“Chasing the Dragon” and afterwards, smoking YaBa tablets (Crazy Medicine).
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2025
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| Chasing the dragon |
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| Afterwords |
Sunday, April 20, 2025
Saturday, April 19, 2025
What Will Apple Eat Today?
She expects me to come every day and is probably waiting for me now. It is 120pm. I feel bad about this.
The Many Faces of Khun Apple!
I have photographed Khun Apple five days in a row now. Everyday she sorta has a new look, new expressions, new feelings. Everyday she looks a bit different. I am not sure how she manages it but she does. The four pics are from days 2-5. She is holding some of the donated rice in the first, day 4 pic.
Work from the 14 year series, started around 2011 (early years not much happening) THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY. Shot in Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok, Thailand.
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| Day 3 |
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| Day 2 |
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| Day3 |
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| Day 2 |
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| Day 3 |
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| Day 5 |
Links: Chasing the Dragon with YaBa
I am learning more about drugs. Today o was reading about YaBa (crazy medicine). I photographed Khun Apple smoking YABA today. I figured I better learn more as I know nothing about this gully drug stuff.
“Another method of consumption is chasing the dragon, wherein the ya ba tablet is placed on aluminium foil and heated from below, which produces vapors that are then inhaled.”
More Platinum Prints Planned!!!
I plan on doing a series of platinum prints of the best THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY series. This project is beginning to tell important stories.
This series “under the freeway” is becoming more and more involved as I dive deeper and deeper into it. I will probably do up an exhibition set of images in platinum with hand made frames, next winter, when I will be shooting less and doing more darkroom and woodworking.
Note* Pics below from my Facebook page.
The Ugliness “Under The Freeway”
Something sad and ugly happened under the freeway today. I did not write about this on Facebook because I thought it was too personal.
I was photographing Khun Apple when she complained of being wet. Then she said she had "Men" (her period). She stood up and I could see blood all over the crotch of her dirty old shorts.
It is such a sad and ugly thing. This poor woman crawls around in the dirt, digging through the rocks, inhaling YaBa smoke. She is half out of her mind lots of times and at other coherant and soft. She might ask me about that I did that day, or about a cut on my hand, if I have eaten etc. Then she is off of some kind of wild vision, staring up into space, gesturing her hands at nothing. Her mind seemingly gone.
I never thought of a woman's period and what the woman "under the freeway" have to deal with there. No woman's products, no showers, only dirt, and waste and drugs. It was all too much.
I gave her some money 140 baht. She told me she will use it to buy some new shorts, I hope she does.
The ugliness under the freeway, is something I will never forget. I will return to a better life in Canada but Apple will die in the dirt, forgotten.
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| Khun Apple staring at nothing today |
My Tee Rauk (Darling)
My Tee Rauk (darling) who I buy most of my donated food from “under yhe freeway”. Today also bought my supper from her. After 4 days of trying, I finally saw her 90 year old mother today.
Friday, April 18, 2025
3 Images from Today, UNDER THE FREEWAY
Editing a few photos from today from"under the freeway". I will add to the post as the pics are ready, before I go to sleep. From the series THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2025
Did another 7-800 baht in donation work today. Handed out lots of food. Grilled meats, sticky rice, drinks etc. Did the same amount yesterday.
I am getting more and more involved in these lives. Making more and more friends. It will be hard to leave them later.
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| Hot Railing Ice (Meth), THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2025 |
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| Khun Apple with wild hair, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei, Bangkok, Thailand, 2025 |
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| Khun Ann feeding her cat, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2025 |
Thursday, April 17, 2025
Khun Ann and Khun Apple, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY
Khun Ann sleeping with her cat, and Khun Apple staring up at the sky, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2025
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| Ann sleeping with her cat |
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| Apple staring up after doing drugs |
Khun Apple Smoking Drugs
When people under the freeway smoke drugs, they do so under a cloth, to hide from the police. The smoking is done all day long. A terrible thing on so many levels. I bought her some food and drinks and gave her some medicines, but doubt any of that will matter. Go back tomorrow to spend more time with her.
These photographs were technically difficult to make. I had to shoot at a very fast ISO, at a slow shutter speed and guess the composition while pointing the camera up from the ground into the cloth tent.
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| Khun Apple smoking drugs under a blanket. |
Khun Apple Wrapped in the Thai Flag, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY
I am not much of a colour guy but here is Khun Apple, wrapped in the Thai flag, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei Slum, Bangkok 2025.
Khun Apple has 4 children, 2 girls and 2 boys, living in another part of Thailand, and worked the Gogo Bars of Pattaya earlier in her life. She has travelled internationally to places like Singapore and Malaysia.
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| Khun Apple wrapped in the Thai flag after doing drugs, THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, Khlong Toei, Bangkok, Thailand 2025 |
Wednesday, April 16, 2025
Khun Apple Today!
Khun Apple making faces "under the freeway". She is such a gentle soul, but forgotten and alone now. A former bar worker, freelance and Gogo bar, in Pattaya. She had many farang (Western) boyfriends when younger. Now she is all by herself, dying slowly of addiction.
I gave her 2 containers of soya milk (recommended by the lady at a nearby store who knows her) and some food today which she eagerly ate and drank. Will take her some over the counter medicines and more food and soya milk tomorrow. She asked me if I would come back tomorrow, and I said I would.
She has moments of awareness and kindness that defies her condition. Apple saw a small cut on my hand and asked what happened to me. I told her I cut my hand when making food.
She seemed happy to know I was coming back.
Note* Dodged the background white areas of the yesterday portrait of Khun Apple. I like the simplification, isolation. Before and After.
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| Version #2 dodged white background areas |
Video: My Simple Thai meal!!
My simple Thai meal. Som Tum (papaya salad), Gai Yaung (Chicken), cabbage, meat surpise on a stick (seller said it was delicious) and Khao Nee-ow (sticky rice) plus a Coke Zero. Cost $3-4 CAD.
Khun Anapon has Died
My friend Anapon (Moo) has died. I learned of his passing today from a lady who runs a small store near where he lived. She told me he died almost three years ago, so soon after I left Thailand in 2022. Khun Anapon was the first person I photographed “under the freeway” way back around 2010. He was such a friendly and soft-hearted man. A former Muay Thai boxer who had fought internationally in Japan and told me that “Japanese woman see very beautiful”. I will miss him. I feel sad that he is gone, we would joke and laugh together often. He only exists in the pictures now.
