Me and my camera in someone else’s home town, my SE Asia trip, my Bangkok
Bangkok is kinda insane. A giant sprawling relentless metropolis chock full of buildings, people and vehicles. It reminded me more of fictitious futuristic cities like Mega City 1 where Judge Dredd lives or an Asian Gotham. It makes London seem quiet and tame by comparison which is nuts in itself. Although the population seems more concentrated than London, it feels like it runs smoother, more in unison, more like a functional ant colony. There seems to be a more collective understanding with everyone moves at same pace in steady flows rather than here where everyone marches around at their own pace, darting about, pushing people out of the way as they fight for space. For example, despite a chronic traffic problem, there is almost zero road rage.
It is very hot and very busy and I found it slightly overwhelming when I first arrived. I was actually photographically paralysed for the first few days I was there and barely took my camera out as everywhere I looked there was something that I felt I should be documenting but somehow couldn’t. There was just too much to focus on and I didn’t know where to start. So I just tried to soak it all in and get a handle on the place.
I also felt that a lot of what I wanted to capture had already been covered by other photographers who’s feed I had seen on Instagram. I follow a lot of street photographers from all over the world and felt, in some ways, I had already seen a lot of what I was looking at. So I felt I really wanted to hold back, not just to snap away at every turn but to think about this new alien culture I was in and to try and get an understanding of what I was surrounded by before attempting to document it.
What does strike you immediately is how friendly and warm and smiley the Thai people are. Mostly. Obviously. But they are genuinely fucking lovely. Here’s a question for you…if you make a negative generalisation about people it is considered racist but what if you make a positive generalisation about a country’s population? Is that ok? Is that reverse racism? Is there a word for that? Positivism? Proracist? (answers on a postcard)
e.g.: “I love the blah blah people” “Oh my god, you’re such a positivist! Its 2017, you can’t say things like that anymore. Its respectful!”
Anyway, food for thought. Actually I should mention that the food is also spectacular. Everything we ate was delicious and every dish was like a little taste sensation firework display went off in your mouth.
What also I worked out about Bangkok it that it is a city that visually comes alive at night. It is also manageably easier to get around as it is essentially too hot with too poor air quality to walk around in the daytime. This is also slightly true of the nighttime but comparatively better. Next week’s photos will cover this nocturnal side so stay tuned for MYBKKnites..coming up!