thedude.com

We all know this - and it’s absolutely true. Hardware has almost nothing to do with the quality of your work. I’m convinced that results don’t even have much to do with skill. What it’s about is motivation.

I mean, what if I had shot the images in the collages I hung in our hallway tonight with a more expensive camera? Would the end result be dramatically better? I doubt it. Is there anything special about the techniques I used to produce these images. No. Anyone with a modest PC and a $300 digital camera could have done this. What makes this special is that I actually did it. It took some time - maybe 15 hours worth of fiddling with the thousand or so images I shot in Thailand - but these simple collages could have been assembled by anyone who was simply motivated to do it.

So, here’s my challenge to you. Get out there - take a couple zillion pictures. Use your imagination! Do something unique - or not. Print it large. Print it small, sideways, out-of-focus, with false color - whatever - just do it! You’ll be glad you did. Share your results with the rest of us. Display it proudly on your wall. Your friends will swear you have real talent! Really!

And then I’ll tell you why I need to have a new Nikon D2X. :-)

Here’s a funny thing about Thai people. A photographer friend told me that they’d all strike a certain pose whenever a camera is pointed at them - and sure enough - they do!

…I feel compelled to share with you what I just made for the office. I think it’s pretty dang neat. Click on the image to view a low resolution (1.2 megabyte) version of the final artwork. The printed piece will be 12 inches wide by 86 inches (just over 20,000 pixels) tall. I chose 240 DPI for a final file size of 299 megabytes - manageable on my lowly pee see. I’m having it printed by EZ Prints. They have one of the world’s worst web sites, but the best price for this kind of print. I’m getting the huge print done for just $39.70, delivered! An unbelievable bargain, if you ask me. (Tip: EZ Prints panoramic prints must be oriented landscape.)

The tall poster will hang on a square white column near my desk at work.

And now, since there’s too much white space below this entry right now, I’ll treat you to a few of my observations about Thailand, because well, I’m an expert you know - I mean, I’ve been there for almost TWO WEEKS!

• Cars in Thailand have funny names. (May favorite is the Mitsibishi Catalytic Champ.)
• It’s difficult to find a bad meal in Thailand.
• Napkins in most restaurants are about the size and absorbency of a single square of toilet tissue. (Can you spare a square?)
• Bangkok has some BIG-ASS billboards - half as big as a football field. Oh - and it’s hot - all the time. (Chris Burt ranks Bangkok as the world’s hottest city in his Extreme Weather Guide.)
• Thai people are, on average, w-a-y prettier than Germans or Americans. (Or Italians or Russians.)

Hope you find this useful. Stay tuned for my upcoming “Geeks Guide to Thailand”. :-)

I made an effort to photograph boys and men at this event - really, I did! Unfortunately, Thai men simply do not make particularly interesting subjects - certainly not when compared to Thai women of any age.

The orchids look exactly like sexy, happy angel bees, don’t they?

There are many, many examples of this. I’m not exactly sure why it happens so often in a country with so many English-speaking inhabitants and visitors. It must be a matter of pride. A situation where the boss speaks “perfect” English, and no one will challenge his or her interpretations. Maybe. I don’t know.

One of the funnier examples of this sort of mis-translation was seen by Richard Lair at the Elephant Conservatory. I was not able to obtain photographic proof, but Richard claimed that he saw a fresh-faced teenage Thai girl wearing a t-shirt that screamed “Fuck You, You Pricking Fuck!”

We arrived safely after our 20+ hours of flying from Chiang Mai to Bangkok to Taipei to San Francisco. We’re happy to be back, but will certainly remember our first trip to Thailand fondly forever.

Now that I’m back at my trusty computer, I can do things that I could not do from an Internet cafe in Thailand. For example, I can create these panoramic shots. The first is the view from the 15th floor of the Shangri-La hotel in Bangkok. (Just accross the river, behind the large white boat, you can just make out the remnants of a large billboard that collapsed moments before this shot was taken.)

The second panorama was shot on our drive from Chiang Mai to Pai. I’m glad I took this shot when I did, because it turned out to be by far the clearest day we experienced while in Thailand.

Seeing these makes me wish I had had the time and the equipment needed to shoot panoramas at some of the temples we visited. The landscape in those placecs was other-worldly, and really needs to be seen in a full 360 degrees to be fully appreciated. Oh well, guess we’ll just have to return to Thailand soon. :-)

Our three hour drive to Pai was beautiful - for most of us. It turns out that poor Ben is highly succeptible to car sickness. Luckily, we finished the drive without incident and were completely thrilled by what we found that the Muang Pai Resort. The place is beautiful - even in the middle of the dry season.

Soon after we arrived, we drove into Pai and really did surprise our friend Eric at his Happy Yim Restaurant. He claims that we are the first friends from the states to pay him a visit.

Well, I have much more to say, and many more images to post, but with just a few hours left in Thailand, I’d better get out of this internet cafe. I think I just saw Ben and Kelly take off with the last of our cash… :-)

See you all soon!

Last night’s dinner at the Flower Restaurant was definitely one of our favorite events so far. The food - almost all of which was either entirely made of or included flowers - was delicious, and the bill for our group of 20+ people was just under 100 bucks, but the best part was the company. Chris and Ben have a very interesting circle of friends here - each of whom has quite a story to tell.

After dinner, we strolled over to the set of a movie with a working title of Kingdom of Silence. The movie stars Christopher Walken, I think. Our friend Joe Cummings plays a drug dealer in one scene, and even has a line - “This shit will make you fl-y-y-y.”

We’ll be leaving for Pai in about an hour. Coincidentally, Joe and the members of a Colorado band whose name escapes me at the moment are also travelling to Pai today. We confirmed last night that our friend Eric is indeed there. We hope to give him quite a surprise.

It turns out that it’s simply impossible to make an original photo at a well-photgraphed event such as the Chiang Mai Flower Festival. But that did not stop me and thousands of others from trying. It’s equally impossible to attend a celebration as beautiful as this one and NOT take photos. Wow.

Hope you enjoy a few of the best of the 199 images I shot.

Our circle of friends continues to grow. Tonight we have reservations for 21(!) people at a restaurant that serves many dishes made entirely of flowers - or so I’m told.

Tomorrow we’ll be leaving Chiang Mai and driving to Pai - a town about three hours north of here, where we hope to pay a surprise visit to a couple of friends from the bay area who recently opened a restaurant there. I don’t know how well connected we’ll be during our two night stay, so you may not hear from me again until we return.

Let’s see… a lot has happened since our last blog entry.

We had dinner at Lord Jim’s on our last night in Bangkok, where the only thing more impressive than the food was the awesome bill. Ouch!

After a very pleasant one hour flight to Chiang Mai, we decided that the Diamond Riverside Hotel was just a bit too totally gross seedy for us - especially after the Bangkok Shangri La. (I’m not sure if it was the clogged sinks, the duct-taped fixtures or or the coffee-colored swimming pool that pushed us over the edged.) We moved a block away into the Pornping Towers. This hotel is perfect. The room rate is good, the pool is nice and the air conditioner works. Perhaps the best thing about the hotel is its location - just a few blocks from the endless shops where Kelly is determined to single-handedly jump-start the Thai economy, and even closer to numerous internet cafes. Yippee! (Connection speeds are good, and the cost is just over a penny a minute.)

The weather in Chiang Mai has been cool compared to the 97 degree days in Bangkok. Smog is no less of a problem though, as hill tribes and farmers in neighboring countries burn their rice fields. We’ve both been burning through the eye drops.

We’ve been spending most of our time with Chris and Ben, who have been the best hosts we could possibly ask for. Ben does our negotiating in the shops and orders all of our food, and Chris happily takes the wheel of our rented Nissan Sunny and drives down the “wrong side of the road”. (We are extremely grateful for this!) We have been to a beautiful, fragrant orchid farm, ridden on the back of an elephant and eaten more delicious food than you could shake a Thai stick at.

Visiting the elephants was definitely one of the coolest things so far. Chris and Ben are a close friends of Richard Lair, (aka Professor Elephant) the man responsible for creating this large camp, which serves as a refuge for numerous elephants whose logging skills are no longer needed. Instead on lifting logs, these elephants now lift paint brushes and produce one-of-a-kind works for sale to visitors. Dr. Lair was kind enough to reserve the painting you see above for us. (The artist appears on the cover of When Elephants Paint, which makes this extra-special.)

Residents of Chiang Mai are preparing for this weekend’s Flower Festival. There are lots of tourists coming to town for what is shaping up to be a field-day for photographers. (Hmmm… wonder if thedude will take any pictures.)

On Sunday, we’re driving north to Pai to pay a surprise visit to a friend from the Bay Area who has opened a restaurant there called Happy Yim. We’re booked in a hillside resort there that looks pretty nice. None of us has ever been there before, so we’re all looking forward to the trip. We could all use a rest!

More soon!