Bringing Chaos into the Ordinary
I shot these last June when I was in Bangkok for a few days. I’m not the worlds biggest fan of the Big Mango as Bangkok is known. It’s also known as a city suffering from horrible air quality. The Bangkok Metropolitan Authority is trying everything to clear the air. Including spraying the air with molasses with drones. I wish I was making that up.
These were shot around Sukhimvit Soi 4 and Khao San Rd. using my Nikon D5500 and the 17-50mm lens.
Enjoy.
This is the second set of images from this series. These were shot all last October using my Sony RX10.
Enjoy!
I’m back I guess!? I don’t know to be honest. To be perfectly clear, I do photography for other things other than fun. So now, it’s less of a hobby that paid me on the side and more of something else.
Do I know that living in Thailand versus the US my time is limited for personal work. Part of this is when you have to do portrait stuff constantly, the last thing you want to do is pick up a camera and go out. I don’t want to force it and just turn out crappy images, but I also find myself taking snaps that are for me only. Usually on my phone and I’m done and move on.
The reality is, I live a life some dream of. I live an exotic location (ok, it’s Pattaya and a crappy resort town), but the reality is I do live in an area not seen by a lot of people and my “commute” is something on the surreal side unless you live it daily and most in the West aren’t going to dodge soi dogs, food carts, taxi drivers, potholes the size of small South East Asian Countries, people, and see some of the stuff I take for granted.
Now these images were shot in Cambodia over 2 trips. Which you may be asking, why am I showing Cambodia images versus where I live? Easy, I shot in Cambodia. I wasn’t doing portrait stuff so I had the inclination to shoot and carry a camera. I was on holiday from my holiday. Like it or not, even retired, you get bored.
These images were shot in Phnom Penh over 2 trips. October of last year and February of this year. One set shot on a Sony RX10 and the other set shot on a Nikon D5500 with a Sigma 25-80 lens.
Enjoy.
PS – If you notice some inconsistencies, I’ll freely admit it took me a bit to get back into the swing of editing these type of photos again. I do portrait work, whole other world of editing.
I was outside the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and saw these 2 monks walking by. I just waited for the shot and took several frames as they walked by.
I don’t pretend to understand the colours or monks robes. I know some are brighter than others. Older monks tend to have darker colours than younger ones. I’m sure it signifies rank but I don’t understand it enough to speculate and I’m too lazy to look it up on Google.
I liked the image, did a bit of a dodge and burn and ran a filter against it and called it done. I am suffering from a severe case of man flu right now so it’s all I can do to type this.
Enjoy.
Took this while on a ramble around town. I just found it funny that this was a door painted like that. It makes it seem so inviting and friendly. I have no real idea if the door even works. Thai health and safety standards aren’t what you call the best in the world.
I’d write more but enjoy the photo for what it is. I do give the artist credit for making it an interesting door.
Enjoy.
This bar bus thing is off a side soi that is mainly a Korean bar area. It’s all in Korean writing and full of Korean restaurants. I have seen this place open once when I rode through at dark but when I came through during the day it was closed as were most places in the neighborhood.
I took the photo because it’s interesting. When I went to edit I went HDR but with a single image. I just wanted to bring out some of the textures and other stuff in the bus. It’s one of those throw away images that I like and takes only a few minutes to process so enjoy.
Super double extra bonus points if you figure out where I got the title from. I’ll give a hint, RIP Ronnie James Dio. You magnificent bastard.
I had to shoot a birthday party up near Walking St in Pattaya and I arrived early to get my gear set and then just locked it up and took a walk for a bite to eat.
For whatever reason it gets darker here in Thailand earlier than it did back in the United States. Usually by 7 PM it’s dusk. So a lot of the signs were lit up on one of the most famous streets in Thailand.
There are tons of overpriced seafood places up there. So when I saw this one I took the shot of the tourists walking through it the staff trying to lure customers in for the privilege of paying twice as much. I did it a few times when I first came to Thailand 10 years ago or so as a new tourist. After that never again.
So coming back from dinner at a normal priced place I know of I snapped this image.
So enjoy a bit of Walking St, Pattaya.
This is along the Riverwalk in Chicago. I was returning to my hotel and saw this tunnel lit up and I thought it would be a cool shot. I quickly setup my tripod and waited for some people to walk through. I got lucky with these two and fired several frames to make sure I got them where I wanted them. Their motion blur because of the exposure time give it a sense of movement.
Usual edits but I did mask in a HDR layer. Mostly to make the colors and textures in the tunnel pop more. I deliberately made sure the outside where I was shooting from clipped to black for the most part. On the other side you just get a faint outline on where they came from.
Enjoy.
Something a bit different than my normal landscape stuff I have been shooting. It’s a wee bit darker and not just because it’s in monochrome.
The first two images are the second level of the Michigan Avenue Bridge. I liked how the light played off the steel beams and the rivets. Both images show what’s on the other side. It gives the perception of claustrophobia with all these steel around you but you can see an open space in the distance.
The final image is of the street on the Chicago River level. There is a whole warren of streets that are “under” Chicago. I didn’t really grasp this until I was in an Uber and the guy was weaving through to get me back to the hotel and I realized that one of the streets we were on was the one in the third photograph.
Editing wise these are fairly basic. I did the black and white conversion in Lightroom. To keep the look consistent I just used the same settings for all three images. Once I had that I just put in a tone curve adjustment to make the images darker than they really were. Then it was a lot of dodging and burning to get the local adjustments done. I didn’t want everything going straight to black. So I would dodge to bring out details that were lost on the tone curve.
Don’t worry. Happy landscape stuff returns tomorrow.
Enjoy.
This is another one from Millennium Park . I am not sure what direction I was shooting towards. I have a poor sense of direction on a good day. Still, I saw the sunset squeezed between the buildings and I thought it would be a pretty cool image.
The lights in each windows in the buildings look like little sunsets themselves as some of them are building images. You get a progressive cooler to warmer feeling as you start at the top which is blue and cool and work your way down to the warmer part of the image which is all reds and yellows.
Editing I masked in bits here and there. I wanted some of the blacks to go completely black. Figured let your mind fill in what it is instead of trying to dodge out some sense or color. I did bring down the street a bit and then dodged in the people to give the image a sense of motion.
Enjoy.
