently by keen photographers who’ve seen my work online or in magazines and who are coming to Bangkok and want to spend time taking photographs away from the tourist trail. It’s nice to know that visiting photographers are enthusiastic about this side of Bangkok and I’m learning what a wealth of opportunities there are to create memorable and engaging images in places rarely visited by tourists. Bangkok’s temples and palaces are magnificent but I also understand the attraction of taking photographs of more authentic local life.

So watch this space whilst I get my head around the concept and come up with the sort of itinerary that would appeal to me. It’s exciting stuff! As always, subscribers to my newsletter will be the first to receive details.

The funniest part of a fun morning came when we encountered this little girl playing chess although I’m not convinced that all of her moves were completely within the rules. One move seemed to consist of scraping a knight rapidly across the board, sweeping other pieces onto the ground and I don’t seem to recall Kasparov ever using that gambit.

When her mother urged her to smile for the Farang photographer she came up with what can only be described as a full-on grimace. It’s not really her best look although it is a perfect illustration of her cheeky character.

Movie: Bangkok Lightning

The evening thunder clouds came straight over the city, making a bee-line for my apartment tonight. I can’t resist trying to record storms but still images weren’t any good this evening as the lightning flashes were mostly above the clouds rather than bolts striking the ground and so didn’t record on even the longest exposures. Plan B: the video recording capability on the Canon G9 isn’t quite up to the reported standard on the soon-to-be-released 5DII but it’s good enough for a quick bit of web streaming.

So there I was tonight, sitting on the balcony, catching up on some BBC podcasts and sipping an iced tea with the camera on a tripod beside me, recording the action. If only all my photography could be made in such a leisurely fashion.

Free Desktop Wallpaper: October 2008

The free desktop wallpaper for October is a shot I took at the very charming Baan Lotus Guest House in Ayutthaya. As the name suggests, the guest house is situated next to a large pond and the lotus flowers open early in the morning, slowly closing until they have all but disappeared by lunch-time.

I’ve re-introduced the calendar this month. Some of you had asked for wallpapers without a calendar so you could continue to use them after the month had passed but then others starting asking what had happened to the calendar. So, if you’d like a version without the calendar just drop me a line and I’ll set you up.

October 2008 Wallpaper (1024×768)
October 2008 Wallpaper (1280×800)
October 2008 Wallpaper (1280×1024)
October 2008 Wallpaper (1920×1200)

Click the link above for a wallpaper appropriate to your screen resolution.

Catching up: a miscellaneous blog post

If I had a blog category for “Miscellaneous” then this post would surely fall under it. But “Miscellaneous” always seems a bit vague to me so we’ll go with “Travel” although this post is a quick catch-up on several things I’ve been meaning to share.

2008 - My plans for the remainder of the year

Firstly, and most importantly right now, I’m beginning to prepare for my upcoming trips to Bhutan and Nepal. I leave next week for Bhutan in the company of a group led by Tewfic El-Sawy. Tewfic has been to Bhutan a number of times as have many of the other people in his group so I’ll be the newbie. Our itinerary includes several festivals and the photo opportunities will, I’m certain, be extraordinary.

Any return to the Himalayas is special for me and the excitment is growing as I begin to make lists of what to take. I’ll try to post details of my packing list as I know it’s of interest and I’ve been asked to share that information before. If nothing else, I’ll put up a list of my camera and computer gear.

Not content with two weeks in Bhutan, after just three days back in Bangkok at the end of October I’ll be jumping on a Thai Airways flight to Kathmandu. I’ve got a month there and hope to meet up with David duChemin at the end of his stay in Nepal. I have some commissioned work there but will have a lot of time for my own projects and am really looking forward to returning to the Langtang Valley where I’ll meet up with my guide from 2004 and spend some time in his village. I’ll trek out to Gosainkund and then walk all the way back to Kathmandu. It will be especially nice to be pretty unrestricted and have the freedom to proceed at a leisurely fashion, stopping for a day or two where the mood takes me. Wow! Just writing about it gives me goose-bumps.

And then I’ll be back in Bangkok for December although there have been distant mumblings about a trip to Indonesia before the end of the year or the beginning of ‘09. During all this time I’ll be keeping in touch with editors in the UK and US, managing my online stock sales as well as the vagaries of local Internet connections allow and making plans for 2009. It’ll be a busy time but you couldn’t say that it won’t be an exciting and adventurous one!

Web site update

Regular visitors will have noticed a change to this web site design. I know, I know, I change it more frequently than some people change their underpants. But there’s a good reason. Truly! Without boring you with the technicalties, I was using Rapid Weaver to create my site offline and then updating it when connected. That’s all tickety-boo and Rapid Weaver is an excellent piece of software. However, with so many trips to remote areas coming up I decided to migrate to a Wordpress installation so that I can post from Internet cafes. I can also post from my BlackBerry but I can still write posts offline with the verstaile Mac Journal software and then upload later. It is, as they say, the best of both worlds.

So there’s a bit more tidying up to do but most things came across really easily. I haven’t yet been able to import the Haloscan comments but I’m sure it’s possible so hopefully they will reappear at some stage. In the meantime, please introduce yourself with a comment when you feel inspired to. It’s nice to know who you are and what you’re thinking.

To the Manner Born

Completely unrelated, today’s Bangkok Post includes an article on the perceived differences between Western and Thai etiquette. It lists the following tenets to be observed at a dinner party:

• Never intentionally embarrass another guest
• Don’t gossip
• Don’t pry
• Don’t ask personal questions
• Don’t stare or point at another guest

My question is this: if you’re going to observe these restrictions, what would be the point of having a dinner party?

Loving the Pocky

Finally, an article I read recently gave guidelines on how to write blog posts and recommended keeping it short. It reported research demonstrating that 86.3% of blog visitors read every word of the first few lines, scan quickly across the next few paragraphs and are reading vertically by the time they get this far down the page. With this in mind I can say pretty much what I fancy at this stage without fear of many of you ever reading it.

That’s probably just as well because I have to make an admission. Since arriving in Bangkok I have developed an addiction. I crave Pocky.

Pocky, a biscuit snack covered in chocolate, was developed in Japan and can be found on the shelves of every self-respecting Seven-Eleven in Thailand.

Indeed, I have just returned from the Supermarket clutching, amongst other things, a box of Strawberry Pocky. The illustration on the box shows luscious, ripe strawbwrries. Would I be on shaky ground if I suggested that my Pocky have probably not been anywhere near a real strawberry?

Nevertheless, I’m a slave to Pocky and am slightly concerned about the cold turkey I’ll undoubtedly experience when in Bhutan and Nepal and far from my regular supplier. It’s probably for the best I suppose, I have to get this Pocky monkey off my back somehow.

Researching this post I obviously went to Wikipedia, which has some interesting “facts” about Pocky including a list of the many flavours. I also checked out the official Pocky web site and haven’t got a clue what much of it is about but it seems that you can buy Pocky in Second Life and we will soon be able to enjoy Pocky: The Movie.

There’s a “Friends of Pocky” club, which might soon see a new member but, best of all, there’s a competition where entrants draw Pocky Art, creating characters to match different flavours. And the prize for the best entries? Why, a box of delicious Pocky of course!

Back to the serious stuff

Only 2.74% of my readers will have reached this far down the post so congratulations if you are one of the hardy few. There’s been little about photography in this post and we’ll be getting back on track next week. Members of the Bangkok Photo Club meet on Monday night to share their six favourite photos so I’ll post mine here after that meeting and explain what it is that I like about each image.

I’ll also be posting news of a new Photo Tour that I’m planning so look out for that next week too.

Bangkok Photo Club: Lumpini Park

Members of the Bangkok Photo Club have been taking photos at Lumpini Park in the centre of the city.

The park is a wonderful place, no two visits are ever the same. It’s very busy between 5am and 7am (I’m told) with people jogging, doing aerobics and taking Tai Chi and other outdoor classes.

But as well as being a good spot to exercise it’s a very popular place for social gatherings. Families meet up at the weekends and various food stalls are kept busy with people buying snacks and drinks to share.

There are two lakes and pedaloes are available for those who enjoy a romantic paddle on the water. The swan-shaped boats are, of course, de rigueur.

Here are a few of my own shots from the park and I’ll post a link to more from the club members on Flickr as they appear.

This is a favourite of mine. It might be difficult to see in this web-sized version but the runner on the left has spotted me and is giving a friendly smile and wave for the camera. In London the best you’d be likely to get is a suspicious look and the worst… well, the police would be quoting anti-terrorism legislation to you within seconds I’m certain.

Nothing manipulated in this shot of swan-head pedaloes. I did ask the attendant to leave them where they were as he was in the process of turning them around to face the same way. I like the heart-shape formed in the space between them. How romantic!

I frequently find myself taking part in exchanges that go almost exactly like this on every occasion:

“Where are you from?”

“England”

“How long will you stay in Bangkok?”

“Oh, well, I live here now”

“Oh, very nice”. Big grin.

“How long will you stay here?”

“I’m not sure, maybe one year.”

“Very good”

“Yes. I like it in Bangkok.”

“Oh, good.”

“May I take your photograph?”

“Oh, yes, of course”.

And this is pretty much how all my chance meetings begin. I’m beginning to replace my English responses with a few Thai words that I’m slowly picking up and that always gets a positive reaction with a slight deviation from the usual script, something like:

“Where are you from?”

“Ang-grìt” (England)

“Ah, you speak Thai?

“Nít nòi” (A tiny bit)

Invariably met with laughter.

And so it was with the subject of the photo above. I was taking a shot of some people walking around the lake and he started the conversation. He comes to the park every morning to read his law books apparently although that looks suspiciously like the cartoon page from a newspaper on his lap.

This woman saw me walking along the path with my camera, waved and smiled and was always going to be a willing subject. The only thing I find is that smiles turn to serious expressions as soon as the camera gets in the way. I’m working on ways to combat this and the best results are often in the second or third shot where I’ve managed to goon around sufficiently for the serious pose to replaced by a grin. However, I quite liked the more serious look on this occasion.

And as for these two, what a pair of characters. I’m pretty sure you could have found them on that very bench at the same time on any day in the past thirty years. They look like creatures of habit. I’m still not entirely convinced about the split-tone black and white version but they are both wearing bright, yellow shirts and it’s a bit distracting. I may return to this one. Indeed, I might go back just to check if they’re still there and ask if they’ll mind being photographed again.

So, there you are, your introduction to the delights of Lumpini Park. More images from this fascinating space are sure to follow.

Vincent Laforet offers first 5D MKII video

Vincent Laforet has posted a video shot exclusively with a prototype of the new Canon EOS 5D MKII.

He has nothing but praise for the camera’s video capabilities and suggests that the new 5D will be a “game changing” camera.

I don’t know, I love the idea of shooting video and Laforet gives us a glamorous offering but we all know that the 5D is more likely to be used to make wobbly recordings of new-born babies and kids’ birthday parties than it is to shoot a man in a helicopter at night wearing sunglasses and clutching a rather limp bunch of flowers.

Photographer’s location guide: Bangkok

My location guide to photographing in Bangkok appears in the current edition of Digital Photographer magazine.

I’ve enjoyed writing a location guide to Bangkok. It’s a great city for photography and we’re blessed with such a great variety of subject matter that it caters for all tastes and styles of photography.

I’ve also written a photographer’s guide to New York City, which will appear in the next edition of Digital Photographer and am currently finishing up a similar guide to Budapest which will appear in the edition after that I expect.

Photoshelter Collection closes

I’m disappointed that Photoshelter is closing its stock “Collection” after only one year in the marketplace. One year doesn’t seem to be a very long time to have been in business and if the guys in charge had only planned to give it 12 months from the outset then I think most people could have told them that wouldn’t be long enough.

However, I suspect it’s more to do with the venture capital guys needing the reassurance of a quick return or at least feeling that the line on the graph wasn’t rising sharply enough. Perhaps they got cold feet as the talk of “credit crunch” becomes ubiquitous.

Apart from the fact that Photoshelter did genuinely seem to have a different and energetic approach to the stock industry with the added bonus that they weren’t intent on flogging off photographer’s work for pennies, they also had some innovative ideas. The “School of Stock” pages have made for interesting reading and the recent Shoot! The Day event seemed like fun, even if it wasn’t immediately relevant to me.

I never really got around to investing time into putting my own work into the Photoshelter Collection, a fact that I’ve been reprimanding myself over for several months but for which I am now exceedingly glad. That’s the bit that really sticks in my throat, all those people who have invested their time and energy into shooting, processing, keywording, captioning and uploading files only to learn that it’s all been for nothing. I’d be spitting bullets.

Every cloud has a silver lining though and the silver lining in this case comes in the shape of blog stewardess Rachel Hulin. Rachel was Photoshelter’s Queen of Blog and her regular posts had become essential reading for photographers, photo editors and anyone who just fancied a bit of photo titillation now and again. Rachel’s started up her own blog though and I recommend you add it to your RSS reader. I’m intrigued to see what she comes up with now she’s no longer constrained by needing to keep corporate bosses happy. If, indeed, she ever was.

Canon EOS 5D II and Powershot G10

In the race to be the first to bring you a picture of the new Canon EOS 5D MKII, I win. Almost. The 5D replacement specs are as follows:

21.1 Megapixel, full-frame CMOS
Full HD video at 1920 x 1080
DIGIC 4
3.9 fps
Live View
3” LCD
EOS Cleaning system

Check out the dpreview article on the new release. The EOS 5D II is expected to start shipping at the end of November and will be about £1500 in the UK I expect.

UPDATE
List price for the 5D MKII is $2699 in the US, that’s £1512 at today’s exchange rate.
List price for the 5D MKII is £2299 in the UK

Those figures again? £1512 in the US, £2299 in the UK.

Seriously? Who are they trying to kid? We are being stiffed. Stiffed, I tell you.

A United Airlines return flight from London to New York is £302 today. And when you get to NY you can do all your Christmas shopping, pick up your 5D and still have got a better deal than you’d get at home. And as you board the plane for the return flight you can shout “I DID THE MATH!”

Also, as correctly predicted by yours truly, Canon announce a 14.7 megapixel replacement to the G9 with the new G10. They didn’t call it a GX for some reason but my other predictions were eerily accurate.

That’s all the dork talk for now. There will be much said about these new models from Canon and the video function on the 5D is certainly interesting. The increase in pixels is, of course, attractive but so too are the reported improvements in noise handling and shadow detail. The sensor cleaning function in the 5D MKII is also a selling point although it’s becoming pretty standard issue these days.

So there you have it. It’s finally arrived and we can all get back to taking photographs and not suffering from any sort of gear envy at all. Can’t we?

Personally, I’m increasingly drawn to the Holga range, perhaps getting back to basics is the way to go.

Return from Ayutthaya

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I’m alternating between the Lonely Planet spelling of “Ayuthaya” and the more common spelling of “Ayutthaya”.

I usually stick with the Lonely Planet spelling of place names just for consistency but in the case of Ayutthaya the double-t option is more commonly seen. There’s something more pleasing, visually, about the extra “t” I think.

But you didn’t come here to hear about my adventures in the land of Spelling, you came here to see pictures so without further ado…

These kids were playing some kind of complicated hop-scotch game in the mud outside of one of Ayuthaya’s main temples. I sat for a while and tried to work out the rules but it basically boiled down to the kid in the green top losing each time.

So, to set the scene, here are a couple of shots of the Khmer style temple at Wat Chaiwatthanaram. The weather in Ayutthaya did its best to make me feel right at home by pouring with rain for much of my stay. Consequently, getting a shot with any sort of interesting clouds was a challenge as the skies were most often flat and grey.

This Wat has a similar style to the Angkor temples in Cambodia and was built at around the same time. Depending on what you read, this temple was either built by King Prassatthing in order to make merit for his mother or to commemorate his victory over Cambodia.

Ayuthaya boasts dozens of temples scattered around the town. Some are popular tourist destinations whilst others are far from the beaten track and can only be discovered by accident. The picture above comes from Wat Yai Chai-Mongkhol, one of the better ones for photographers as it contains rows of Buddha statues, or Buddharupa, on all four sides of a central quad. Did you know that each Buddharupa is different, the face supposedly based on the sculptor’s own?

I’m afraid I can’t tell you the name of this temple as it’s not shown on any map, doesn’t appear on Google Earth and I haven’t been able to track it down on the web. I hired a motorbike for a few days in order to get out to some of the more far-flung temples. I find that pootling around without any definite plan is often the best way to discover places. And so it was with this place. I almost drove past but a small shrine caught my eye so I turned back and parked the bike under a tree.

I snapped a few shots of the shrine and the Buddharupas and very nearly ignored a decrepit old shed with a rusty tin roof nearby. Sometimes it pays to be a nosy though and my curiosity led me to poke my head around the door where I was greeted by the sight of an enormous reclining Buddha.

It must be over 25 feet tall and perhaps 150 feet long. It’s difficult to say. Judging by the amount of gold leaf on the Bhuddha’s arms and chest it is obviously visited by local people quite regularly but probably not by many tourists. It was a nice find on an otherwise grey day.

This monk was inside the reclining Buddha shed and was struggling to give his dog some medication. Every time he tried to empty a syringe into the dog’s mouth the dog would either skitter off or just let the contents dribble out of the corner of it’s mouth. What was obviously needed was a gullible tourist to run around the shed, catch the dog and hold it steady whilst the medication was administered. Still, I got a few photos out of it.

This face, full of character, belongs to a devotee I met at Phra Mongkonbophit, a more modern temple that contains one of the largest Buddha statues in Thailand.

The devotee carried a walking stick. The head is in the shape of a seven-headed Naga snake.

Climbing into the back of a tuk-tuk one evening after shooting a temple at dusk I still had my camera on a tripod. Placing it on the floor and wedging it against a seat enabled me to get some long-exposure pictures on the way back to my Guest House. This is a 15 second exposure and yet the back of the tuk-tuk is remarkably sharp.

Ayutthaya boasts an Elephant Krall where elephants were once herded. These days, rather than moving trees or fighting in wars, elephants carry tourists along the street through the Historical Park where they pause for pictures in front of Phra Ram temple. I spent a couple of hours in the elephant enclosure and really wanted to get a close-up of an elephant’s eye. If you’ve ever been up close with an elephant you’ll understand what I mean what I mean when I say that they seem to be incredibly placid creatures. However, when something is as big as a house I can’t help being suspicious of it, no matter how gentle it might seem.

Finally, to the Buddha head stuck in the roots of a Bodhi tree. I remembered correctly, it was difficult to photograph in anything other than a straightforward way. There’s no point trying any fancy techniques when you’re photographing it, zooming in, twisting the camera to create blur, it’s all gilding the lily. It’s a unique image and I concluded that that’s sufficient.

You can emphasise the mystical qualities in the post-production and I’ve tried to do that although I’ve yet to export a version that I am one hundred percent happy with.

The rain really helped pull out the texture in the tree roots in the shot above and it was one of the few times when I’ve been thankful for a downpour.

The final frame from Ayuthaya has been desaturated to create a greyscale file although I’ve put back the green channel as I think the leaves add a little bit of subtle colour that works in this context. I still feel like there’s another image of this Bhuddarupa head in the Bodhi tree that I want to get before I’ve got my “definitive” picture but these are close.

What do you think?

Additional pictures from Ayutthaya can be found on my Portfolio page.

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