Peanuts in Bangkok

My good friend Lucas and I spent some time with Gavin Gough earlier this year in Bangkok. Gavin runs a photo school there, and is one of best blokes you’d ever meet (even though he’s a Pom and likes his English Cricket team). The best investments I have made into photography has not been buying gear, but on spending time with brilliant photographers who have enough self-worth to generously share what they know. Gavin is one of these.

For this assignment, I was ready to walk away after about 5 minutes. It was hot (try 34ºc) and humid (about 85%), and quite frankly Mr Gough, it’s far too dark to take pictures in here! I remember showing Gavin the back of my camera and thinking, ‘ha! see I told you the lighting was stupid – how on earth can you make a good shot out of 1 fluoro, no natural light and a bunch of plain brown sacks?’. With some technical suggestions and encouragement to keep going from Gavin, I pushed on through the veil of failure. What I then learned that day was to start ‘seeing’ properly, and to slow down and take the time to care about what I was creating. It was a lesson in picking the fruit higher up the tree, if you like – which involves hard work and creativity.

After about 45 mins, I think Lucas and Gavin were ready to punch me. I’d jumped in boots and all into the story before me, and we’d moved out to the road where the (extremely co-operative) guys were unloading from the truck. After another 10mins or so it was time to go, by which time the guys were taking the sacks of peanuts out the the back room. The shot above shows the final shot of the time with these guys, with the warehouse owner’s son sitting bored, elbows on knees, whilst the worker continued on in the heat of the day. One disciplined to keep going, and another content to sit and watch. Quite fitting really.

I spent some more time on these photographs when I got back home, curating a story, and giving them a treatment that pulled them together as a series, and better suggested what I was feeling on the day. Enjoy.