As always, it was Nick’s fault. A day trip to Bangkok found us inevitably wandering into AV Camera, a warren of photographic wonderfulness. I wasn’t after anything, but Nick needed a filter; so I spent my time browsing the store, admiring the permanent collection of classic cameras, mainly Leica. Then I stumbled upon a nearly new Leica M-E, the latest rangefinder from Leica, at a slightly less than new price. The owner of the store, Khun Mana, asked if I would like to have a play with it. Of course I would!

I was asked to take some photos at a charity event which included a fashion show where children of the attendees would dress up and strut the catwalk. Totally ignoring Kevin’s advice to “never work with kids or animals, even more so kids who behave like animals”, I agreed to go along.

First thing was to prepare the camera. I reckoned most of the shots would be taken in portrait orientation mode, so I decided to bolt on the second part of the Olympus grip which includes a shutter button and associated dials for portrait orientation shooting; and as it also included space for a second battery, I stuck that in too. Finally, I screwed on a flash and the Summilux 25mm. It certainly looked the part:

One of the pleasures of digital photography can be playing with the images once you have them on the computer, or it can be a pain the arse. Most of the time, my photos are subject to a few minutes of abuse in Lightroom before being spat out for display on the wide wide world of web. This is either because they are wonderful to start with; or because I have very little creativity, eyes incapable of discerning between more than three colours, and a fundamentally lazy disposition. I suspect it is the latter.

Lit by the setting sun.

This:

Go anywhere near Gaysorn Plaza, Chitlom or Central World in Bangkok and you will likely pass Thao Maha Brahma, known to us as the Erawan Shrine.

They arose from the ashes of the hair-centric warbling of the nineteen eighties and early nineties, a revolutionary rock band with post-punk sensibilities and a lust for groupies life. They ascended to super-stardom quickly, shone brightly for a short while, before fading quickly into obscurity; leaving those who had seen them perform thinking “thank god that’s over”. The Dumb Terminals, a melancholy milestone on the road of rock and roll. This is their story.