A Bangkok scene reminiscent of 50 years ago
I’m thinking that maybe we need some variety here. Not that I’ve lost interest in my SC photographs, but maybe you are ready for a change.
I’m planning to go to Asia again and so I decided to look at what I’d done in Thailand when I visited there about 5 years ago. I wanted to see what I’d done right and what I’d done wrong. I have a tendency to excoriate myself when I see my photos are total losers. I forget that when I am ‘on the scene’; the situation is far from perfect. Maybe if I’d included a bit more in the photo, I’d have included a pile of trash or some other detail that would detract from the vision I wanted, etc. etc.
This woman is working at the last floating market in Bangkok. Once this was the normal way for people to shop in Bangkok, but now the floating market is strictly for tourists and the Thais who work in the area of the floating market. As usual I wanted to portray life as if it hadn’t changed in the last 50 years. So, I tried to exclude all parts of the scene that would show plastic bags, cafes full of tourists, tourist gewgaws etc.
I had a good vantage point. I was on a pier and was higher than the people on the canal. I could run up and down to follow the little boats to get more photos of a subject I liked.
Here is a woman who is selling bananas. She wears a typical Thai sun hat. (The conical hats are typical of Viet Nam.) Her paddle stirs up some highlights in the water. I’m glad about that as otherwise the water would look like mud. The diagonal line of her paddle is a plus. A diagonal is a strong geometric statement and much easier to come by than the sought after ‘s’ curve or ‘c’ curve.