Yauk Doo!!!!!!!!!

At one point today after I arrived at the gym I decided to see if I could go to the gyms running area and take a few photos of some of the children. I wanted to do some heads, upper body and heads of the children. Lets flash forward about 10 minutes, I now have children all around me, they are playing with my film holders (not touch, please do not touch!), they are swinging from my tripod, and everyone is trying to take photos with my cable release. At one point I start lifting a lineup of young boys and girls aged 9 to look through the camera. The camera is to high for them mounted on the tripod but they all want to see through the 4x5, so one at a time I lift them up so they can look through the camera. Every time I think I am done, I look down and there is another little one saying to me "Yauk Doo!" ( I want to look!). I think there must have been 20 of them and they got heavier and heavier! All saying to me "Yauk Doo!!!!!"

Thai kids are a joy to be around, so curious, polite and usually smiling and laughing. I tried to make some honest portraits of them, they were children of the slum after all, hopefully they will rise above their circumstances and live long happy lives.

I still can see their faces in my minds eye, darn cute kids, so full of life. I hope the photos do them justice. Making pictures in that crowd was difficult, I had to try and control the attack to be photographed. The children asked my name and later on one young girl named Dong and one young boy Bank both remembered my name and asked when I would return, I told them 2 months. Later on Dong told me, "2 months right?" I said "Yes will come back in 2 months." I think a lot of people say they will return but never do, I plan on keeping my promise to her.

I want to come back in 2 months and give them all some nice photographs. I will have to work my butt off when I get back home to get all this film developed and to make free prints to give out. I only have about 6 weeks between trips, when I return to Canada I go right back into my 12 hour night shifts. I would like to laminate the RC prints if possible, in the humidity and dirt of the slum normal prints will not last long.