19 | July | 2009 | Leo Laksi's Bangkok And Back

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

Archive for July 19th, 2009

Worldwide Photo Walk 2009 in Bangkok Chinatown

Chinese decoration

Yesterday I took part in the 2009 Worldwide Photo Walk in Bangkok’s Chinatown. I never heard of this event before earlier in the week when my friend Foofookie excitedly told me that we should participate. I checked the website, drilled down to Bangkok and found that Jose’s group, of the three, had ONE opening. I signed up and I was set. My friend, Foofookie, and I met at the Bangkok subway station and away we went. Along the way, I met Aaron, an American from Texas, who was on holiday in SE Asia for a month or so. I invited him along.

My group

We walked to our rendezvous point near Wat Trimit on the edge of Chinatown. There we met our group. After the customary group photo, we divided into three subgroups and off we went. My group was led by Mel who did a great job navigating around Chinatown.

Jose's photographers

We then began our walk through some of the most congested urban locales in the world. Lots of traffic, noise, crowded sidewalks and of course, plenty to things to shoot. In the first 30 minutes of the two hour walk, I wasn’t sure what I was going to shoot. The crowds made up my mind for me and I focused on street life.

Little girl, big camera

After the walk the three groups met at a local Thai restaurant for a bite to eat, a little to drink and some conversation to share. Altogether about 100 people ended up at the restaurant on Soi Texas.

Today I went through my photos looking for two I could submit to the contest and eventually decided on the two below. There are a few others that I thought were decent but the rules called for only two submissions. So here they are:

I noticed the old lady from quite a distance and decided to stand still and wait for her to pass my location. She looked extremely tired with beads of sweat everywhere. Today while looking at the photo I couldn’t decide if I liked it better in color or black and white. Of course I opted for the black and white.

Hard working woman

In the photo below, I watched the woman walk on the street in my direction. Instead of “tracking” her with my camera, I framed the view across the street and she walked “into” my frame. In post-processing, again had a hard time deciding color or black and white. Opted for the former. The other decision involved to crop or not crop. My first thought was to crop the man on the left out of the photo. I then decided to keep the photo intact as I believe the slightly blurred man adds some balance to the photo.