With my newest trip to Thai not far off I have been wracking my brains trying to come up with a new subject, a new project series to shoot. I think my best bet might be returning to an old subect "Klong Toey Slum"!! The hope would be to zoom in on one powerful very human story somewhere in the slum. Need to find it, I think I can.
Klong Toey and other slums in Bangkok are rife with human drama, good-bad-happy and sad, it is a microcosm of life in Thailand. There are many complex and compelling human stories just waiting to be told. I need to dive in and find some new lives to enter, and then devote myself to them. Need to make new friends in new, new passions, new commitments. Throwing myself into that world is easier for me from a physical transport basis also, I spend lots of time in Bangkok, now I can just wander the slum all day and into the night and see what I find. I will also research other slum areas of Bangkok. My ability to be able to speak some limited Thai is also a bonus. Many times in the dump because of the language barrier, things are difficult, I only know a bit of Burmese and maybe only 20% of the people there speak any Thai. In Klong Toey Slum things will be different. Anytime you can speak to the people in front of you, their acceptance of you goes up, your understanding of their lives, their history,t their everything, improves, as do the photographs. I have found any language skills to be a huge bonus.
What people will I meet? What stories can be told? Who knows, anything could happen. I will also continue shooting existing stories, at the Klong Toey Muay Thai boxing gym and my friends Khune Anapon and Khune Ooh who live under a freeway in Klong Toey. One area I hope to expand on is migrant workers who live in Bangkok's slums. Most of these workers are from Cambodia or Burma. I know of one housing area in Klong Toey that houses many migrant workers (not sure that is still the case). People a long way from home trying to help family back home, beautiful people working hard jobs to improve their lives.
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| Migrant working mother with her young son, Bangkok 2015 |
Telling the stories of the people who live in these worlds and maybe
raising some money through the photographs to help them with their
difficult lives, would be a worthy way to spend my extra time in Thai
next trip. Telling real life compelling stories is the goal. The rest of my trip will be back in the garbage at the dump with the families.
Here are a few digital Canon 5D Mark 3 shots and a bunch of film shots from 2011 and 2016 of the current Klong Toey Slum series mentioned.
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2015 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2014 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Khune Ooh Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2012 |
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| Khune Go (now passed away), Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2011 |
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| Young Boxer, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2016 (digi) |
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| Khune Anapon, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2016 (digi) |
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| Khune Ooh with her dog Tri-x, Klong Toey Slum Bangkok 2013 |
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| Khune Ooh, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok 2013 (digi) |
