new -- color & b&w "'Bee' In Bangkok"

'Bee' (an assumed name for this Thai) is photographed in front of a

Chinese fortune telling shop in Bangkok, Thailand's large Chinatown

district in the early-mid 1990s. Your ratings, critiques and

observations are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly, very

critically, or wish to make a remark, please submit a helpful and

constructive comment; please share your photographic knowledge to

help improve my photography. Thanks! Enjoy! john

Great shot. Nice motive, very good handling.

Tommy

Thanks Tommy,

This started out as a snapshot, but I just couldn't contain my photographic instincts.

I was married for about 17 years and during that time didn't take ONE family photo snapshot.  I let my spouse do all the family photographing; I felt I had no sense for that.  I knew she enjoyed it, and I absolutely loathed taking photos of people lined up staring into the camera, UNLESS they're,say, surrounded, as here, by figures of dead people and horoscopic wishes to send with people into the afterlife.

However when all the circles, heads of all the figures, head of the subject, and even the circle on the center of the subject's t-shirt line up, then I'll be satisfied with a subject lined up and staring into the lens, because as here, the subject has some unusual company.

I had no audience then, or, as the famous fictional boxer said, 'I mitta been somebuddy.'

Ah well.

Life's short, then you die.

With a little luck, some of us photographers will leave something behind to be savored and maybe in some instances snickered at by future viewers who 'discover' and maybe 'savor' some little 'photographic morsel' here that we captured and left for future generations.

Thanks, Tommy,

john

John (Crosley)

Target-shooting.....

Maybe not the strongest photo in your portofolio, but it fits in well. I like the way she looks away in contrast the huge target-sign on the shirt. "Look here! But not here!". Surrounded with all the faces, it's got something nice alienating. Too bad on the left there aren't more faces like on the right and in the back, but well, since this is no orchestrated shot, you can't have it all ;-)

I wanted to take a photo of this shop which I thought was devoted to funerary objects as it was in a funerary district of Bangkok's Chinatown, but since original posting of this reworked and rescanned photo, Photo.net members have informed me it is a fortune telling shop; perhaps a palm reading shop or a psygionomy shop, but nonetheless devoted to telling the future.

I had a guide, this person 'Bee' pictured, and asked 'Bee' to stand in, and when I saw the painted upper bodies with heads, and saw that Bee's head and upper body together with the target on 'Bee's' midsection lined up somewhat I wished that 'Bee' were tad bit shorter, but that was not to be.  I recall asking 'Bee' to try standing 'shorter' but it looked hokey, so that was abandoned.

Still for a very momentary shot, this worked out pretty well.  I've saved it since the early-mid 1990s as one of my most precious shots of Bangkok and representative of my best early/middle B&W work, and only for photographic value because it's 'interesting to me', and not for any other reason such as personal reasons. 

As you say, it may not be my finest shot, but it certainly is different; I'd challenge you to find a similar shot anywhere.  As noted above, I don't take 'snapshots' or if I attempt to do them, I try to put a little something extra in them to make them rise above, as here.

I hope I have succeeded.

The highest compliment my work can get, I think, is that it's 'interesting' or 'most interesting'  for that's my goal -- to capture the viewers' interest, and not by any clichéd means, such as though sex, nudity or celebrity, but by presenting my viewers with photos that they can think about a little bit and say to themselves,  'I never saw a photo like that before, and it's interesting to me'.

I feel that even for the manqué parts you point out, somehow this one has a 'hook' that interested you just as I hoped.

john

John (Crosley)

Interesting shot and a good story about this moment!

I like that you call this 'interesting.  It validates everything I try for in my photography.

What good is it to take photographs that no one wants to look at or finds boring or uninteresting?

I'm glad this one interests you.

By the way, I understand in far off Ukraine there is an unseasonal huge snowstorm that is snowing everyone in . . . . giving the lie to the news 'Springtime' season.  'Global warning?'  What global warming in Ukraine?

I'm sorry for you if you're snowbound.

And the government I understand turns the hear off in a little less than a month with temperatures now (I read) of minus ten Celsius.  Will there be enough time for Ukraine to warm up to turn off the nation's central heat for six months?

In Bankkok, this was taken in December (Northern hemisphere) and note the manner of dress; there's never even a long sleeved shirt needed in Bangkok, although in more northerly parts of Thailand it can get colder.

And in more northerly parts of Thailand, the sky is literally awash with insects -- layers and layers of insects, wherever there are city lights and no aerial, anti-insect spraying.

It's another world -- hot humid and three or five showers a day except for the dry March (very hot but dry) season.  There was no visa required for Russians and Ukrainians  at that time to enter Ukraine except as a formality on entry last I heard -- just arrive then, pay a fee and a formality visa was issued, but that may have changed.

Best to you, and thanks, from a one time part-time Thailand resident with my former Russian wife (to be) and her daughter.

john

John (Crosley)

'Bee' is a woman.

Bee was born a male.

Bee had a transformative operation and from far before the depiction  regarded herself as a female.

I have been careful throughout this posting NOT to refer to 'Bee' by the pronouns that indicate sex, such as 'he' and 'she', as I considered what I think 'Bee's' feelings might be on such disclosure.

However, this is an enlightened age, and even at that distant time 'Bee' was forced by her own circumstances to be 'enlightened', so on reflection, I have little difficulty now making that disclosure.    It's relevant to those who read what I write carefully and may have wondered why I did not write about this person in my usual way. 

That is the reason - I wanted a little time to ponder while I made a final, decision.  In any case, 'Bee' did not keep that fact a secret but did not parade it around either.

When I first learned of that, I was somewhat shocked; now I am much more tolerant. 

Times have changed.

For the better.

john

John  (Crosley)

Interesting. The longer the story goes on the bigger the fish becomes. What next?