This photo is from my 2nd most recent series "Families of the Dump". Their is a sad honest beauty to this shot that I quite like. The picture is of a young boy of about 12 who is sleeping in his families make shift Lean Two. The picture was made at around 630 or 7am in the morning at the Mae Sot garbage dump in Thai. The boy is Burmese native who came across the border with his family to work the dump to make money.
When I was at the dump in May of 2013 this area was unoccupied when I returned in November there were several families huddled in various times of flimsy structures in this area. The worse part of the place was the filth, the families in this location were very close to the garbage. There were files everyone and all kinds of bad smells flowed in from the nearby dump. The actual heavy garbage might have only been 40-50 feet from where this boy was sleeping.
I am eager to go back and continue to make photos of the families. Who knows how much things have changed? I want to rent my own motorbike next trip (especially if it is a longer trip) to allow me more access to more people both in the dump and in that area of Mae Sot. I will shoot next time with my 5x7 Linhof to capture more formal portraits of these forgotten people.
This picture was made with my standard 35mm kit. A Leica M6 range finder, I think a 21mm lens and Tri-x exposed at 200ASA. Development was D-76 2-1 for 12 minutes 30 seconds at 20C. It would be printed with a Durst 1200 condenser enlarger and Ilford warm or cool tone fibre paper.
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| Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot Thailand November 2013 |
