The Beginning of Khon Thai

Spent the night here at work in Canada looking at the photographs of August Sander. The image below speaks to the strength of his work as a portraitist, he would photograph people and be honest but also treated them with a dignity and respect. That's the trick isn't it, to be honest in your photographs but also treat your subject with dignity and respect.

The beginning of the khon Thai project is 2 months away. It is in one sense scary because I will be working completely by myself outside of my normal Thai comfort zone. I will be speaking a foreign language, working in a foreign country in places I have never been before, without assistants, all on my own. In another sense it is very exciting, the thought of creating new and meaning full work has been a dream of mine for years. I want these photographs to be an honest depiction of the Thai people, I want to show the good and the bad, I want to show their strengths and weaknesses their joys and sorrows and to do this with fairness and dignity.

I wish I had more time to photograph (have a bit less than 5 weeks) but in the coming years I expect I will have more time, this is just a start, a taste of what's to come. If I can keep healthy and if the photographs continue to inspire me, I could be working on the project for 20 or 30 years.

Hopefully the work can one day be put together in a book for wider distribution and also collected by museums. I want the photographs to last past my lifetime and to be a tribute to the people photographed.

Photograph by August Sander