Bangkok Photo Walk: My Photos

Here’s a selection of images taken during yesterday’s Photo Walk. The first guy was selling apples from a stall on Yaowarat in the heart of Chinatown. Cool hat, eh? He sold me some apples but apparently I couldn’t afford the hat.

Here’s an example of something that I teach in my photo classes: no matter how strong the rapport you have with somebody you meet, the moment you lift a camera to your eye their pose is likely to stiffen and become serious. That’s OK, and I’m happy with the considered look on this man’s face in the first portrait but by moving the camera away from my eye, re-establishing eye-contact and grinning like a buffoon I managed to prompt a much more spontaneous reaction that showed off his gleaming silver teeth. It’s out of focus but, nevertheless, shows a much more cheerful side of his personality and you might argue that it adds to the spontaneous feel of the image. Well, you may not argue that but I might.

This lovely lady offers “Hairy! Drag Out! On your face you will feel shiny. Pimples, by dirt, plug up. Help blood cyclic. To a new young look. Traditional style by Chinese expertise”. What’s not to like?.

I’m not certain exactly how the process works but it looks like the victim’s client’s face is covered with a fine powder which the beautician (?) then removes by pressing a piece of twisted cotton into the skin. The cotton is pulled taught with the end held in the mouth and the resulting twist removes the powder, hair, pimples and anything else in its path. I asked this young girl how it felt. She gave a pained expression and declared solemnly “Hurts too much”.

After a good meal and fine company at the Lek & Rut Seafood restaurant I ventured back onto Chinatown’s main street to get some pictures of the local vendors. The man in the black “The Who” T-shirt was selling roasted chestnuts, offering free samples to passers-by but, unfortunately, having to work hard to get people interested.

Chestnuts are roasted with a type of black stone. Some people say it’s a mix of sand and coffee but whatever it is gives the chestnuts a dark, gold hue. They’re very sweet and very filling. Well, when you’ve had two boxes they are! The small boy was selling floral offerings to diners eating at the roadside restaurants.

This lady was selling packets of tissues and chewing gum outside an ATM on the main road. I’ve already suggested this week that you can’t beat old ladies and here’s further proof. You can never have too many tissues or too much chewing gum in my book so after we’d completed a swift transaction I sat and shared a few moments with this kindly soul. It was the highlight of my day. Probably not the highlight of hers but at least we made each other laugh.

No visit to Chinatown would be complete without the requisite panning shot and the low-light provides a good opportunity to get slower shutter speeds. This was taken at 1/15th of a second, which is about the best speed for a tuk-tuk in my experience. Buses and taxis? 1/30th. People walking? 1/8th. It varies with the speed of your subject and your proximity to them of course but those are good speeds to start at. I like the fact that the passenger in the back of the tuk-tuk had carefully picked a vehicle where the wheel would match his orange shirt. People are SO considerate.

If you were on yesterday’s photo walk with me and have yet to upload your best images for consideration in the competition then please log-in to the web site, go to the dashboard and follow the instructions for uploading.

Posted on Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 12:15 am. Filed under: My work RSS 2.0 feed.