This photo has sort of an interesting tale to it, I thought I would share the story.
The year was 1999, I had been photographing for a number of months on the streets of Bangkok at night. The 3 series I was working on that year were freelance sex workers(bargirls), street life and 3 hearts. Every night I would leave my apartment at about 8pm and take a bus or tuk tuk to the Sukhumvit sex worker bar area. I would then wander the streets, hotels, bars and restaurants making photographs till about 6am. After the night of shooting and meeting people I would head home take a shower, sleep for a few hours wake up and develop the film in my bathroom darkroom. I would then make up contact sheets, cut them into small pictures and place then in envelopes with the subjects name written on them. When I walked and made photos the following night I would hand out these little pictures to the people I had photographed the nights previously as free gifts. I had a steady stream of people asking to be photographed, I was happy making pictures and they were happy to be photographed and get the freebies.
One of these nights I was photographing some freelance sex workers on the street when the lady in the photo walked by slowly and sat down on a cement step near me, she seemed very very frail and about 70 years old. I finished what I was doing and walked over to her and sat down. I introduced myself and started to talk to her in the Thai language. I asked her what her name was but she said nothing, all she did was hold a blanket over her mouth and stare back at me. I asked her how old she was again in Thai and again there was no response. I tried the same 2 questions 2 or 3 more times but she just stared back silently. I think she was dying because she was so thin and weak and she had the most terrible smell I have ever smelled from a living person. The odor came from her mouth, I think she realized this and that was the reason she covered her mouth with the blanket. The smell was very very strong, almost indescribable it smelled like what I imagined someone would smell like when the inside of their body was dying little by little. At this point I asked her permission to make photographs, again she said nothing. I slowly raised my camera but she did not object so I started to make pictures. For the next 20 minutes I tried to communicate with her and made photographs while she silently stared back never turning away, one of the girls working the street saw her and sat down beside me and tried to talk to her but the dying lady said nothing to her also. When I figured I had the shot I stopped making photos and we just sat beside each other, then she got up and slowly started to walk away but then she seemed to have a change of mind and turned to face me. In very clear English she said " I am 47!" she said it with a hint of anger and defiance in her voice, then she turned again and walked off.
I am not sure who she was, I doubt she lived much longer after this photograph was made. I always imagined that she was a ex bargirl/sexworker dying of AIDS who came back to her old haunt one last time.
