In 2007, I boarded a plane to Thailand, about to take my first plunge into living overseas. I was the walking, talking version of a clueless 20-something in search of purpose. After 34 hours in airports and wildly uncomfortable plane seats, I landed in Bangkok around midnight. The city hit me like a ton of bricks— the sounds, the smells, the chaos. Tuk-tuks zipping by, street food at every turn, and the heat. It was sensory overload in the best possible way. It was like a shot of adrenaline, and I felt alive in a way I had never experienced. Over the coming months, I went through every emotion — excitement, confusion, loneliness, wanderlust, the lot. Though after a month, I was convinced I’d never leave despite the absolute mine field of emotions I was going through. I felt like I was on the right path even though I had no idea what that path actually was.
From Bangkok, I made the trek to Phuket where I set up my base. I had picked up a little point-and-shoot camera and starting taking photos of my neighbourhood and everything else, really. After posting some images on the interwebs, I started receiving messages like, “Wow, this is beautiful!” and “Are you a photographer now?” I hadn’t even considered it, but hey, what the hell, why not try and make it happen? Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back, I kind of wonder if my friends were just blowing smoke up my ass… but whatever, it lit a fire, and I started chasing something that ended up being that path I hadn’t had a name for. I reached out to every photographer I could find, maybe someone would take me seriously off my stellar point and shoot portfolio…… Cue crickets. Finally after a couples months or so of persistence, read badgering and repeated emails, I finally got a response and a contact at a local paper. I reached out to The Phuket Gazette and miraculously, they gave me an assignment. I panicked, flew back to Bangkok, and bought a Canon 300D. Now I was a pro, right? Yeah, I had no idea what I was doing, but I dove in headfirst. Naïve much? Totally. But here we are.
As I started shooting events, people started to ask if I could photograph interiors and exteriors. Without a clue about what that entailed, I said yes. So, off to the internet I went. I started reading everything I could and fumbled my way through my first couple of jobs. Spoiler: Photoshop doesn’t make up for inexperience, but somehow I stumbled across the line with work just good enough to where clients were happy. I was getting paid to make pictures despite my serious lack in experience. Having to execute on demand certainly made it necessary to try and learn as fast as I could. After all, that adage of “don’t write a check your ass can’t cash” was something ingrained in my head from an early age. All that being said, talk about watching a clown show. I spent countless hours trying to reverse engineer every photo I saw, and experienced what seemed like an infinite number of failures trying to replicate them. Basically a trial by fire.
A year and a half later, I thought I had a decent understanding of what I was doing. My time in Phuket was coming to an end and I was moving back to the States. So much for never leaving. I was deadset confident I’d slide right into a full-time photography gig upon touchdown back in Atlanta, and I’m sure you can see what’s coming next. Big reality check— way more competition, more developed market, and I was nowhere near the calibre photographer that what it would take to make it. I ended up taking a job in hospitality to pay the bills and started reaching out to commercial photographers. I obviously needed to level up. For months, I heard back from a grand total of no one despite casting an absurdly wide net. When I was starting to doubt why I moved back and maybe this whole thing was a flash in the pan that could only happen when I was back in Thailand, I got a call back for gig as a second assistant. The second assistant doesn’t touch cameras, have any creative input, or really anything to do with photography. Essentially, I was the guy who carried gear, built sets, did all the grunt work. Ahh.. these were the dues everyone kept talking about that I thought I had dodged. No such luck, but I was going to be damned if I didn’t take this whole thing seriously. Best believe I studied lighting, styling, camera settings…every little detail and realised I knew so very little about my chosen path.
Fast forward 16 years, and I’m a full time photographer. My craft has evolved, and I’ve been fortunate to make a living off it. The journey’s been a wild one - often times uncertain, sometimes incredible, but this is my thing. I don’t know how to live my life wth out it. The act of photography turned into a kind of therapy for me when things were getting a bit hectic. That time with the camera became time where I could be present. The process quickly superseded the end results, so the photos ended up being a reflection of that process and somehow I got better.
So… Why am I rambling about all of this? I hadn’t been back to Thailand since I left 17 years ago. When I moved back to Asia, this time Vietnam, when I had the chance to travel, I wanted to go somewhere new. Over a decade slipped by without ever really considering going back. But recently, I had the chance to swing through Bangkok again before the Sri Lanka workshop. My curiosity got the better of me. I wondered how the city had changed in nearly two decades? How had I changed? Maybe I’m still the kid with a camera, wandering and trying to figure it out, but I’ve got a few more years under my belt now so maybe I’m just an older kid still trying to figure it out.
Gone are the days of Khao San Road. No need to relive those days. I wanted to see what’s new - cocktail bars, dives, interesting places to shoot, and all the food. I still have old friends living in Bangkok, so I reached out and ended up exploring areas of the city I didn’t realise even existed. Old places and new eyes right?. Felt like a completely different city than what I remember. Whether that’s a result of it changing, me changing, likely a combination of both, but damn what a cool city and I can’t wait to get back.
For my photographers, I kept it light and fast with the Fuji X100V and the two lens adapters, covering 28-50mm. Everything is edited in Capture One though wiith Fuji’s colour science, I didn’t have to do much. It kind of made me want to shoot only jpgs, but not quite ready for that whole rabbit hole. Anyways, enough waxing on. Here’s part one and stay tuned for part two next week.
