Hive blog isn't a portfolio so I feel free about what to post here (as @dexter-k once noted), and that's cool. But this does not mean that every image of mine is posted on Hive. Sometimes the results of hours-long walks remain unpublished due to “not enough interesting stuff in the photo set.” This is how lonely images appear - good ones from those unpublished sets. Let me share some of them.
1
January 13, 2024
That's not a secret: what many love about photography first of all are girls. For example, my dad often asks me to post more young women on the blog. 😁 And voilà!
2
January 28, 2024
What I focus on is the life of Bangkok including tourists. In 2023, Bangkok was the most visited city in the world and all of Thailand was proud of that.
In the image, rows of legs are on massage couches standing right on a crowded street. That's Khao San Road area, which has hosted establishments for travelers since the old times. It's even depicted in the once-popular movie The Beach with Leo DiCaprio.
3
January 27, 2024
That was in a shady alley in old Bangkok (Talat Noi); a boy was playing with several cats there - grabbing them and holding them without much care. I felt annoyed by how he treated the cats but he wasn't violent to them but rather didn't feel they were not toys but living creatures. So I decided to be wise.
I took a pack of cat food from my backpack and gave some to the boy, asking him with a gesture to distribute that food among the cats.
That was a new game for the boy and he liked it, feeding the cats with pleasure on his face, and that made me happy. The cats were happy too.
4
January 27, 2024
A Thai lady returning from a grocery shop...
Why Satanic goat? We don't know about this certain person... Maybe, she just loves heavy metal. But in general, Thais have their own cultural background. For many of them, this is just a funny-looking goat. For sure, many Thais know the meaning but they don't feel the same about it. Like European people with a Christian background usually aren't serious about jinns or monkey-looking deity Hanuman although we more or less know the meaning of them.
Once an Indian guy was telling me about Hinduism (it was in Anjuna, Goa, India btw). He mentioned Ganesha in his speech and quickly asked me "Do you know who he is?" and I quickly answered, "Of course, I know, he's an elephant!" 😁 The reaction of the Indian was a shout full of pain: He is not an elephant, he is god!" 😁😁
That's why you can meet Thais who, for example, wear a Christian cross*, the Star of David, or even Nazi symbols as decoration (1, 2). They don't know the emotional and cultural context that stands behind these symbols.
* - there are also Thai Christians
5
September 2, 2023
IconSiam's stunning terrace...
If you visit a popular Thai wat in Bangkok, you'll see that, for every monk, there are 100 people taking pictures of themselves with mobiles.
I don't judge. But this crowd, to be honest, disfigure the spectacle. Wat Arun, for example, looks buried below people when the temple is open to public access.
On the other hand, the cult of social media photography is a characteristic feature of our time, and photographing these people makes sense from the perspective of documentary photography.
One day new technology, ideology, or fashion may change people's lifestyle, and using those black rectangles become obsolete. Then, images like one above will become history...
6
January 26 ,2024
...they will become history, looking strange and nostalgic like this picture with a person reading a newspaper in 2024.
7
August 14, 2023
That was at flower market Pak Khlong Talat. I didn't expect much from this scene, I just noticed that person out of the corner of my eye and decided to photograph them just because I had the mood for that.
A lone teenager. Bored or stressed or altogether, holding a bouquet made of one flower. The flower means a connection to somebody, and we only can guess who that might be. That chopped shark on the T-shirt and the crossed hands add more insecurity and awkwardness to the portrait. The whole scene reminds me how it is to be that young.
8
January 26 ,2024
That's Yaowarat Road, my night street photography Mecca. But everyone gets tired of their favorite location sooner or later. In the last months, I regularly came back without enough nice images from there, with lonely images that I never post on Hive.
A colorful tuk-tuk journey along one of the most vivid streets of Bangkok.
9
August 14, 2023
Again the flower market. This time, I noticed an excited smiling girl and decided to photograph her openly (I had that daring mood). My sudden move made her even happier.
10
March 4, 2023
A sudden photo opportunity in the street traffic: a cute pet on a motorbike. Happily, I had my camera prepared. Though, I wouldn't call this image the most successful (something wrong with the composition), but, still, the look of this cheerful dog, lit with sun, traveling on a motorbike full of food, makes me feel good.
11
February 14, 2023
A very strange photograph that looks like from another place, not Bangkok.
12
March 9, 2023
If you take images of strangers, you should be ready to sometimes cross lines. Otherwise, people will leave you with only napes on your memory card.
13
February 5, 2023
But sometimes napes are what you need. A couple from a charming Anytown somewhere in the Midwest (let my imagination be free!). They always wanted to take their first trip abroad to Paris, but ended up in Bangkok. And... WOW...
14
December 10, 2023
Street photo on 50mm at f/1.8? In a shopping mall? With people holding mobiles? Weird, weird, weird... But I like it.
That's Bangkok
Glad you watched the images, dear reader and dear visitor, comments are welcome.
More images and stories from Southeast Asia are ahead! Check out the previous ones on my personal Pinmapple map.
I took these images with a Nikkor 50mm on a full-frame DSLR Nikon D750 in 2023-2024 in Bangkok, Thailand.
