Summer Palace, Beijing
Dec. 23, 2008

Ben bought a cheap film camera in Beijing just before our trip to Thailand. He didn’t even develop a test roll beforehand, so we had no idea how these pictures would turn out.

I’m impressed.

You can judge for yourself here.

I put this one on the shelf when I left for Thailand a couple weeks back, thinking it was all done except for a title. (These are scraps, after all, nothing grand, and I risked tweaking this to death.)

When I played it for my son Ben (pictured) his assessment was supportive but blunt. It needs a bass track, he said. He has a great set of ears and he was right; I even knew it before he said it, but had avoided doing so because it had been a couple years since I’d picked up a bass and even though it’s the first instrument I taught myself 35 years ago, I feel clumsy playing.

But I added a simple bass track when I got home, and it really added some heft. That, along with one of my favorite parts of the trip, inspired a title: Riding a Pachyderm.

I took a few hundred photos during a week and a half in Thailand recently. I’ve whittled them down to fewer than a hundred in these six galleries. Hope you enjoy.

Chatuchak Weekend Market, Bangkok
Feb. 13, 2010

Bangkok, Thailand
Feb. 14, 2010

Another cinema-inspired title: M. Tati Visits Tijuana