Smiles
November 19th, 2009, 10:39
Suphot and each have our own cameras but we store all of our photos on the only computer we have, a fairly slow old Toshiba laptop which I can't let go of, so reliable has it been.
Just the other day I stumbled over a file full of snapshots Pot had taken early this spring and summer while I was back in Canada. I looked them over and realized I had a very nice record of the few months during which he was back on the farm in Nang Mut: some excellent pictures of his two main crops, cassava and rice and a few of this years Songkran Festival deep in the boonies of his home village.
I hope you can enjoy.
ON THE FARM:
Pot has 3 rai of land on which he grows cassava and rice. The cassava fields in the pictures below are his, but I'm not sure about the rice: During the rice harvest Thai people help out with not only their own rice fields, but their brothers and sisters and in his case the mothers rai as well. Often their friends and neighbours as well.
These helping hands are not sentimantal or particularly altruistic ... it's always 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine': i.e. Pot will ask a friend to watch over his fields while he's in Hua Hin, and in return he'll help that friend with harvesting. There's also a big push during the rice harvest to grab labour quickly, thus the villages are awash with temporary help: any rice farmer can have 10 or 15 folks (or more) cutting rice in his fields on any given day.
Mr Suphot planting rice in some field. As mentioned above, I'm not sure whether this piece of land is his or not, but the work and the effort is the same.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3125
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3124
This is Pot's cassava field before it has had a chance to 'take'.
Lots of labour involved in ploughing, furrowing, planting, then watering and fertilizing it. Last year was a poor year for cassava ... too much water laying about for too long and he estimates that 60% was destroyed by the cassava tubers rotting in the wet soil. A bad year.
This year he's planted the cassava in higher, raised beds and it looks like the plants are going really well and are more protected from too much wetness around the roots.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3120
This photo was taken in June.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3121
And this is the cassava field at the beginning of September, just before leaving for Life #2 in Hua Hin.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3127
Biased a bit I guess, but I really like this closeup of Suphot: hair not cut and all over the place, grungy clothes, dirt on his face, age showing . . . but his inner gentle nature shines through.
Suphot's life is one divided: eight or nine months of the year we're here in Hua Hin with his cushy little tour guide/taxi business and his business man's haircut and his "good eat" and his hot showers and his sweet bed . . . and the other months are mostly spent in the village taking care of his family business, his father (who cannot walk), and his parcels of land. There's certainly not much money in it, but I don't think he'd trade that part of it, ever.
It's not sentimentalism (he's the first to admit he can't wait to get back to his Hua Hin life after 2 months in the field) ... it's just Thai life.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3123
SONGKRAN IN SOUTH SURIN PROVINCE:
These shots during Songkran this year were mostly taken through Pot's car window. I think this technique adds ~ though not anticipated ~ a really interesting (and rather surreal in some cases) dimension to the photos, and gives a reasonable idea of what goes on during Songkran in the countryside where few farangs hang out and the festivities usually go on for one day only.
There is a very large lake in Nang Mut. It's not natural, but made by the building of a rather large dam back 20 years or so ago. It is pretty well the life blood of all the villages in the surrounding area as small canals flow out from it like arteries to feed the various crops in the area.
But it's also the main venue for the Songkran festivities ... naturally so as there's a never-ending supply of water to throw in the face of anyone in the general vicinity.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3118
And here are The Boys. Well watered, probably well oiled, pants half way down asses, soaked t-shirts, Boxers: these are the boys you won't see in Bangkok gogo bars (well, maybe some :blackeye: ) ... the boys who (mostly) stay home on the farm.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3117
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3115
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3114
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3110
Not sure quite whats happening here, but it looks as if a few of these boys have recognized Pot's car and the passengers within and the kids in the truck box in back. Easy prey!! They start to approach, hijacking or waterboarding or terrorism in mind!
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3111
Then, they climb all over the front of the truck ... grabbing onto the windshield washers or anything that will hold them. One guy starts to lick the windshield in order to terrorize the occupants and Suphot grabs the camera and fires off an image that Monet or Van Gogh would have salivated over: a colour-filled ~ just a little threatening, somewhat impressionistic ~ iconic image of Songkran in the boonies of Isaan.
It's now my all-time favourite photograph of this crazy festival.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3112http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3128
Just the other day I stumbled over a file full of snapshots Pot had taken early this spring and summer while I was back in Canada. I looked them over and realized I had a very nice record of the few months during which he was back on the farm in Nang Mut: some excellent pictures of his two main crops, cassava and rice and a few of this years Songkran Festival deep in the boonies of his home village.
I hope you can enjoy.
ON THE FARM:
Pot has 3 rai of land on which he grows cassava and rice. The cassava fields in the pictures below are his, but I'm not sure about the rice: During the rice harvest Thai people help out with not only their own rice fields, but their brothers and sisters and in his case the mothers rai as well. Often their friends and neighbours as well.
These helping hands are not sentimantal or particularly altruistic ... it's always 'I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine': i.e. Pot will ask a friend to watch over his fields while he's in Hua Hin, and in return he'll help that friend with harvesting. There's also a big push during the rice harvest to grab labour quickly, thus the villages are awash with temporary help: any rice farmer can have 10 or 15 folks (or more) cutting rice in his fields on any given day.
Mr Suphot planting rice in some field. As mentioned above, I'm not sure whether this piece of land is his or not, but the work and the effort is the same.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3125
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3124
This is Pot's cassava field before it has had a chance to 'take'.
Lots of labour involved in ploughing, furrowing, planting, then watering and fertilizing it. Last year was a poor year for cassava ... too much water laying about for too long and he estimates that 60% was destroyed by the cassava tubers rotting in the wet soil. A bad year.
This year he's planted the cassava in higher, raised beds and it looks like the plants are going really well and are more protected from too much wetness around the roots.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3120
This photo was taken in June.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3121
And this is the cassava field at the beginning of September, just before leaving for Life #2 in Hua Hin.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3127
Biased a bit I guess, but I really like this closeup of Suphot: hair not cut and all over the place, grungy clothes, dirt on his face, age showing . . . but his inner gentle nature shines through.
Suphot's life is one divided: eight or nine months of the year we're here in Hua Hin with his cushy little tour guide/taxi business and his business man's haircut and his "good eat" and his hot showers and his sweet bed . . . and the other months are mostly spent in the village taking care of his family business, his father (who cannot walk), and his parcels of land. There's certainly not much money in it, but I don't think he'd trade that part of it, ever.
It's not sentimentalism (he's the first to admit he can't wait to get back to his Hua Hin life after 2 months in the field) ... it's just Thai life.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3123
SONGKRAN IN SOUTH SURIN PROVINCE:
These shots during Songkran this year were mostly taken through Pot's car window. I think this technique adds ~ though not anticipated ~ a really interesting (and rather surreal in some cases) dimension to the photos, and gives a reasonable idea of what goes on during Songkran in the countryside where few farangs hang out and the festivities usually go on for one day only.
There is a very large lake in Nang Mut. It's not natural, but made by the building of a rather large dam back 20 years or so ago. It is pretty well the life blood of all the villages in the surrounding area as small canals flow out from it like arteries to feed the various crops in the area.
But it's also the main venue for the Songkran festivities ... naturally so as there's a never-ending supply of water to throw in the face of anyone in the general vicinity.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3118
And here are The Boys. Well watered, probably well oiled, pants half way down asses, soaked t-shirts, Boxers: these are the boys you won't see in Bangkok gogo bars (well, maybe some :blackeye: ) ... the boys who (mostly) stay home on the farm.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3117
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3115
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3114
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3110
Not sure quite whats happening here, but it looks as if a few of these boys have recognized Pot's car and the passengers within and the kids in the truck box in back. Easy prey!! They start to approach, hijacking or waterboarding or terrorism in mind!
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3111
Then, they climb all over the front of the truck ... grabbing onto the windshield washers or anything that will hold them. One guy starts to lick the windshield in order to terrorize the occupants and Suphot grabs the camera and fires off an image that Monet or Van Gogh would have salivated over: a colour-filled ~ just a little threatening, somewhat impressionistic ~ iconic image of Songkran in the boonies of Isaan.
It's now my all-time favourite photograph of this crazy festival.
http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3112http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/gallery/image.php?album_id=51&image_id=3128