The Hardest Part

The hardest part of the "Lost Innocence" series is not all the tech stuff I have been discussing over the  last few days. The thing that is most difficult is entering the brothel world again. I did this in 1999 two times and 2003 a few times and those memories still haunt me. I can still see those lost souls when I close my eyes, the desperation, the waste, the destroyed lives. Going back and living that again is not something I look forward to doing, but if I do not do that then how are the photos made? If I do not enter those worlds the photos are probably not made and the stories are probably not told. The people that would have had been remembered at least a little through the pictures might never be recognized, the workers would most likely be used up and quickly forgotten then replaced by the next generations. It is a never ending cycle of abuse.

This first picture below is of a girl working a brothel in Poi Pet Cambodia shot in 2003. I forget the workers name, I will have to look it up in my records. I remember I photographed her 2 times and both times she seemed drugged. She had this vacant stare that said all you needed to know about the brothel, she was there but totally gone, totally used up, so young but so old. In front of the brothel where she worked maybe 10 women/girls were sitting in the dark under the pink brothel lights their faces painted white and red waiting for Cambodian  customers. All the workers were so worn out, beat down many used drugs probably to dull their pain. Cambodian males paid $2-4USD for service often arriving 2 at a time on motorbikes. Cambodian slang for going to a brothel was "Lets go invade Vietnam!" (many brothel workers are illegal Vietnamese people).

Vietnamese brothel working Poi Pet Cambodia 2003

One night I visited and was sitting behind the seated workers looking for customers. I sat with the mama and papason and other family members nursing a can of coke I paid $5 USD for. I was trying not to get kicked out of the place. I practiced some Khmer language skills with them and wrote stuff down in my little Khmer dictionary. The brothel owners (husband and wife) whole family lived together with the workers, they also had a young daughter and grandchild. I do not think their daughter went with customers. The Vietnamese and Cambodian workers were not much older than than the owners daughter. I kept on thinking "How can you sell these girls? You would not do that to your own daughter, why can you do it with these others??"  One kind girl from the brothel showed me marks on her body where the mamason had beaten her with a bamboo stick or hanger. She had 3 or 4 huge long welts on her upper legs.

What happened to them all after I left in 2003? How many are still alive? This Poipet brothel is the saddest place I ever made photographs, I am not looking forward to going back to those type worlds again.

The second photo is of Tan I still can remember the day I photographed her clearly even thou it was around 14 years ago back in 1999. I was very nervous and uncomfortable in that brothel area, Tan saw that  as I was walking by and took my hand, she walked me to a local area where they had rooster fighting stalls, a place they held those matches for gambling. I took her photo later on in the same day and visited her another time after that. On the second visit I remember just sitting with the girls from Tan's brothel outside next door to where they worked, we ate something and there was a small pet bird they had, a a beautiful thing that just flipped about outside its cage, the girls played with it. I think I photographed that bird with the girls or beside the girls, have to check back into my old negative binders.

Tan Vietnamese brothel worker in Svay Pak Cambodia 1999

Both these woman are probably gone now. With little or no protection from HIV and other diseases, with little or no medical care when they get sick, they are probably both gone. These two girls whose lives were destroyed by the brothels is the reason I must force myself to go back into that ugly and dangerous world. Stories like theirs happen daily all over South East Asia to thousands, tens of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of lives, someone needs to record their lives, to tell their stories, to remember them.

It seems so much easier to be a photographer who takes pictures of rocks and trees like most folks I know. You don't get nightmares from taking pretty and pleasant landscapes. The thing is I do not want to do the same same photography everyone else does so I guess being haunted is part of that bargain. Maybe having the memories of the workers in the brothels is a good thing, those memories are pushing me to continue telling their stories.