Just wondering

[Ray]

Last time I was in Bangkok, I did some walking around the back streets and took some shots of the local scenes there. Because I'm emotionally attached to Thailand in general, I wondered if some of these shots make sense on their own, from the more objective perspective of an outsider.

Attached is one such shot.

[Ray]

Come to think of it, the image needs a bit of cropping on the left. Following is the modified version. Boring or not?

[Rob C]

It's not the side of the pic, Ray, it's the flip-flops: which dog had been wearing them?

Rob C

[Ray]

It's not the side of the pic, Ray, it's the flip-flops: which dog had been wearing them?

Rob C

I see. So is this the entriguing enigma? Does this question impart a certain profundity to the image?

From my perspective, I don't bother at all about keeping pets. (Except of the female homo sapiens variety, of course, in my imagination).

I thought the photo might be interesting in terms of what happens when the owner of the shoes steps into them.

[Rob C]

I see. So is this the entriguing enigma? Does this question impart a certain profundity to the image?

From my perspective, I don't bother at all about keeping pets. (Except of the female homo sapiens variety, of course, in my imagination).

I thought the photo might be interesting in terms of what happens when the owner of the shoes steps into them.

Well, to answer that, Ray, you require the missing facts as outlined in my thoughtful response to your original post.

In the unlikely case that the flip-flops actually belong to someone else, then I suppose one could consider the situation where the canines might have had a moment of ecstasy with them - you know, as other pooches might when I have just finished washing the alloys on my little motorcar. On the other hand, the one on the right - canine, not wheel -seems a little porcine in build, so that might be suggesting something or another. Can you go delving any more deeply into the file to see if more relevant information is logged therein? Or even within the flip-flop, to be more accurate.

Rob C

[RSL]

Ray, I have a thing for Thailand too after having lived six months in Ubon Ratchathani and a year in Udon Thani. Those three pups seem a lot healthier than the poor mutts I used to see on the streets up country. Maybe that's because they share the flip-flops when they go out.

[Rob C]

Ray, I have a thing for Thailand too after having lived six months in Ubon Ratchathani and a year in Udon Thani. Those three pups seem a lot healthier than the poor mutts I used to see on the streets up country. Maybe that's because they share the flip-flops when they go out.

Good heavens, Russ! I hadn't noticed the third one at all (the one on the left as you look from the camera); perhaps they have been breeding behind the footwear. I'm told that feet and their coverings do have a strange fascination for some.

Rob C

[Ray]

Ray, I have a thing for Thailand too after having lived six months in Ubon Ratchathani and a year in Udon Thani. Those three pups seem a lot healthier than the poor mutts I used to see on the streets up country. Maybe that's because they share the flip-flops when they go out.

Nah!  They just live in an up-market part of Bangkok and are therefore better fed. Here's a few more shots taken in the same area, the sort of images you don't find in the tourist brochures, for good reason.

I got a glimpse of this railway line from my hotel window in Sukhumvit Soi 1, which is pretty much in the centre of Bangkok. It seemed there were people living right next to the track. I assumed it must have been a disused  line, until I heard a train go by. So next day I took a walk along the track to see what was going on.

I guess you were in Udon Thani during the Vietnam war, Russ. I understand there used to be a  US Air Force base there. I've visited the area only briefly. I'll check my archives, just out of interest, to see what photos I've got.

[Rob C]

Ray, if urban (very) railways are your thing, the symbiosis of men, women, children and machine, then I think Bombay offers a better bet. Unfortunately, Sinatra only half-mentioned a bar there, but perhaps he had Ava or her bullfighter on his mind at the time.

Rob C

P.S.
I have to admit, what with your tigers, monks, lady-boys et al, I do admire your courage! On the other hand, are you seven feet tall?

[Ray]

Ray, if urban (very) railways are your thing, the symbiosis of men, women, children and machine, then I think Bombay offers a better bet. Unfortunately, Sinatra only half-mentioned a bar there, but perhaps he had Ava or her bullfighter on his mind at the time.

Rob C

India? Is that an acronym for I'll Never Do It Again? 

[RSL]

Interesting Bangkok neighborhood. Here's one from Ubon. The house I lived in for a few months is just out of sight to the left.

[Ray]

Sure looks a sleepy place, Russ. Having checked my archives, it seems I didn't take many shots in Udon when I was there. I stayed in a hotel a bit out from the city centre. I noticed one day, from the balcony of my hotel room, people fishing, and took the following shot. That's about it, plus a shot of a waitress in a restaurant, and a few other even less interesting shots which I won't bother to process. 

[RSL]

Nice waitress.

That place was sleepy all right, as long as you were careful to bolt your doors at night to keep out the Kamoys. A couple months later the 8th Tactical Fighter Wing moved into Ubon AFB, and everything got a lot less sleepy. I probably shouldn't do this, but you can read some short stories I wrote long ago about Thailand at http://www.russ-lewis.com/asia/Shorts/ShortsFrame.html.

[Ray]

Russ, I see you are a writer as well as a photographer. Your accounts of 'bar life' in Thailand seem quite realistic. You really do have an emotional affiliation with that country, as I do, but in different circumstances.

I had my 21st birthday in Bangkok in 1963. I was teaching English and having a wonderful adventure in an exotic land, so much so that I found it very difficult to adjust to 'normal' life in the UK from thereon. Emigrating to Australia, which is close to Asia, seemed the best compromise.

I have a scene in my memory of sitting in a bar in some Soi in Sukhumvit, chatting away to an American GI who was on recreation leave from Vietnam. At some point in the converstation the GI asked me what part of America I came from.

I was surprised, and replied that I came from England in the UK. The GI was also surprised, and a bit confused. "But I can understand you. You speak American", he retorted.

I began to explain that I spoke English and that American was an imported version of English which had been modified in spelling and accent. He didn't seem to understand, so the topic was changed, but I was left with a disturbing question as to how many Americans are not aware that the language they speak had been imported from the UK a few centuries ago.

When it comes to descriptions of Thai culture at the visceral level, the writer John Burdett fits the bill. Have you heard of him?

He's basically writing detective thrillers, related in the first person from the perspective of a Thai policeman whose father was a GI and whose mother was a Thai whore.

The reader is not only getting a pretty good thriller novel, but an exposition of Thai culture, including the corruption and drug dealing in the Thai police force and the Thai Army, and the rivalry between the two forces. Even the spooky Buddhist religion, with its magic and theories of reincanrnation, are a strong part of the narrative. All thoroughly entertaining, in my view.

[Rob C]

You see how much more interesting many of us become when we depart from photography? Never could understand why the inner mechanics held such fascination for anyone not earning their crust from it: nut screws washer and bolts, eats shoots and leaves - punctuate to taste. As long as you can make the damned thing work, get a pretty picture from it, why sweat blood about anything else?

It never concerned me how Kodachrome (or TXP 120) was manufactured, how many fairies could dance on the dye or a particle of grain; as long as it was consistent, 'twas all that mattered. The rest was up to me. However, had I worked for Ilford or Kodak...

Rob C

[Ray]

Rob,
In the days of film I wasn't particularly interested in the nuts and bolts, but the digital revolution changed that when it became possible to gain almost complete control, so easily and affordably, over every aspect of the process of making an image.

Having made that initial modest investment in a camera, a computer and Photoshop software, the fact that I can take as many shots as I like without financial constraint, have the option of processing the digital negatives in so many different ways and see the results of my efforts on the monitor almost immediately and in great detail, without any further expense apart from the occasional upgrade of equipment, is a fascinating thing.

[RSL]

Ray, If the GI who was confused about the English language had been R&R-ing from Ubon in the early sixties he'd probably have been talking to people at the Aussie fighter squadron across the runway from the American establishment at Ubon. I went to Ubon in 1964 as operations officer for Lion Control, the Ubon radar site. At first I had better luck understanding the Thai than I had understanding the Australians, though I soon developed a grasp of Aussie colloquialisms. There were only about a dozen officers on the U.S. base in those days, and we were welcome to hang out in the Australian officers' club. Sometimes I was a little less welcome, because I could beat the Aussies at darts.

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

Rob,
In the days of film I wasn't particularly interested in the nuts and bolts, but the digital revolution changed that when it became possible to gain almost complete control, so easily and affordably, over every aspect of the process of making an image.

Having made that initial modest investment in a camera, a computer and Photoshop software, the fact that I can take as many shots as I like without financial constraint, have the option of processing the digital negatives in so many different ways and see the results of my efforts on the monitor almost immediately and in great detail, without any further expense apart from the occasional upgrade of equipment, is a fascinating thing.

My "day job" for 35 years was teaching math and computer science, and I always looked forward to spending time in the darkroom as a blessed relief from dealing with technology. I resisted caving in to the "digital revolution" (or "going over to the Dark Side," as i like to call it) until a planned trip to the Canadian Rockies in 2004. I was worried about what the airport scanners might do to my precious Kodachromes, so I bought my first DSLR, a Canon 10D. But not trusting "digital" I also brought along a film canon, so I could use the same lenses on both.

I shot almost everything on both cameras, and the digital ones were generally better than or at least as good as the Kodachromes (even as jpgs --- I had no idea what "raw" meant at that time). Thus began my fall from grace.

Learning enough about PhotoShop and "printing by numbers" was painful, but now there is now way I'd go back to film or the darkroom.

Whoda thunk.

Eric

[Eric Myrvaagnes]

I was surprised, and replied that I came from England in the UK. The GI was also surprised, and a bit confused. "But I can understand you. You speak American", he retorted.

I began to explain that I spoke English and that American was an imported version of English which had been modified in spelling and accent. He didn't seem to understand, so the topic was changed, but I was left with a disturbing question as to how many Americans are not aware that the language they speak had been imported from the UK a few centuries ago.

Ray,

As an American, I can assure you that there are many Americans who may know that they speak some variety of "English" but who probably think that the name of the language comes from the part of America that consists of the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. I'm afraid too many Americans have embarrassingly little understanding of the rest of the world (or even the fact that there is a rest of the world).

Eric

[Rob C]

Ray,

As an American, I can assure you that there are many Americans who may know that they speak some variety of "English" but who probably think that the name of the language comes from the part of America that consists of the states of Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. I'm afraid too many Americans have embarrassingly little understanding of the rest of the world (or even the fact that there is a rest of the world).

Eric

[/b]





Aha! Just like some Mallorquins, then, who hardly acknowledge the 'peninsula' as the Spanish mainland is fondly called.

Had, eventually, to leave the little 'art group' to which I'd been invited to become member because at meetings, though the folks all bilingual in Mallorquin and Castilian from birth, the native members wouldn't speak the national language - Castilian - and only spoke in Mallorquin, a delightful mix of Italian, Spanish, French and lashings, I think of Maltese, yet another closed loop! Reading it is not quite so difficult, but the sound is impenetrable.

A great way to go: language as instrument of non-communication.

Long live myself.

Rob C