Todays Portraits

Woke up at 7am today when the light was just coming up, I prepared my gear had some jam with bread, took a shower, put on my sunscreen and was out of the room by 9am.

I headed down to Klong Toey Market in search of the garbage workers and arrived at their work area around 10am. I sat down and talked to them reintroducing myself, am sort of a regular there now as they all greeted me with a smile. Today I got to learn a few names as I made some portraits, I shot 4 men and 2 women at this location. I learned a bit about the lives of some of the workers as we all handed around photos. I met a women named Meaw who had a young daughter and young son, who's pictures she showed to me proudly. Meaw's son who looked quite shy is 13 years old, he clung close to her in the photograph, she looked very proud of him. I also saw a picture of a man worker 43 named Jon who had a pretty 20 year old daughter. Khune Jon also showed me a picture of himself before he worked with garbage, he had a clean white uniform of a gov't official. He must have been a bit embarrassed to be working as he was now so showed me his life before his current job. They were surprised I wanted to photograph them, I told them I was interested in photographing everyone and learning about their lives.

The area where the garbage workers worked was very dirty, they told me to roll up my pants so they would not get in the filthy smelly water (their words). I also got asked the value of my camera, and also how much my pants cost me ($90 from a sports store in Edmonton). I wonder how much they make a month working this job? I will have to ask them tomorrow. A worker might have to work 2 or 3 weeks to afford my one pair of pants.

After photographing the sanitation workers I went to the slum gym which was very quiet. I walked around the area and met a man I had talked to before Khune Nawrong  68. Khune Nawrong is a former seaman (sailor) he worked on cargo ships that travelled the world. He told me he worked on the ships for 40 years until he became disabled (looks to have had a stroke) in the USA, he now loves in a small slum shack in Bangkok, near the gym. He told me he had women in every port (sex workers) and how workers in India cost $5 and workers in Brazil would cost $2-3. His living condtions were very poor but he was seemed like a kind if lonely man, he would talk to the various farang (Westerners) who came to the gym because he is one of the few people in the area who can speak English. He is very proud of his life of traveling, and rightfully so! I wonder if at night he dreams of the places he has been and the things he has seen.

I had 6 sheets of film left after shooting Khune Nawrong so set up a the camera and rephotographed some head shots of the young children I owed shots to from last time. I hope these reshot photos will provided some sharper negs worth printing, either way I am going to make up something for them this time. I told them I would go back tomorrow to the same spot to make more photos if they wanted, they all agreed to come back to that spot at 2pm tomorrow. Gan the young girl I gave a photo to a few days ago came by selling little fried eggs (not sure from what bird??) in styrofoam containers. I bought some for the children which they eagerly ate up, I had a few myself, they were quite good, sort of desert like. Ran out of film around 130pm, used up around 46 sheets (23 holders all I can carry at one time).

Now its back to the room to reload film for tomorrows shoots. I want to return and shoot more garbage workers and also a man named Joon who lives near there, then will go and photograph the children at 2pm.

I also want to go to the farang customer, Thai bargirl area of Bangkok for the first time to check up on some people I know. Originally I wanted to do some street night flash portraits in this area but since the Banarama was stolen I can no longer do that.

Hopefully the work created over the last few days and in the days to come will result in some quality photographs that will raise awareness of the conditions the people of Klong Toey live in, hopefully the work can help educate and inform the viewer and demonstrate our shared humanity ("Common Lives").