Documentary shoot highlights
Filming the documentary on Thailand was a really great experience. It was a spur-of-the-moment acceptance of an offer to be on the camera crew, and I'm so glad I accepted. Our little band of videographers really felt like a family; by the end of it we were working so well together, trading cameras when they got too heavy to hold in the head (shoulder-mounts, oof!), covering shots, looking out for each other. I was a bit sad when it ended, but the director said I'd be welcome on his next shoot, in Indonesia, sometime in the winter I think. Maybe!
There were six of us: Shai (Thai, driver/guide/interpreter), Pete (Australian, director and narrator), Mies (Dutch, second camera), and Celine and Stephanie (Swiss German, film students/backpackers). The itinerary was packed, we covered so much ground in three days, but I got to see much more than I ever could have on my own, from a different perspective. Some highlights:
An orchid farm, where I saw my first brown (fave color) orchid:
A sanctuary for abused and retired elephants, who were so sweet but very grabby when you started feeding them:
An impromptu lesson on basket weaving:
A cave full of Buddha statues:
Giving a bunch of kids a lift in the back of the truck:
Spending the night with a lovely old couple in a rural hill tribe village:
A beautiful Chinese-influenced beautiful temple:
Visiting a tea plantation and factory:
I don't really like monkeys, but everyone else does:
The Golden Triangle, where we stood in Thailand and could see Burma and Laos:
Meeting a Thai couple getting photographed for their wedding:
The still-being-built White Temple in Chiang Rai, which I will never forget. Never seen anything like it. Too bad you can't take photographs inside, it was filled with paintings of superheroes and political commentary (oil hoses that became snakes that wrapped around the World Trade Center):
Full White Temple photo set here.
Visiting a local hot spring, where all the Thai people cooked eggs in the water, coincidentally on Easter:
Hanging out with the crew at the end of every full day:
The complete photosets are on my site: