(BD: Done.)

Thanks a lot.

Every book is a compromise, and should not end up in a loss for the publisher who has to put up the money. Photo books can be a considerable expense, before one even knows if it sells. I was given the choice of a soft cover A4 book, and chose instead a hardcover A5.
The layout of the book is also a compromise of financial issues vs. beauty. To have the whole book in four color printing would have been just too expensive, so i chose to partition the book in a text part, and a four color photo part.

Any other way the book would have ended up with an unjustifiable high price.

The next issue is of course the market as well. I see the biggest market for this book in Thailand and not in the west. Thailand though is not exactly the best market for books. The west is mostly disinterested in the present political problems in Thailand. I have very few sales of photos in western magazines and newspapers, and very few assignments on this subject. That is also why i have approached White Lotus with the book idea. A western photo book publisher usually has a waiting period of one or two years before a book can be published, and nowadays most photo book publishers want the photographer to cover most of the production costs, which can easily be in the range of 10 000 US$ or more, and is presently about 10 000 US$ more than i can afford.
I also believe that this is a book that had to be published quickly before the issue is forgotten.

As far as i can see the next book has a much higher percentage of street reportage than the previous one. I know that especially the introduction chapters are a slight weak point of the book. The problem though is that i needed to write about this as well, to give a bit of a grounding in the matter. I won’t need to do this anymore with the coming volume, fortunately.

But i have another topic i have worked on since 2000, and that will be one i will approach a western publisher with when it is finished, one day. It is also less documentary in character, where i can be as subjective as i want to.

I first came accross Nick’s work in 2004 while browsing in an “adult” bookshop on Rue St Denis in Paris. This particular shop specialized in photography books of a risque kind and I flipped open Nick’s volume on Bangkok nightlife expecting to see the usual sort of visual titillation. Much to my surprise what I got was a work of raw honesty that documented a Bangkok reality that I knew I was shortly to become a part of. So, in many ways, Nick introduced me to farang low life and the dregs of society in Thailand. I still have the book and the last time I was in Europe I picked it up and flipped through the pages. It’s a remarkable book and should, along with Stephen Leather’s Private Dancer, be on a shortlist of required reading for newcomers to Thailand.

I went to your current book’s launch at the FCCT and listened with great interest to Chris Baker and yourself. The book was slightly disappointing though. The photos are terrific and I know you are documenting history with an eye to remaining objective but I felt that the bare bones narrative of events in the text was too dry and detached. Your reports in New Mandala contain more feeling and seem much more animated in their description of unfolding events.

As a photographer, I think your capacity to empathize with tragic circumstances is something quite special in Thailand. Your photographs are amazing but their presentation in the book limits their impact a bit I think. I am puzzled as to why this publication was in the small octavo format. Surely a large format photo book would reach a much bigger audience and have significant sales in the Thai market. In the past, books of photos of historical events have had huge sales in Thailand. I think the design of the current book has the effect of limiting its readership to those whose English is sufficient to comprehend the text. Perhaps you might consider reprinting in a large format for the Thai audience?

No violence, all peaceful, lotsa good pics, and I guess I’ll do a report on New Mandala about it, as usual.

(BD: Will tune in to NM then, thanks.)

BangkokDan

For me even taxis are nowadays too expensive. My financial situation is really a mess. At least K have two digital camera bodies now, I use the 500D, and one of the 450D’s I could get repaired to functioning state, and keep it as a back-up body.

I wear a bullet proof vest in riot conditions, and put it on when the situation is bad. It’s frigging hot and very uncomfortable – after Songkran I had for two weeks at the same time a heat rash that itched like hell and skin abrasions that burned and prevented me from scratching the itch. Argghhh!!!