Even thou I do not speak Burmese and most people at the dump do not speak Thai or English I am becoming embroiled in long conversations with many folks. Not sure exactly how it is happening but today had 4 or 5 long conversations (sort of) with both men and woman. Many times people are asking me for boots (Peh Neh) but at other times we seem to be just shooting the breeze. My relationships in the dump have grown so much over the last few years. Early on I usually spent the whole day with no one speaking to me outside of Hello, now it seems more like friends and family with daily chat sessions.
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
YAUM PHOTO WEBSITE
11 Photos, an Interview and the Cover. THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY. The cover image is of Khun Oye, 72, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2018
The 15 Year Ambrotype Project, Telling The Story of Canada
Article From Issue 160 "Black&White" Magazine, on Concerned Photography
Interview for the 2 University of New Brunswick Art Centre Exhitions
Opening Night Video For THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY and THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP Exhibitions
THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP: Interview and Photos, Online Version of the Published Magazine Story
THE FAMILES OF THE DUMP: Interview and Photographs
FAMILIES OF THE DUMP: Story and Photographs
Photographs and Interview
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY: Photographs and Interview
Penticton Art Gallery explores life on the margins of society - Interview And Story
Visualizing Families of the Dump - Photographs and Interview
LOOK CLOSER: Do we need a photographic code of ethics?
Shows, photo stories, darkroom work, shooting in the field and fun videos.
GERRY YAUM FACEBOOK
My time in a West Oakland with friends, 1985
I have been thinking of why I love photography, it comes down to something I have labeled "The Three Joys"
1) Creativity
The first joy is simply creating the work. Everything about the making of photographs I love. The initial ideas, the writing on the blog, the preparation of equipment, the research into my subjects, figuring out what I want to communicate. The camera tech stuff like composition, lens selection, cameras, figuring exposure, taking the shot etc. The post darkroom work where you swim with your prints bringing them slowly to life, creating something powerful and beautiful. I love it all.
It is so powerful a thing, you have a idea in your mind, there is nothing else, then YOU make it, you create it, it's fricking awesome stuff.
2) The People
The second joy is that photography has allowed me a way into so many peoples lives, so many different worlds. I get to meet people of all types, speak to them, eat with them, cry and laugh with them. For a while I get to live their existence to be them if you will.
I get to be a child in a slum in Bangkok or a drug addict in a ghetto in Oakland. I get to be a ladyboy sex worker in Pattaya or a man dying of cancer in Canada. Of course I am not really those people but I get a true flavor for those worlds, those experiences, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the joy and the sadness.
With photography I get a chance to live outside of the same same everyday meat and potato lives many of my friends and family live. Because I use a camera and make pictures all the doors to a wonderful life experience are open to me, photography is a window into everything!
3) The Photograph
The third joy is about the feeling you get when you accomplish your goals, when you see your final print in the developer, fix or hanging in a gallery. There is a special emotion there, a true satisfied happiness, something so uniquely rewarding. In the darkroom sometimes when I see the finished photo for the first time as it lays in the fixer tray I will let out hoops of joy. I will scream and shout. It is quite a spectacle! It's just the sheer high of that moment bursting out, the YES moment. When the photo is right and you see it for the first time it's the best feeling in the world, better than anything I have ever felt, the high of highs!!
"Ain't Photography Grand!"
Contact Gerry Yaum
contact@gerryyaum.net
GERRY YAUM'S Photography Website "Tears of a Butterfly"
YAUM PHOTO WEBSITE
"Black & White" Photography Magazine, Issue #160
11 Photos, an Interview and the Cover. THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY. The cover image is of Khun Oye, 72, Klong Toey Slum, Bangkok, Thailand 2018
Search This Blog
AMBROTOS KANATA STORIES BLOG
The 15 Year Ambrotype Project, Telling The Story of Canada
Me, W. Eugene Smith, Sebastiao Salgado, Lewis Hine and Walker Evans! :) NOT!!!
Article From Issue 160 "Black&White" Magazine, on Concerned Photography
LUNCHBOX Radio Interview FOR UNB EXHIBITIONS
Interview for the 2 University of New Brunswick Art Centre Exhitions
MONEY EARNED TO HELP THE PEOPLE IN THE PICTURES
Money that will be used to directly help the people in our two photography projects, THE FAMILIES OF THE DUM and THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY $6334.67 ($6000 earned when 6 prints were added to the UNB permanent collection).
GOFUNDME, FAMILES/FREEWAY
Trying to raise $2000 to help the people under the freeway, and the families of the dump. TOTAL RAISED SO FAR = $325 —->$314.67 (after GOFUNDME fees).
UNIVERSITY OF NEW BRUNSWICK EXHIBITIONS VIDEO
Opening Night Video For THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY and THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP Exhibitions
Analog Forever Magazine
THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP: Interview and Photos, Online Version of the Published Magazine Story
Asia Photo Review
THE FAMILES OF THE DUMP: Interview and Photographs
Flash Photographic Festival 2022
FAMILIES OF THE DUMP: Story and Photographs
Slate- THE SEX WORKERS OF THAILAND
Photographs and Interview
The Focal Collective
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY: Photographs and Interview
Vernon Morning Star Newspaper Story
Penticton Art Gallery explores life on the margins of society - Interview And Story
Aquinion Newspaper Interview.
Visualizing Families of the Dump - Photographs and Interview
FRAMES MAGAZINE STORY
LOOK CLOSER: Do we need a photographic code of ethics?
2022 "Families of the Dump"/The People Who Live Under The Freeway Donation Buys
Total donation money spent for the 2022 trip to the Mae Sot dump (THE FAMILIES OF THE DUMP), Bangkok's Klong Toey Slum (THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY). Money spent on "The Families of the Dump" = $571.17 CAD (14982 Thai Baht) Money spent on "The People Who Live Under The Freeway = $144 CAD (3849 Thai Baht) General cases where money was spent to help others in need $15 CAD (401baht)
(Thai Currency) or
CAD
"Families of the Dump" Donation Total
$4420.02 CAD
GERRY YAUM'S Documentary Film Making Blog
GERRY YAUM: YouTube Video PHOTOGRAPHY CHANNEL
Shows, photo stories, darkroom work, shooting in the field and fun videos.
GERRY YAUM'S VIMEO Video Page
Gerry Yaum On Facebook
GERRY YAUM FACEBOOK
THE GOAL
To create photographs that speak to the universality, the commonality and the shared humanity of all peoples, regardless of country, race, culture or language.
TRANSLATE YAUM'S PHOTO DIARY INTO YOUR LANGUAGE
Quote: Robert F. Kennedy
“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to making things better.”
Quote: Nelson Mandela
"As long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist in our world, none of us can truly rest."
Quote: Weegee (Authur Fellig)
"Be original and develop your own style, but don't forget above anything and everything else...be human...think...feel. When you find yourself beginning to feel a bond between yourself and the people you photograph, when you laugh and cry with their laughter and tears, you will know your on the right track....Good luck."
Blog Archive
-
▼
2016
(801)
-
▼
May
(100)
- Quote: Kevin Costner
- Bought A GoPro Hero 2 Camera
- Quote: Giovanni Boccaccio (Writer)
- More Book Buys!
- Link: JiJi Portrait Used On "Genderphobia In South...
- Link: Facebook Photographer Yves Dimant
- 5x7 "Forgotten Laughter" Shots #1
- Quote: Bruce Davidson
- Big Library Used Art Book Buy
- 35mm "Forgotten Laughter" Shots #2
- Book: "Vincent By Himself" Edited By Bruce Bernard
- 120mm "Forgotten Laughter" Shots #2
- Film Loading Issues
- Video: Mae Sot Dump Hut Area (Lean-Twos)
- Video: "Man In The Dump WIth Bicycle", Portrait Vi...
- My Last RX100 II Camera Photograph
- Photo Scrapbook Anthology - Retrospective Magazine...
- Email: What's New Jim?
- Bought A "BeachTek DXA-SLR Dual XLR Audio Adapter"
- 120mm "Forgotten Laughter" Shots #1
- Bought A Used Glidecam 4000 System
- Documentary Film Thoughts
- Found Dad Film
- Bought A Canon EOS C100 Video Camera
- Photo London
- Quotes: Katherine Hepburn
- Poem: "Count That Day Lost" By George Elliot
- 35mm "Forgotten Laughter" Shots #1
- New Documentary Video Camera?
- First Scanned Trip Photo
- Raised Workshop Rates
- 16x20 Camera Gear Kit Buys, Bit By Bit
- Earning Some Extra Money
- Faces From The Dump
- Back In Canada!
- My Little Twin
- Todays Donations
- Completely Exhausting
- Last Day In The Dump
- Making A Documentary??
- A Day With Fred S
- Going Out With Fred
- Got The Crowd A Laughing!!
- A Dog Peed On My Bag!!!
- Saying Goodbye
- Young Boy Works, Gets Hat
- Tomorrows Orders, And Everything Donation
- Who's An Old Man? Not Me!
- $500 Donation To Eyestoburma.org
- Talking To Everyone
- Film
- Boot Orders For Tomorrow
- Great Day Of Photography
- Carrying Around Donations=Exhaustion
- Boots And Headlamps
- New Burmese Words
- What's That On Your Face?
- Flies? What Flies?, Smell? What Smell?
- Jerrii, Size 10 Please
- Moving Day, Again!
- A Good Day
- Restless
- 120mm The Right Lens?
- Switching Bags
- Will Do Big Donations "Eyes To Burma"
- Busy Road Coming
- Hats Everywhere
- Baby Wears Dress
- Radio Buy
- First Family Portrait
- Sleeping On The Road
- The Birthday Party
- Groups Of People All Round
- Grandma Gets Angry
- Orders Multiplying
- Growing Cries Of Gerry
- Switching To Mornings
- Invited To A Birthday
- Smart Watch? No Smart Kids!!
- Goodbye Gerry!!!
- Happy Grandma
- Child Drink
- Closer To The Families
- Please Sit Here And Burmese Words
- Entering New Areas Of The Dump
- Pink Boots
- Calgary Camera Store Blog To Promote "Forgotten La...
- Tears For My Father
- Nightmare About A Nightmare
- New Found Items
- Super 4289B Food Buy
- Shooting Families Up Close
- Children Running On The Garbage
- Running To Show Her Parents
- Brave Hungry Little Lizard
- The Howling Of The Dogs
- Thai Pricing
- 2 Digi Cameras Down
- My Gear For Mae Sot
- In Mae Sot Again
-
▼
May
(100)
Total Pageviews
A BLAST FROM THE PAST
My time in a West Oakland with friends, 1985
The Three Joys Of Photography
The Three Joys
1) Creativity
The first joy is simply creating the work. Everything about the making of photographs I love. The initial ideas, the writing on the blog, the preparation of equipment, the research into my subjects, figuring out what I want to communicate. The camera tech stuff like composition, lens selection, cameras, figuring exposure, taking the shot etc. The post darkroom work where you swim with your prints bringing them slowly to life, creating something powerful and beautiful. I love it all.
It is so powerful a thing, you have a idea in your mind, there is nothing else, then YOU make it, you create it, it's fricking awesome stuff.
2) The People
The second joy is that photography has allowed me a way into so many peoples lives, so many different worlds. I get to meet people of all types, speak to them, eat with them, cry and laugh with them. For a while I get to live their existence to be them if you will.
I get to be a child in a slum in Bangkok or a drug addict in a ghetto in Oakland. I get to be a ladyboy sex worker in Pattaya or a man dying of cancer in Canada. Of course I am not really those people but I get a true flavor for those worlds, those experiences, the good and the bad, the ugly and the beautiful, the joy and the sadness.
With photography I get a chance to live outside of the same same everyday meat and potato lives many of my friends and family live. Because I use a camera and make pictures all the doors to a wonderful life experience are open to me, photography is a window into everything!
3) The Photograph
The third joy is about the feeling you get when you accomplish your goals, when you see your final print in the developer, fix or hanging in a gallery. There is a special emotion there, a true satisfied happiness, something so uniquely rewarding. In the darkroom sometimes when I see the finished photo for the first time as it lays in the fixer tray I will let out hoops of joy. I will scream and shout. It is quite a spectacle! It's just the sheer high of that moment bursting out, the YES moment. When the photo is right and you see it for the first time it's the best feeling in the world, better than anything I have ever felt, the high of highs!!
"Ain't Photography Grand!"
Contact Gerry
- Gerry Yaum
- Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
- Email Gerry: gerryyaum@gmail.com
"Can a photograph stop a war? Can it save a life? Can it lead to understanding, inspire someone to help, provide comfort and open the door to compassion?
Hope that it can.
Pray that it can."
Hope that it can.
Pray that it can."