If I can manage a 7 week trip to Asia later this year I am wondering if I should try to do another 1 or 2 weeks of sex worker photographs. I sort of got burnt out by that scene and over the last 4 years or so have moved onto to other things. I am wondering now if I need to dive back in and do more work in that area. I was thinking of possibly doing a series of work on bar workers in their apartments, or possibly doing freelance workers in the rooms they use with their customers. I might also try to do a series of large format portraits with workers who work at a specific nasty type of bar, they are called blowjob bars (no further explanation needed). I would want to stay away from sexulizing the subject or showing nudity and concentrate on doing strong head shots like the one I posted the other day of the "Burmese Man" from Mae Sot garbage dump. I would want to humanize my subjects, the goal would be to make the viewer think of them as their own mother, father, brother or sister. I might also try colour film again. Maybe I can use my promised artist residency at the Toot Yung Gallery in Bangkok to continue this work. Going back into that world of greed, lust, pain, police corruption, drunkenness, exploitation, disease, substance abuse, tears, sadness, bitterness, danger, jaded damaged people (both the sex workers and customers) and general ugliness will be difficult to handle, but maybe it's something I need to do. There are many important stories in the bar world to tell. I feel I am a better photographer than I was years ago so maybe with lots of work I can open peoples eyes to the true reality of that life, and give a voice to those often forgotten people.
Another cheaper camera/film option would be to shoot this new series on 120, with a Blad or a Fuji 6x7 or 6x9. I need something with a higher res neg and fairly compact. If your in the sex tourist bar world of corruption and payoffs its best not to draw to much attention to yourself (like carrying a big ass 5x7 with tripod).
Like always more thought needed on all this stuff.
Update* I doubt I will continue the large format 8x10 sex worker white background studio work next trip, but maybe I can go down that road again in 2015 or 2016. What bothers me most about continuing that series is the film is so expensive ($76.50 USD for 10 sheets plus shipping and taxes). I love to use Tri-x in that studio setup but I might have to switch to HP5 next time for cost reasons. I hoped to use all of my frozen 8x10 Tri-x doing available light portraits all over Asia using dads Deardorff. We will have to see how this all works out, maybe I can manage to shoot both series with Tri-x. If I could sell a few prints, I would have the money to buy film but that is not happening.
Another cheaper camera/film option would be to shoot this new series on 120, with a Blad or a Fuji 6x7 or 6x9. I need something with a higher res neg and fairly compact. If your in the sex tourist bar world of corruption and payoffs its best not to draw to much attention to yourself (like carrying a big ass 5x7 with tripod).
Like always more thought needed on all this stuff.
Update* I doubt I will continue the large format 8x10 sex worker white background studio work next trip, but maybe I can go down that road again in 2015 or 2016. What bothers me most about continuing that series is the film is so expensive ($76.50 USD for 10 sheets plus shipping and taxes). I love to use Tri-x in that studio setup but I might have to switch to HP5 next time for cost reasons. I hoped to use all of my frozen 8x10 Tri-x doing available light portraits all over Asia using dads Deardorff. We will have to see how this all works out, maybe I can manage to shoot both series with Tri-x. If I could sell a few prints, I would have the money to buy film but that is not happening.
