Pompous Ass?

I have been writing a intro for the various series I will show this Thursday. How do you write one of these things without coming across as a pompous ass? I have revised and edited so many times I am getting sick of the whole thing! I think putting the pictures into some kind of context and explaining things a bit for this Western Canadian audience is a must, but boy this is not easy to do, give me a camera instead please!

Here is the final cut, best I could manage:

Gerry Yaum Documentary Photographer


Series: Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok Thailand 2010
Photographs: #G1-G6

Klong Toey is the largest slum in Bangkok with a population of around 80 000, its shack homes, schools, restaurants and other businesses are built illegally on government land owned by the Port Authority of Thailand. The slum runs next to the Chao Phraya river, along a canal (Klong in Thai = canal) and on both sides of an in use railway track. Photograph #G1 shows the canal and slum shacks built under a freeway. Photograph #G4 shows local children on the railway track with their homes on each side. When I was making the photographs I would sometimes hear the cry of “Rot Fai Mar” which means “The train is coming”, everyone would get off the tracks and move to the safety of their shacks or onto nearby walkways and wait for the train to pass. The trains would run through the slum more than 20 times a day, some of the shack doorways were within 4 feet of the passing cars, it was quite dangerous but everyone seemed accustomed to it, even the children. One time as I was concentrating on making pictures a young child came up to me and said to me “The train is coming”, she took my hand and led me to a safe area.

Klong Toey can be dangerous at times, there is a striving drug trade as well as other criminal activity but the kindness of the people quickly made me feel at peace. Everywhere I went smiling Thais approached and spoke to me, the children were especially curious. The young boys and girls in photograph #G4 were learning English from me and acting up for the camera, they were fascinated by my skin color and large Western shaped nose. Another time as I was sitting and talking to an older Thai woman 2 young twin girls each around 6 years old came up to me, they stared at me closely eyes filled with wonder, then one leaned forward and gently pull on my nose (to see if it was real?). What I remember about Klong Toey now is the children, curious and smiling, they have so much promise and possibilities in them but will they get the chance to fulfill that promise?




Series: The Peoples Project, Thailand/Cambodia 2010
Photograph: #G7

The “Peoples Project” is a new series of photographs I have recently started to work on. The hope is to do hundreds of portraits on both sides of the Thailand-Cambodia border. The Khmer (Cambodian) and Thai peoples have a long history of animosity and violence. I want to show the common traits the people of these two countries share, and by extension show how all human beings are connected. The goal of the series is to capture our common humanity in photographs.

I was lucky enough to have the first photograph from this series “Young Monk, Chiang Khong Thailand” (photograph #G7) purchased by the Alberta Government through their Arts by Acquisition program, it was added to their permanent collection.

The boy novice monk in the photograph is following a tradition most Thai boys undergo. A Thai male usually becomes a Buddhist monk at least one time in his life. He might only be a monk for a short period of time or it might last several years, either way it is an important foundation for his future life and something his family will be very proud of.

Series: Brothel, Poi Pet Cambodia 2003
Photographs: #G8-G11

These photographs were made at a brothel in the Cambodian border town of Poi Pet, the brothel workers were women (girls) of Vietnamese heritage most likely smuggled across the border into Cambodia, the brothel customers were mostly Cambodian men. Poi Pet is a Wild West town of corruption and trade, many Cambodians from the town travel into Thailand on a daily basis to work or sell goods.

The brothel was run by a Cambodian family, an older man and his wife who lived there with their young daughter and grandchild. The portraits were made in closet sized short time sex rooms in almost complete darkness. The rooms held just a single mattress with a small standing space, these small crawlspace rooms would sometimes be dressed up by the girls with magazine pictures of Asian movie and pop stars or pictures of happy couples and families.

This brothel was probably the ugliest place I have ever made photographs. The girls were desperate and broken; they had the faces of old women, there was a quiet resignation in every movement they made. One girl Ly acted out for me how the mamason (the boss/owner of the brothel) beat the backs of her legs with a stick when she did not do as she was told, she showed me 3 long scars on the back of both her legs.

The young girls in these portraits were photographed in 2003, 8 years ago. Brothel workers in Cambodia have poor to no medical care and go with possibly 10 men a day, the likelihood that the girls in these photographs have since died of HIV/AIDs is high.


Series: Thai Sex Worker, Pattaya Thailand 2007-2009
Photographs: #G12-G14

These portraits were made on location in 2007-2009 with a large format 8x10 film camera. I photographed upwards of 50 workers from the bars and streets of Pattaya Thailand. The photographs #G12-13 show Mat a ladyboy who is a friend I have photographed 6 or 7 times through the years. In these two portraits you can see Mat before and after her breast surgery.

Pattaya city has the largest red light district in Thailand and probably the world. There are thousands of sex workers in a variety of venues, gogo bars, beer bars, massage parlors, short time sex bars and freelance workers. The customers of these bars and massage parlors are international sex tourists. The sex tourists are predominantly male both straight and gay, from every country around the globe. Different areas of the city are devoted to a different type of customer, Arab customers, Asian customers, Gay customers etc.

I originally started photographing sex workers in Thailand during my first trip to South East Asia in 1996, my goal has been to humanize the statistics, to put a human face to the ugly words, prostitute, hooker and whore. By giving those words a face and a name, I hoped I could help change attitudes. I tried to learn about the workers lives and then document them as the unique human beings they are, before they were used up, replaced and forgotten.

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