History of Thai Sex Worker Photos

I was asked by a APUG member to explain a bit about the reasons/motivations behind my ladyboy images, here is that post:
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I originally started making photographs in Thailand in 1996. I had never photographed outside of Canada and the USA so it was a big expedition for me. I had read about the bar life and thought that the people (woman at that point) that worked the bars would be a great subject to document. I wanted to show the reality of their lives. When I got there (sex tourist areas) I was so nervous and uncomfortable I could barely communicate. I remember going into (actually got pulled in) my first bar and ordering a drink, not knowing the scene, not knowing the language, not having any friends, sweating like hell from the heat etc . I was so nervous my hand shook when I tried to drink my coke. This current project started there that night for real because I got to see first hand who these people were. I got to watch the interaction between the girls in the bar and the people running the bar (Mamasan) I got to see the reactions of the girls to their customers and customers to the girls and I was hooked! The more I learned that first trip the more I got involved. I started to make friends started to make a few poor photographs. I grew to feel a deep compassion for the girls working the bars.

The 1996 trip lasted 3 months, in 1999 I returned to Thailand again this time with a clearer understanding of what I was trying to say. I decided I would photograph on the streets, that I would do outdoor portraits of freelance sex workers.

http://gerryyaum.com/BG13.htm
(note: webpage has a typo, photo was actually shot in 1999)
I stayed in the country that trip for about 8 months with side trips to Japan and Cambodia. I found that I needed to learn to speak Thai so that I could communicate with my subjects and understand the country better, so I started the long trip down the Thai language highway!! Am still a long way from ending that journey. The photographs I made were all non nude, I wanted the images to be non exploitive and I worried that nudity might exploit the people I was trying to understand. The problem was that later when I showed the work, people would often be surprised that the girls were sex workers. I felt that my images were not communicating the message I wanted to tell. I was trying to be a sympathetic voice for the people I felt were being used by Western sex tourists but I was failing in that message. I also learned thou that the situation was much more complex than I initially thought in 1996. The more I learned the more difficult it was to understand things, you could not just go with the simple answers because this sex scene world was very complicated.. As I learned the language and the more friends I had both Thai and Westerner (farang) the more difficult it became to categorize things.

The next trip was in 2003, I went to Thailand for 1 year this time. This trip I shot color as well as b/w film. I decided that I needed to photograph in the shortime rooms and that I needed to show nudity but I wanted to show it in the proper way, in a non sexual fashion, I wanted the nudity to be honest and straight forward and true to the reality of that persons life. I ended up shooting both clothed and unclothed images in the rooms the girls took their customers to and sometimes in their own private rooms. This photo for example is shot in a room shared by 4 girls working a shortime sex bar.

http://gerryyaum.com/BG2.html

My next trip was in 2007, I went all out this trip. I only had 7 weeks to travel I spent 1 week in India and 1 week in Nepal, with the 5 weeks left over I rented a room in the bar area and set up a small studio in Thailand. I took 3 overweight check in bags and 2 overweight carry on bags loaded with equipment. I took a 4800 watt Speedotron flash system and a power transformer/converter(changed Thai 220 power so I can use it with my 110 Speedotron). I had a white background, 4 flash heads, 4 light stands, 1 tripod, 1 8x10 Kodak Viewmaster camera, light meter, 10 8x10 holders, 5 5x7 holders, extra flash tubes, 5x7 back for the Viewmaster, 300mm Nikon lens and a bunch of other stuff...also about 400 sheets of 8x10 tri-x and 200 or so sheets of 5x7 tri-x.

I wanted to broaden my subject matter, to tell a more truthful story of the sex worker. I photographed:

Female Sex Workers………http://gerryyaum.com/SW1.html

Male Sex Workers…………http://gerryyaum.com/SW28.html
and
Ladyboy Sex Workers…….http://gerryyaum.com/SW16.html

I wanted to not only tell the story of the woman who work the scene but also of the men and ladyboys. I wanted to photograph with compassion who they were but I also felt my feelings were changing somewhat, these people were not just victims, things were more complex than that. I wanted to show them as individuals who were being exploited but also as people with a certain amount of freedom of choice.

This last trip was for 3 weeks, 1 week I was at a Thai funeral for a friends father and for 2 weeks I shot the ladyboy series that you see on APUG. The ladyboy photographs are a bit different than the other ones at least the experience of shooting them was. When I photographed the woman workers in 1999 and 2003 I felt they were being used by the system, exploited for the most part and mostly unhappy in their lives. I found with the ladyboy shoots thou that many were happy with where they were, that they actually enjoyed the life to a certain degree and that thou they might be unhappy in their personal lives the sex with foreign males was not something they necessarily disliked. The woman sex workers from the earlier years almost to a person disliked sex with their customers but the people I met this trip seemed to be responding differently.

My feelings on the scene changes from trip to trip, maybe what I feel now or what I think I understand now is wrong and maybe next trip I will learn more and my opinions will change, but that is what it is all about, learning and experiencing that world and trying to understand.

Sorry for the long winded manifesto but why I make these photographs is not an easy answer for me. I guess when it comes down to is that I do it because I am curious and I want to understand and also because I think I owe it to the these people who are often forgotten. Many times when you work as a sex worker your here one day and gone the next, disease, physical(sexual) and mental abuse all take their toll. I have known maybe 1000 people in this industry in Thailand but if I go back today maybe only 50 or so people would still be around. I always felt it was important to make photographs to remember them. It sort of becomes like an obsession, I can see the faces of the people I have met in my minds eye, I can hear their voices and I feel a responsibility to make portraits of them, to make a record that they were important people that mattered. Maybe that is sort of egotistical but I feel it is a responsibility to document their lives, sort of like something I owe them.

The ladyboy series shot in July this year is a continuation of that, an attempt to learn and understand people and a world very different from the one I was raised in.

hope that explains things a bit clearer regarding motivation and history of this whole thingy!