I have been developing some long lost films over the last few days, I spent upwards of 14 hours in the darkroom yesterday. Amongst a lot of so so work is part of the series I did in the Cambodian brothel at Poipet in 2003. These photos were some of the most difficult and personally dangerous I ever shot, at one pointed I was pressured into paying off 3 drunken Cambodian men who threatened me. It was a very ugly world and probably the hardest photos I have ever taken. Many of the people I photographed are no doubt gone by now, such a sad place and ugly life.
This sequence is of a baby that was in the brothel being raised there, the older women in the photo is the mama-son. I am not sure who the baby belonged to but I think it was part of the family and not from one of the brothel workers. The brothel was run by a Cambodian man and woman (lady holding the baby) and the brothel workers were Vietnamese with a few Cambodians. The clients of the place were 95% Cambodian males mostly low income workers such as drivers and laborers. One of the brothel workers I photographed had welts on her legs, she told me that the mama-son beat her with a wire hanger if she did something wrong.
