In 2003 I journeyed off to Thailand after taking a leave from work.

This was anonther in a series of departures for me – starting with leaving college, followed by moving to San Francisco, leaving my job at Intuit, and this time, leaving my job at Wells Fargo – each time without a job lined up.  And this would not be the last.

I really enjoy the freedom of having time off and being able to take stock of my life and see a little of the world.  Taking time between jobs (or when moving, leaving school,.) has been a great way to take that time and see things that have really changed my perspective on the world.

In Thailand I started in Bangkok, traveled North to the hills, and finally made my way South to the beaches.  I was taken with the country and the people (as I find most people are) and have recommeded Thailand as a destination to just about anyone who will listen.

This photo was taken in Chiang Mai, in the Northern hills of Thailand.  There are many temples in Chiang Mai, this image is from Wat Chedi Luang – known more for its elephant-adorned facade.  This statue was in a small building on the edge of the property.  There were several of these monk statues, each fitted out with gold leaf.  I loved the way the gold leaf flaked off of the statues and I loved the light coming in through the openings in the building – large windows and doors which allowed light and a good breeze to come in.

Being 2003, I was still shooting film at this point.  I had recently converted from my Contax system so this image was taken with my Nikon N80 camera and a standard zoom lens (24-85 AF-S ED G 3.5-4.5).  I still own this lens and while its small size and shooting range are convenient, the variable 3.5-4.5 minimum aperture is annoying.

I shot this using Kodak Tri-x black & white film, by far my favorite black & white film. It is a little on the slow side but I just love the quality of the images it produces.  Occasionally I would play around with other film, Fuji, other flavors of Kodak (tmax, which I’m not a fan of), but my usual go-to film was Kodak Tri-x or it’s higher-sensitivity cousin Plus-X.

On trips like these I would carry an average of at least 1 roll of film per day (so I had about 40 rolls for this trip) and on any day walking around I’d be carrying 4-6 rolls with me as well as a film-puller, which I could use to switch film before the roll was used up.  This was handy when moving from daylight to indoors or lower-light situations, but it was more critical for switching between black & white and color.  It’s amazing to think of where we’ve come with digital.

I really like the way this image came out – it was fairly dark in the room, though not as dark as this image would have you believe.  I shot the image a little dark, so as to keep details in the gold leaf (and to avoid a slow shutter speed and the accompanying camera shake).  After scanning in the image I darkened it a bit more to darken out the background but keeping in enough elements to keep the sense of place.

Later on this trip I ventured over to Japan, spending a few days around Kyoto.  There too I visited many temples, which were quite different from Chiang Mai but still maintained much of the same tranquility.

In 2007 I made it back to Thailand, and I look forward to my return.

This photo is from a trip to Thailand in 2007.  Meghan and I spent a few days in Bangkok and then went up North for a bit of an adventure through the hills of Northern Thailand.  We rented some motorbikes (OK.. scooters) in Chiang Mai and then spent the next 4 or 5 days circling around the ‘Golden Triangle.’

One day in particular was memborable for the scenery and roads.  On this day we drove through small villages and on these small roads that twisted through the steep hillsides.  We saw some amazing sights and beautiful scenery.

I had a few cameras with me on this trip (which I usually do).  In addition to my SLR, I packed a smaller point and shoot camera which was handy for walking around at night or quick movies or action shots.

In this case however, I had my SLR (a Nikon D70) slung around my neck.  I snapped away happily while driving along.  During stops I’d look at the exposures and decide what to change for the next stretch of road.  In this series of photos I opened the aperture a bit so that I’d get a bit of leeway on the focal range and also to slow the shutter speed so that I could include a little blur.  In doing so, I was able to capture the feeling of motion as we wind our way through the narrow roads.

I love the way that the road blurs, the lean of the motorbike (granted, Meghan’s not scraping any knees here*), and even the over-exposed section of the road out there in the distance – it’s like we’re driving into the unknown – which of course we were.  We were driving along pretty small roads here, and we never knew what would be around the corner – a village, a truck, a pig or a chicken?

This was definitely a highlight of our trip and both of us are looking forward to our opportunity to do it again.

* as an aside, Meghan did do some knee-scraping earlier on the trip.. (though not the good kind)