In the afternoon of my second day in Thailand, I visited some highland villages north of Chiang Mai. The people who live in this area migrated to Thailand over the last few centuries from China and Tibet. My first stop was a working village that was largely agricultural but had a couple of small stands where they sold their traditional woven fabrics to the occasional tourists that ventured up.

I posted a couple of other shots from this village in an earlier post. The shot at the top of this post and those that follow came from another village that is more of a tourist-centered, cultural village. This felt like much less of a real, working village and more like something that was created to show off the crafts of each of several tribes. Each grass-roofed “house” had someone weaving or sewing on the porch. Among the tribes represented were the Long Neck Karen, whose women are known for wearing the heavy brass rings on their necks.

One can argue the merits of this second type of village. As tourism grows in an area, these types of villages are ways to present local cultures to tourists in a way that is easily accessible to travelers (no need to venture high into the mountains to some remote village with no services, for instance). That also reduces the impact of tourism on the real, working villages where people want to just live their lives and maybe don’t want tour busses rolling through on the hour. On the other hand, you’re hardly seeing the real way of life of these people in such a controlled display. It’s a form of packaged tourism rather than a true experience. I don’t have an answer for what is right but I do hope that, whichever route is taken, it is good for the local people. Tourism may be key to their survival as their old ways of nomadic farming become nearly impossible with the onset of modern development on all sides. The world is changing and I think many cultures are desperate to find ways to assimilate while keeping something of their own cultural identities intact.

The busy schedule of the last few days has left me with little time to post but I thought I’d share a couple of yesterday’s portraits of the Hmong people in highlands of the Mae Rim District of Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Continuing my review of the the past decade…

In 2002 I made my last major trip with with film — to Ireland. By this time I was shooting with a Nikon F100 and was just dabbling in digital with a Coolpix 990 (I’d actually had an Apple Quicktake earlier but never really found a way to use it professionally). I took around 250 or 300 rolls of film on this trip and — in those early post-9/11 days — begged for handchecks in Kansas City and again in Chicago to avoid x-ray exposure. I had already removed all of the film from their boxes but they were still in their transparent plastic canisters and kept together in a giant transparent ziplock bag. The handchecks involved taking each roll of film out of its canister and swabbing it before moving on to the next one. Repeat this process a couple hundred times and you’ll nearly miss your connection.

This was also my first international press trip (although still as a “spouse” to my writer-wife) and it was a whirlwind. We had left our home around 4:00 in the morning to catch our flight from KC to Chicago, then had an overnight flight to Dublin but neither of us were able to get any sleep on the plane. If I’m not mistaken, we were in the last row, center section, where the seats won’t recline because of the bulkhead that separates the cabin from the bathrooms. We landed around 7:00 a.m. and were picked up at the airport for a full day of touring. We ended up in Belfast that night, finally checking into our hotel around 11:30 p.m.

Thirty minutes later (and you can bet I was already sleeping) the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the hotel. I’ve never felt so sick in my life. The next morning we found out that the alarm had been triggered by a member of our group smoking a cigar in their room. They never came forward to identify themselves so the rest of the trip became like one of those murder-mystery trips with everyone trying to figure out who was on floor 7 and who had been seen with a lighter, etc., etc.

It was a brutal schedule but we were rewarded with scenes like this:

I shot this across the road from our hotel while everyone else was getting their luggage loaded on the bus. Or maybe we were getting off the bus and checking in — I don’t know. I just remember running across a pasture to stand on a fence and get this shot before the fire went out of the sky. One thing about press trips: you can always be certain that the best light will occur while you’re either on a bus or inside a restaurant. If you want to be out shooting in that light, you have to be quick. (I also learned on a later trip that you should always stay by the bus until you’ve seen your own suitcase get loaded… but that’s another story.)

I loved Ireland and we had pretty decent weather during the whole trip. We went into Northern Ireland, up the Antrim Coast to the Giant’s Causeway, and then cut across the island to the southwest to the Dingle Peninsula and the Ring of Kerry. I’ll leave you with a shot from the Dingle Peninsula. This is nice and saturated on it’s original Velvia but I thought I’d knock the color back a little this time and go for something a little more subtle. It’s nice to have that flexibility now, not only with digitally captured images but also with scans from old film shots.

I’ll make up for a few days absent of posts by posting a few thousand portraits in one shot (anyone care to count them?). On my last full day in Guadalajara, I had the great opportunity to photograph the Romeria pilgrimage at the Basilica of Our Lady of Zapopan. Needless to say, they get a very good turnout. More photos to come.

I’ll toss a black and white in here to give your eyes a rest after that last post.

While we in the United States paint little beige and light beige sample swatches on our walls to make sure we get that just-perfect vanilla, people in many other parts of the world are embracing color. I love it. I know it’s been done to death, but I am compelled to shoot doors and windows and brightly colored walls. I’ve not found it to be a lucrative field for stock, but I do get the occasional print sale. Probably someone wanting something bright to hang on their vanilla wall.

But I don’t really shoot these colorscapes for profit. I just need to make a record of the uninhibited audacity and joy that shines from these walls. They make me happy.

I mean, can I even get that red at Home Depot? These were shot in the lovely little town of Ajijic on the shores of Lake Chapala about 30 miles south of Guadalajara, Mexico. The town is home to many US and Canadian retirees who flock there for the great climate. They bring their own local color, too. I was told that this fellow — spotted enjoying a drink at an open air cafe — was a former New Yorker:

A couple of kids that performed rope tricks for us during a quick lunch in Magdalena on our way from Puerto Vallarta to Guadalajara. It was a beautiful drive through rain forest, over mountains and through lush valleys but the people of Magdalena were the highlight.

Busy days lately but I took a day off to go shoot with my K4/Photodudes buddies on Friday. The sky was mostly dreary but opened up once or twice like it did here at a one room schoolhouse in the Flint Hills near the ghost town of Volland. Hardly a lost day, though, as it was really more about hanging with other photographers than getting marketable shots. Looking forward to the next trip, guys — let’s make it soon.

One more week until I’m on the road again headed for Albuquerque. Still lots of Egypt shots to share so I’ll try and get a few online before I go.

Last year I rode the Durango & Silverton train with my Photodude’s buddies. It was a great trip and we got lots of shots from the open-air cars of the front of the train as it snaked around bends in the Animas River canyon. Yesterday, I got to shoot the train again but not as a rider.

I met the train at the station as the locomotive was being positioned. It was a cool morning and the steam was belching into the sky backlit by the early morning sun. I shot until the train pulled out and then hopped in the car to race ahead to a spot I had remembered from last year’s ride where the train would pass a lake surrounded by pastures of horses. Mapquest was a huge help in finding places where the roads and tracks would intersect. I don’t think I would have ever found the spot without it.

It was fun to get another chance to photograph this great train. I understand they have some special excursions for photographers where they will actually stop the train and allow you to photograph it as it steams past, then it comes back to pick you up again. Maybe I’ll get a chance to do that some day.

Something a little different today. A bunch of photographer friends and I have formed a rag-tag group called The Photodudes. We try and get together every now and then to make some photos and drink a beer or two. This past Saturday, we met at Doug Stremel’s office to shoot some lifestyle and fashion portraits. Doug had arranged for a few models to stop by — this is Kristen, shown above. Some of us shoot portraits professionally, others (including me) don’t. But that’s the fun of it. We share ideas and techniques and try something different. And it’s a lot of fun.

My brother, Bruce, actually IS a wedding and portrait shooter and he brought his new, tiny lighting kit along for the day. I had as much — or more — fun watching him work as I did shooting myself. And I think I’ll have to put together a light kit like his for the road. It would be really handy for the occasional location portrait.

Thanks, ‘Dudes, for another great day. Let’s do it again soon.