YAUM's PHOTO DIARY: My Slate.com Photo Essay Comment Page

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

My Slate.com Photo Essay Comment Page

Here are the comments made on my Slate.com photo story. A while back they published my white background sex worker images. The comments are all over the place, as would be expected. The best thing is that the pictures engaged people, created a discussion, that's the whole reason behind why I do my documentary photography. I want to get people talking about my subjects, raise awareness into their lives, stir the pot a bit. The goal is to get the viewer off his complacent sometimes indifferent ass and involved! That happened at Rosebud on Saturday, and it is happening here in this comment section. Brick by brick builds the grand cathedral! The AGA maybe be indifferent but I will keep plugging away, brick by brick.

Note* Slate chose the images that were used. I would have preferred to have added a few more female workers to the essay, to help balance the story.

The original Slate photo essay page:
Slate.com Gerry Yaum Sex Worker Portraits

A link to the page where I found the comments:
Facebook Slate Comments Post

Comments:

Slate.com

January 9, 2014

Sad, draining photos of the sex workers of Thailand

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- Steve Goble This was depressing.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 6:54pm
- Jeff Steinman Yeah VaVa don't actually read the article. It's much easier to judge when you don't have to learn anything.
  
  Like Reply 20January 9, 2014 at 5:51pm
- Jon Acker "In 1994, Canadian photographer Gerry Yaum saw a documentary about the sex tourism industry in Thailand. Two years later, he visited the country for the first time and has since returned many times..."
  
  I'll bet.
  
  Like Reply 12January 9, 2014 at 6:06pm
- Diana M Morin Please don't use the word "draining" and "sex workers" in the same sentence EVER again. Thanks.
  
  Like Reply 8January 9, 2014 at 5:52pm
- Thomas Niel Garcia Yeah
  Don't show the happy ones
  
  Like Reply 8January 9, 2014 at 5:38pm
- Jessica Kay Murray But what if we said these were garment factory workers? Would you still feel the same? Would you be able to tell the difference and pick out the sex workers if they were dressed identically to electronics factory workers?
  
  Like Reply 3January 9, 2014 at 11:16pm
- Jeff Steinman VaVa: Asia is a big place. Merely living there doesn't confer expertise on anyone.
  
  Like Reply 6January 9, 2014 at 8:36pm
- Margarita Kristof I don't know whether Thailand is more poor than India, but poverty and prostitution in the latter is not into your face, although it is there and mb even more vile. I was told by Tai people that their corruption lies in the events of Vietnam war, when Sion was fucked up by the US. I can't judge, but Thailand, such a beautiful place, I will never visit again because of the daily, hourly sight of old fat and ugly Western men dragging alongside girls and boys who look underage. It was so pukeworthy that I don't have any desire to return to that 'paradize'
  
  Like Reply 4January 9, 2014 at 5:55pm
- Kathryn Leslie Challenger Anywhere in the world .....it's All about MEN and their DICKS!
  
  Like Reply 3January 9, 2014 at 7:49pm
- Sonia Lopez Ocasio Their eyes looks so empty and sad! I understand why Gerry Yaum is photographing these young sex workers. It's one of those things you don't think of as we live our comfortable lives. You know the saying out of sight ...out of mind. frown emoticon
  
  Like Reply 3January 9, 2014 at 5:49pm
- Ryiad Cooper Unless you're a sex salve...... I have no sympathy for sex workers. You choose to do that work.
  
  Like Reply 1January 9, 2014 at 5:49pm
- Michael David Czapla could be Houston TX or Detroit MI
  
  Like Reply 1January 9, 2014 at 6:26pm
- Genessa Ches Nice pics but I didn't get any emotions from them.
  
  Like Reply 1January 9, 2014 at 10:22pm
- Cam MacLean They need to rethink this headline.
  
  Like Reply 2January 9, 2014 at 8:25pm
- Bill Reardon What about the sex workers in Las Vegas, or Chicago, or New York?
  
  Like Reply 3January 9, 2014 at 6:26pm
- Carolina E. Barillas The elephants are treated even worse!http://www.whydontyoutrythis.com/.../this-is-why-you...
  
  Like Reply 1January 9, 2014 at 5:53pm
- Sakina Ali This is so sad. They have no emotions, they are drained of feelings. So sad
  
  Like Reply 2January 9, 2014 at 10:25pm
- Syed Wajih Ul Wahab The question is how many actually felt bad for them and did something for them and how many sex tourists clicked like wrote sympathising comment and booked a flight to Thailand.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 9:04am
- Nikki Colorado Will have nasty comments, of course.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 5:44pm
- Katy Seeley hm. those look like relatively high class sex workers, to me. ho-hum.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 5:56pm
- Betty Cross It's amazing how passable the ladyboy sex workers are. I think a lot of them take hormones from a very early age.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 6:08am
- Walt Zeankowski ...cannot be unseen...
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:54am
- Stephen Hooper He really likes the boys doesn't he?
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 6:51am
- Bertan Atalay Jessica Kay Murray: Of course no one will be able to tell the difference. You are missing the point - together with most of the posters. The photographs are capturing their sadness and destitution, not their jobs. They are being exploited, as much as the factory workers, perhaps. However, the factory workers, on occasion, fight back; whereas, the sex workers are oppressed emotionally, and directly-physically. They are beaten and at times killed if they were to leave.
  
  Like Reply 1January 10, 2014 at 6:39am
- Ana Karina Hurrera Christian Castro
  
  Like Reply 1January 9, 2014 at 10:38pm
- Elaine Craig Grieco So sad
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 7:34pm
- Jordan Haddad Michael Quinn
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 6:18pm
- Kelly Alexander the philippines are worse
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 5:50pm
- Amelita Flores Exploitation!
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 5:43pm
- - Mona Noureddine Nop they're adults they are stupid!
    
    Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:03am
- Marjee Zeier How come most of them are male?
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 8:14pm
- Tara A. Huber Very sad.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 8:46am
- Mona Noureddine There are plenty of other things they can do to get money.. I have no sympathy for them
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 7:04am
- Mudhakrihussein Abuumudhakrimushi They are foolishly
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 9:32pm
- Marty Van Haren They each wore a large pin with a number! My Friends made me go to see it as didn't believe the stories. The 15 minutes I stood there in shock will never leave my head. It made me very sad.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 7:43pm
- Marty Van Haren I stopped in Pattaya while in the Navy in 1980. The sex workers then in three groups. Those that worked the bars for sailors, others lived with men as "house keepers", then there were the" Sex Club", "girls/ladyboys.
  
  Very modern club with a large lounge. One wall was all glass with wide carpeted steps the workers lounged on
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 7:40pm
- Joe Parks Are more of the customers foreigners or locals? I wonder.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 7:37pm
- Starr Anderson Heartbreaking.
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 6:18pm
- Dan Strobel They're all men. Weird
  
  Like ReplyJanuary 9, 2014 at 6:38pm
- - Mona Noureddine No not all of them..
    
    Like ReplyJanuary 10, 2014 at 6:52am

The Three Joys Of Photography

The Three Joys

I have been thinking of why I love photography, it comes down to something I have labeled "The Three Joys"

1) Creativity
The first joy is simply creating the work. Everything about the making of photographs I love. The initial ideas, the writing on the blog, the preparation of equipment, the research into my subjects, figuring out what I want to communicate. The camera tech stuff like composition, lens selection, cameras, figuring exposure, taking the shot etc. The post darkroom work where you swim with your prints bringing them slowly to life, creating something powerful and beautiful. I love it all.

It is so powerful a thing, you have a idea in your mind, there is nothing else, then YOU make it, you create it, it's fricking awesome stuff.

2) The People
The second joy is that photography has allowed me a way into so many peoples lives, so many different worlds. I get to meet people of all types, speak to them, eat with them, cry and laugh with them. For a while I get to live their existence to be them if you will.

I get to be a child in a slum in Bangkok or a drug addict in a ghetto in Oakland. I get to be a ladyboy sex worker in Pattaya or a man dying of cancer in Canada. Of course I am not really those people but I get a true flavor for those worlds, those experiences, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the joy and the sadness.

With photography I get a chance to live outside of the same same everyday meat and potato lives many of my friends and family live. Because I use a camera and make pictures all the doors to a wonderful life experience are open to me, photography is a window into everything!

3) The Photograph
The third joy is about the feeling you get when you accomplish your goals, when you see your final print in the developer, fix or hanging in a gallery. There is a special emotion there, a true satisfied happiness, something so uniquely rewarding. In the darkroom sometimes when I see the finished photo for the first time as it lays in the fixer tray I will let out hoops of joy. I will scream and shout. It is quite a spectacle! It's just the sheer high of that moment bursting out, the YES moment. When the photo is right and you see it for the first time it's the best feeling in the world, better than anything I have ever felt, the high of highs!!

"Ain't Photography Grand!"

YAUM's PHOTO DIARY

Wednesday, September 23, 2015

My Slate.com Photo Essay Comment Page

Slate.com

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