19-DEC-2016
Sea Kayaks, Phang Nga Bay National Park, Phuket, Thailand, 2016
Throngs of tourists, mostly from China and Japan, are drawn to Phuket’s Phang Nga Bay National Park largely because this is where much of the 1974 James Bond movie, The Man with the Golden Gun, starring Roger Moore, was filmed. Tourists will usually first explore “James Bond Island,” where the film’s main villain had his hideout. Later, they move on to explore hidden the collapsed cave systems at the base of many of the park’s soaring limestone monoliths. They search for them by Sea Kayak. I photographed five of those kayaks in this image. The vivid red jackets of the kayakers provide a striking contrast to the gray and brown limestone and lush foliage that dominates the image.
19-DEC-2016
A journey through time, Phang Nga Bay National Park, Phuket, Thailand, 2016
This shallow bay holds 42 islands in the Strait of Malacca. It flows between the island of Phuket and the mainland of Southern Thailand’s Malay Peninsula. About 10,000 years ago, when the sea level was lower, it would have been possible to walk from Phuket to what is now Phang Nga Bay. I converted what was originally a drab color image made under rainy skies, into an abstracted sepia impression. A Thai boat, its prow moving towards us in the center of the image, is dwarfed by the landscape that fills the background. The huge limestone monoliths rising from the waters of Phang Nga Bay were made over thousands of years by the passing of time itself. Meanwhile my camera stops time here, as this small boat towards us from out of the misty mountainscape. The sepia tone gives this image the air of a early photograph. It easily could have been made in the 19th century, when photography was still a primitive medium. A light mist rises behind the island on the left hand edge of the frame, adding a touch of atmosphere that flavors the image. The washed out gray sky is exactly the same kind of sky that once filled the landscape photographs of that era. This image, which was among the last photographs I made on this, my final overseas photo shoot, offers an appropriate ending to this gallery.