Working in Thailand
Wat Phra Si Sanphet in the Historical Park, Ayuthaya
Yesterday it was Chiang Rai, today I’m in Chiang Mai. In a day or two it’ll be Bangkok and then on and on.
I’m currently working on photos for Insight Guides, the guidebook publisher from the UK. If you’re not familiar with the books, check out any major bookstore where you should find a rack or section of Insight’s titles. Stacks of them. More titles than Lonely Planet, so they tell me!
Thailand is now the 4th country I’ve photographed for their books, and Queensland in Australia will soon be the 5th. As I travel round, inevitably I get chatting with a lot of people (of course the locals, but apart from them) – backpackers, tourists, expats. When we get around to discussing what I’m doing here, their eyes light up as if in envy. And it makes me feel odd – at once proud to be doing something seen to be fun or glamorous or adventurous, but also surprised that they would think what I struggle through to make a crust is actually enviable!
So let me tell you a little about working on a travel photography gig.
Contrary to popular belief, a travel photographer doesn’t necessarily wander about exotic places snapping away freely, giving vent to their artistic passions day in and day out, just happening to wander into a town when that awesome festival is taking place, just happening to be there at that bridge at dawn when the people with cone hats cycle by, then publishing books and getting famous, and finally retiring to a picturesque villa in Bali or Thailand (pity!). Instead, there’s a lot of groundwork, research, planning and finally, execution. Not to mention the endless days of pre-dawn starts that end at dusk, totally exhausted, filthy dirty and dripping with sweat! And there are weeks and weeks on the road when you never see a familiar face, when you get up early day after day only to find bad weather, when you have more misses than hits, and so it goes on.
There’s also usually a strict framework – a story, a topic, an outline – to be adhered to. And then there’s the deadline – the part that can take all of the fun out of the job if you let it!
Since late September, I’ve been based in one hotel or another in Bangkok or Chiang Mai, working through a photo list for Insight Guides. This work always revolves around “The List”. The publisher and I agree on a detailed, itemised list of all the things, places, people and scenes they want to
use in their upcoming editions. Based on this, we agree a lump sum fee, half is paid upfront, and then I hit the road.
It’s best this way because it would be a nightmare to gather receipts and claim for expenses. And besides, it leaves me in a good position to reduce my costs wherever possible, to leave more money in my pocket at the end. And the more you travel in a country, the more you learn, and the more you learn, the less money you need to get things done.
But back to The List.
It governs my work and therefore my life for months at a stretch, so I try to make it run in a logical sequence, to clarify spellings (not easy in some countries where there are a myriad ways to write names in the Roman alphabet), and cut out anything that’s not going to be feasible (e.g. a far-away little-visited museum that I happen to know looks crap in photos). I can order the items by geography (listed by town/province/region) or by topic (food, museums, architecture, people, etc). But in the end, I have to get out there, find the things on the list, track them down, book them in, and get them photographed.
On the up side, the majority of photography decisions are left up to me. So it might be several temples today, so I check the locations on a map, figure out the best time of day for each place, turn up, and wander round to find ways to make it look interestingly different from the two dozen or so other temples in the city. So mostly it’s fun to try out ways to capture the atmosphere, design and worshippers.
The tricky part is when The List springs a surprise like – “Early morning misty scene with bicycles in XYZ village”. Then I have to get to that village, get an early night, up at pre-dawn and out on a rented motorbike to go find bicycles in the mist. But what if that morning there’s no mist?! Or no bicycles?! Or the people on bicycles see the sneaky photographer lurking in the bushes by the side of the road and so they look away as they ride by, ruining the shot? Well, that’s all part of the job and the tyranny of The List! And it happens a lot. So that’s where I believe the real skill of this job lies. Not in getting nice photos of temples – there’s a lot of people out there who can do that these days. And not in traveling about taking random or artistic photos of everything I see – there’s a lot of people doing that all the time. The real skill is in finding efficient solutions in a place I’m not overly familiar with, don’t speak much of the language, and have extremely limited time, no matter how impossible or how difficult that might seem.
As a Magnum photographer once said, “We are in the business of making photographs, not excuses.” That’s a rule I try to live by. More on this when I get the time…
Hey friend,
I love this post!
Still remember I heard from you things like: “the weather is not cooperative recently” when you were in Nha Trang or Hanoi to take pictures for the project with Lonely Planet. Now I can understand better how you would feel when you tell me things like that.
So from now on, who knows your job and reads this post will envy plus appreciate whatever you’re doing more!
Btw, I never think being a travel photographer is easy – just a gut feeling because I believe that behind every job are sweats and sacrifices. I didn’t know exactly what is so hard about being a travel photographer. But thanks to you, now I know…