Quote: Bob Marley

"Some people are so poor, all they have is money."

Moma, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP

A photo submission for the beautiful people at MOMA, a place I have never been, but dream of going!

THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, 2013--2019

Lay-auh barefoot in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Mother working the garbage alone, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Group of workers, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Father and son, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Group of workers, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Family in their dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2016

Baby boy in dump shack, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Woo-wee-kai with her father s, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Old woman walks the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Brother and sister in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2018

Possible "Shades Of Grey" Magazine, UNB Art Centre Photograph

Another possible image for the mags and UNB shows.

Mother working alone in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Mother working alone in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Possible "Shades Of Grey" Magazine, UNB Art Centre Photograph

Group working the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Group working the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Possible "Shades Of Grey" Magazine, UNB Art Centre Photograph

from Facebook....

Years after this photo was made, the father in the picture used to shake my hand every night I came to the dump, a slimy hand experience. Story is from 2018.

https://gerryyaum.blogspot.com/…/02/photo-story-handshake.h…

Father and Son, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Father and son, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

The Beauty Of Aikido

After 3 months of studying the martial art of Aikido I think I am beginning to understand a bit about its beauty. When done well Aikido has a real grace to it, an inner artful beauty. It is like the moving human extension, the floating human form of a great painting, photograph or sculpture. There were a number of WOW moments in yesterdays class. Times were I just suddenly saw the beauty, grace, truth of it all and I was thunder struck.

I will sign up for another 4 months of training!

"Cooking Breakfast Next To Dump Home" Possible Magazine/UNB Art Centre Show

from Facebook...

Working on photos this after noon for possible inclusion in the "Shades of Grey" Magazines and maybe for the later UNB Art Centre shows. This photo was made my first or 2nd set of trips to the dump in 2013 (did 2 Thai trips that year). Since that time I have photographed this family dozens of times.

Cooking breakfast next to dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Cooking breakfast next to dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

LARGE PHOTOS For The UNB Art Centre Show.

Got word from M (director-curator) at the UNB Art Centre at the University of New Brunswick today. The show is a go ahead for 2022. Both projects will be featured, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY. Each project will have its own room, and the rooms are large, at least in my limited exhibiting experience. The rooms measure about 7. 2 meters (23.7 feet) x 9.5 meters ( 31 feet) and 7 meters (23 feet) x 11.9 meters (38.9 feet). That is a lot of wall space to cover with photographs!

M suggested I send her the digital files when they are ready and she will print them to 44" tall x proportional length. So that means for the horizontal shots (which there are many) the short side will be 44 inches tall,  the longer rectangle of the horizontal shot will be that much bigger! M suggests we will need 15 -16 photos per project, per gallery room. So that means there will be 15-16 THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and 15-16 THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY photographs printed, mounted on board and exhibited! So that makes 30 or 32 LARGE LARGE prints.

Exciting times! I have never seen the photographs I make printed that big before.

The 2 photos below are samples sent from the Art Centre of what the large prints might look like on display.

Note* One gallery room has 4 walls, the other 3.5 walls, for artwork.
Note** The top photo has Edward Burtynsky photos on display, I think!

Edward Burtynsky?

The 2 gallery rooms at the UNB Art Centre.

Quote: Bruce Lee

"INTERVIEWER : Do you think of yourself as a Chinese or North American ?

BRUCE LEE : I want to think of myself as a human being , because under the sky ,we are but one family. It just so happens , we look different "

10 Photos For MOMA

10 photos for MOMA submission. There is also 12 years of photography adventures, photos and thoughts on this blog MOMA FOLKS! :)

Vietnamese brothel worker, CAMBODIAN BROTHEL, Poipet, Cambodia 2003

Lay-Auh early morning in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Family in their home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2016

Workers with falling garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2018

Brother and sister in the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2018

Owen 52, THE PEOPLE  WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Kkong Toey slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

Owen 52, THE PEOPLE  WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Kkong Toey slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

Baby boy in his home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2013

Anapon 52, THE PEOPLE  WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Kkong Toey slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

Baby boy in dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Bia 55, THE PEOPLE  WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY,, Kkong Toey slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2019

My MOMA Photography Link Page :)

So many gallery folk are rather uppity and difficult to deal with. When submitting to these types you often feel like a peasant looking up at the kings feet as you crawl and grovel in front of him. A bit much there :) but you get my meaning.

I love it when gallery/museum folk are down to earth and care about the poor artists-photogs struggling to tell their stories and get the work they make seen. What surprises me quite often is that the biggest most important gallery's are often the most down to earth and the most accessible, fair and decent with unknowns who submit their work (their hearts) to them. The Vancouver Art Gallery in Canada has always been one of those high end positive institutions. They are good folk, who give access and communicate back. They allow you to to at least try to get shown. Gosh that is so so nice to have!

Today I found out that the MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) in New York City also does that. Gosh the biggest of the big and yet they care. Got to love that!!! Here is there a bit of their online submission blurb.

Once you have completed the form, press the submit button and your information will be sent to the Department of Photography and you will receive an email confirming receipt of your submission.

The Museum appreciates the opportunity to review your work, and we understand the effort it takes to prepare and present your portfolio. Therefore, we view all submissions seriously, and with great care.

Here is the online link to the MOMA submission area

You got to love art folks like this, the smaller galleries could learn from MOMA. I have never been to New York, but when I do go, MOMA will be the first place I visit. I plan on submitting work to them with a link to 10 photos I have made in the next while. So which 10 photos?

Burtynsky Write Up For The UNB Art Centre Exhibition, 2018

Here is the the Edward Burtynsky write up for his show at the UNB Art Centre back in 2018.  Burtynsky is basically the king of Canadian photography, I admire his photography greatly, his work is less human than I prefer but is filled with important photographs fighting for the universal goodness of the planet. I also love how he is donating his expensive, world class photos to places like the permanent collection at the University of New Brunswick, good on him. If I ever had such an opportunity I would try to follow Mr. Burtynsky's example.

To be exhibited in the same facilty as this world class artist was, is a true honor.  During the PhotoNOLA festival in New Orleans several years back, Burtynsky has a major exhibition in an major gallery for his "Water" project, at that same festival my "Thai Sex Worker Portraits" were shown at a much much much smaller venue. This time round we will be 4 years about but are at least in the same building! Thank you Marie M, and thank you UNB Art Centre/University of New Brunswick for this wonderful opportunity.

Blog Stories About Edward Butynsky From PhotoNOLA 2013

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A Terrible Beauty: The Seductive Lens of Edward Burtynsky and Introducting FLOW a new music series

March 2 - April 6, 2018

The UNB Art Centre invites you to immerse yourself in the large format photographs of celebrated Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky in the exhibition A Terrible Beauty: The Seductive Lens of Edward Burtynsky on view from Mar. 2- Apr. 6, 2018. The exhibit features 25 of the photographer's digital chromogenic prints as well as a portfolio of smaller prints entitled Pentimento. These works produced between 1985 and 2016, include pieces from each of the artist's major series. The University of New Brunswick gratefully acknowledges this gift to the UNB Permanent Collection by the artist.

Before satellite imagery and drones were commonplace, Edward Burtynsky's aerial photography gave us a perspective on our world from above. Since his earliest days, he has pushed the limits of new technology and with his camera takes us to the most inaccessible locations and shows them to us with HD clarity. Shooting from 800 feet above the earth with a 60-megapixel camera, he chooses a viewpoint that reduces minutiae, flattens objects and focuses on composition, broader patterns and overarching themes of our man-made world.

Edward Burtynsky began showing us these images, at a time when we, as Canadians were still naive and in denial about climate change. He has shown us the indelible mark of tailing ponds, tar sands and urban sprawl-the effects of our insatiable need for more.

Exploiting the seductive techniques of saturated colour and large scale, used in commercial photography, he coaxes us with an industrial aesthetic and reveals the beauty inherent in our destruction of our planet.

Exhibition Of THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP And THE PEOPLE UNDER THE FREEWAY In New Brunswick

Well got some more good news today, the PDF file project work is continuing to pay off. We have been offered 2 rooms  to exhibit both  THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE UNDER THE FREEWAY at the University of New Brunswick UNB Art Centre.

The UNB Art Centre is a gallery that has been promoting the arts in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada since 1941, a 79 year history! In 2018 Edward Burtynsky had work showing there. If the gallery is good enough for one of the top photographers in the world, it certainly will be a wonderful place for "Mr. Security Guard" to tell the stories of the forgotten people I met and photographed in Thailand. Along with the photographs, I hope to also do an artist talk, and to have a running video of life in the dump during the exhibition. The shows are not until 2022 so I might also try to start my cross Canada ambrotype  photography project (Ambrotos) Kanata at that time. The idea would be to drive hauling the wet plate trailer, work on the project, then do the opening in Fredericton, before coming home.

As you can imagine after first the two magazine portfolios and interviews in "Shades of Grey" magazine, and now having both THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY being exhibited at a beautiful gallery, I am in a pretty good mood! I am so happy to be able to tell the stories of the "families in the dump" and "the people under the freeway" to a larger audience. Thank you UNB Art Centre, for your kindness.

More details to follow.

UNB ART CENTRE

Here is a link to the Burtynsky show which was held in 2018.

A Terrible Beauty: The Seductive Lens of Edward Burtynsky

Burtynsky Exhibition at the UNB Art Centre

The UNB Art Centre, at the University of New Brunswick

HF3535 Camera Being Shipped

My huge HF 3535 camera will be shipped from the Czech Republic in early March, a week or so later it will be at my door in Edmonton. I will then have the tool I need to complete my 15 year AMBROTOS KANATA project. This ambrotype (pictures on class, invented in 1851) series will speak to what Canada is, landscapes, cityscapes and portraits. I plan for it to be an honest portrayal of Canada, the great and not so great of my grand country!

Some More Possible Magazine Photos For THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP

from Facebook...

Some more recently played with possible mag images. Some of these photos are color images from the 2018 portfolio which I converted to B/W. That is one distinct advantage of digital over film, you can do both color and B/W with each photograph.

Woo-wee0-kai, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Two men in their dump shack THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Old woman walks the garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Group with falling garbage, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2018

Young boy in dump shack, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Early morning smoke, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Two young men, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2019

Facebook Discussion About The Dump Experience

Having some good Facebook discussions about THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP with several new Facebook friends.


New children working the garbage at night, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2018

BK

 Sensational!

ECC

It’s a beautifully sad picture. It is heartbreaking that families have to live that way anywhere. 
Your pictures are amazing.

Gerry Yaum yes, especially the children. Thank you for your kind words. Here is another story about another child from that same family. Check it out if you have time Elaine..thanks https://gerryyaum.blogspot.com/2018/02/coughing-baby.html

ECC

thank you for sharing. You know what’s, in a strange way, even sadder? The kids that live in comparative luxury but aren’t loved that much...

Gerry Yaum t really puts things in perspective. I remember coming back from the dump one year. I was in the dump for several weeks making pics daily in December, doing the other donation work etc. Then I flew directly and quickly back to Canada and within a few days of my arrival was having a HUGE Christmas dinner with my dad, mom and family family. Ham, Turkey, Pyrogies, Cabbage rolls, Meatballs, Salads of various types, Potatoes and other fresh veggies, Cranberry sauce, gravy, 3 or 4 deserts etc. It was an incredible feast. As I looked at all that food, and saw everyone laughing and enjoying it, I was somewhere else. My mind thou kept on going back to the dump, it was a very difficult meal to enjoy. I kept having flashbacks to the kids in the garbage, to the people working so hard in such filth. That moment for me really put my life in perspective, really focused me on how privileged and incredibly lucky I am.

New 5x7 Families Of The Dump Photo Find

Got kind of bored working on the digital stuff, moved over to my 5x7 inch negs made in 2016 at the dump. Here is a new image I just found today in one of my film boxes.  This photo was made with a Linhof 5x7 camera and a 120mm lens on Tri-x. Using a view camera is an entirely different. type of shooting which I really enjoy (outside of lugging all the gear about). This is another possible "Shades of Grey" magazine entry.

Father and children in their dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot Thailand, 2016

Father and children in their dump home, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP, Mae Sot garbage dump, Mae Sot, Thailand 2016