A couple of months ago, when sorting RAW files on my hard-drives, I noticed some old photos of the Western Australian Wheatbelt taken with my first dSLR, a Canon 400D.
As my Lightroom and Photoshop processes and skill level had changed dramatically since I first process those Wheatbelt files, I excitedly imported them into LR2 to play with them.

Very rapidly did I come to a sad realisation. The 400D files contain nowhere near as much ‘depth’ as the RAW files from my current camera, a Nikon D700, and thus the heavy graduating filters etc that I would usually apply just rapidly turned the Wheatbelt photos to junk.

Meaning, I was unable to do anywhere near the amount of processing on the 400D files as I would with my current shots – such as my Cambodia photos for example.
[Note: I will simply leave it as ‘depth’ as I don’t wish to talk about the science of RAW files here.. If ever…]

For my Cambodia and Laos trip I lugged around my D700 and 24-70 f2.8 lens, backup lens, laptop and LX3. It was very rewarding, I think, in regards to the resulting images (see the Travel & Landscape gallery from my website if interested: http://www.scottgtrenorden.com.au/galleries-doco.html) but the inconvenience of such a large kit was repeatedly constrictive.
When I visited Thailand soon after I took my OM4 Ti film camera, twenty rolls of film and my LX3 and it was immensely better in terms of portability.

And thus upon hearing about the upcoming Panasonic GF1 I excitedly ordered one for a few reasons:
Apparently near SLR quality images.
Small package with big results.
The ability to combine the manual lenses from my OM4 Ti with the GF1.
Sexy Lumix imagery that I fell in love with on the LX3 (BnW Dynamic? Oh yes!).

And now that GF1 has arrived.

But since ordering the camera, that inability to achieve the look I wanted with the 400D, that I am now used to using with the D700, sat in the back of my head.
“Would the GF1’s RAW files be as equally limiting as the 400D files are?” Would I be able to use this camera as I hoped; could I use the GF1 and OM4 as a much, much smaller and more portable travel kit and still get high quality resulting images?

[Note#2: I don’t mean for this post to be a slam on the Canon 400D in any way. It’s a very good little camera. It’s a simple case of realistic technological limitations.]

“There must be other people,” I thought “that are pondering this same question”. And so I decided I’d do a Before & After blog post with image examples.
I’ve read several reviews on the physicality of the camera – and seen many, many more – but not so many on the usability of the RAW files themselves.
What are the limitations of the RAW files?
How much depth of processing can you apply to them?
Do skies get severe banding quickly or can you apply nice smooth, deep gradients (this was a big one)?
How good is the colour detail and faithfulness?

I thought I’d take some very basic photos in not-so-good conditions (middle of the day for example) and do what I could to make them usable and then post the before and after photos. My reasoning being that if these photos looked good then travel shots of a beautiful vista at 7am would have to look ten times better again, right?!

For this test I used four lenses; the Panasonic 20mm f1.7, Olympus 14-42mm, OM Zuiko 35mm f2.8 and OM Zuiko 50mm f1.4 (the OM lenses are manual focus via adapter).

Keep in mind, too, that I have only had this camera for a couple of days so I didn’t play around with White balance and picture modes too much and thus the ‘before’ shots will look very ordinary. As the RAWs are converted to default settings on import I didn’t worry about these factors for this initial test.
I only spent 10 minutes max on each image.

Also, to clarify, this is not necessarily how I would post produce the images for final products! Instead, I have pushed the post production – much darker gradients than I’d use etc, especially in the last image – in order to find the GF1′s RAW’s limitations.

Panasonic 20mm f1.7:

I shot this in Dynamic BnW (in RAW+Jpeg mode) and so am linking the imported RAW file, not the Jpeg.
before

after

Olympus 14-42mm:
Nature film mode. Jpeg and then processed RAW file.

before

after

OM Zuiko 35mm f2.8:
I shot this using a yellow-green filter and Nostalgic film mode to go for a ‘70s tone. I think I forgot to turn off auto white balance, however, thus the predominantly blue tone… I do like the end result though.

before

after

OM Zuiko 50mm f1.4:

Nature film mode, yellow-green filter again – I wanted a lot of greeny blue in the sky. This shot isn’t meant to be a compositional masterpiece, obviously; I shot it in order to establish how much I could gradient the sky.

There is definitely a lot of room to deepen skies with graduated filters in Lightroom 2+, as should be evident from this comparison. The ‘after’ shot here is just part the point where banding started to show up very clearly. Jpeg compression certainly doesn’t help either.

before

after

All in all, I have to say I am very impressed with the GF1 from a post production point of view.
The biggest issue I have seen is noise levels (even above 400 ISO when viewed at 50% or 100%) but that is countered very easily with Noise Ninja or similar.

The camera definitely isn’t a D700, obviously, but the quality and usability of its images are even better than I had expected to be honest. There is a lot of room for artistic licence within an image.

Most important of all for me personally; I will be very confident in taking this camera travelling for travel photo and Photojournalistic purposes.

Thank you for reading. Please let me know via Comment or email if there are any other tests you’d like performed!

Scott.

Dozens (perhaps hundreds..?) of emails back and forward, hours upon hours of planning and several evening design chats between Elsie Tan, Bek and I (and a few too many TimTams) later, we found the day of shooting upon us.
It really is immense, the amount of time spent on such projects. From location scouting to assistant seeking, dress making and model booking, ordering specific makeup from overseas through to acquiring the right lighting gear for the job; it can easily become three months from concept meeting to the day of shooting.

Rachael Cross, Stephi McLean and Amanda MacDonald accepted our requests to model Bek’s dresses and Rachael’s mother, Tracie, joined us to provide her invaluable hair-styling and on-location assistance.
Jeremy Hall, Megan Henderson and Magdeline Lum answered the call to assist as photographer’s assistants on this ambitious undertaking and the day was set.

Bright and early, the girls gathered at Bek’s place to begin makeup, hair and dress fittings, while I ran around trying to find a small enough tension screw to fit a flash bracket… Bunnings to the rescue once again!
Delivering coffees, hot chocolates and muffins, I found a mellow house quietly a’bustle with pre-shoot preparations.

Elsie applies the finishing touches to Amanda’s makeup

The first half of the day belonged to Elsie and Bek (with hair styling assistance from Amanda and Tracie) with Elsie applying beautiful makeup to three models in record time (great work Elsie!).

Jeremy, Mags, Megan and I set to putting the softbox together, changing the flashes’ batteries and other pre-shoot tasks. The use of wigs meant that we didn’t need the assistance of a professional hairdresser which helped take some of the pressure off, time-wise.

Before we knew it we were piling into cars and heading south towards our pine-plantation location.

This shoot was the first in which I was able to utilise my new studio-style softbox and QikMount system (purchased from Image Melbourne) and I was excited to see what sort of light it was going to throw across the scene.

Megan was entrusted the job of moving the softbox around and adjusting the dual-flash outputs. I have greatly appreciated Meg’s help over the last few shoots I’ve done and she worked tirelessly yet again. Thanks Megs!
Utilising the extra flash mount bracket for the QikMount I was able to put both a Nikon SB-800 and Nikon SB-600 through the softbox.
Coupled with the softbox I used a YN-460 speedlight through a white shoot-through umbrella (controlled by Jeremy) and another YN-460 into a silver reflective umbrella (handled by Mags).

The softbox was positioned to the right of camera, between 20° and 50° in front of the model(s), shot depending.
The SB-800 was usually kept on full power, the SB-600 at 1/2 power.
The silver reflective umbrella was used for enhancement/hair lighting only and was usually positioned about 45° behind the model, camera left, shifting between 1/3 and 3/4 power.
The white shoot-through umbrella stayed between 20° and 50° in front of the model, camera left, supplying subtle fill light at all times, also shifting between 1/3 and 3/4 power.
All flashes were triggered via Cactus v4 triggers.

The general floor plan is seen in this graphic:

Big thanks to Nguyen Dinh for creating the base template for this layout: www.lightingdiagrams.com

The sun was getting low as we began to shoot, providing some good leading lines via shadows from the pine trees.
From the outset we wanted to give an element of weirdness to this shoot (as is pretty much essential with a Design school brief it seems!). Apart from the not-so-normal situation of photographing models in 18th Century styled gowns having a tea party in the middle of a pine forest at night, we wanted to add a dimension of ‘disruption’ (which is the title given to the whole project by Bek).
To do this we added in an Alice in Wonderland style clock to some shoots and gave the models elevation where suitable.

Elevation was achieved by having the models stand upon a small stool, as is seen in the above shot of the pine forest.

The following two shots highlight the general lighting setup and atmosphere of the setting. In this first scene, Stephi (solo) is modelling a long purple gown, while standing upon the stool and trying to act up while keeping her balance.
She did a sterling job, of course.

The end result can be seen in the final image slideshow at the bottom of this post.

I’ll include a few more ‘environmental’ shots for those interested in seeing how I went about setting things up.
The lighting was generally kept as per the diagram above to create uniformity between the different settings/scenes. The power ratios did not change a great deal.

As you can see from the next three shots, the dual flash softbox setup throws a lot of nice, warm light. This aspect of the lighting setup was crucial to the overall success of the shoot in my opinion; a lot better than what would have been achieved if I’d used the ‘reflective’ umbrella softbox that I used in previous shoots, what with its narrower and more washed out light.

In theory it is possible to put four speedlights through the softbox, though I’m not sure how I’d literally manage that as there’s not much space left when two large flashes are used. But technically, the light seen below could be greatly amplified.
My next experimentation will be to see whether I can fit the two Nikon flashes and two (wider but squatter) Olympus T32 flashes through the QikMount setup.

The unit itself is rather light yet sturdy when constructed (allow a good 20-30 mins to get it all set up on your first attempt!) and overall I’m very happy with the setup as a whole.

Elsie applying touch-ups to makeup in near darkness. You go girl!

All in all the day was a big success.
Packing up gear in darkness is never fun, nor is dealing with mosquitoes and ticks, but the effort was entirely worth it.

Congratulations to Bek Timson for designing and creating such stunning outfits and for styling the shoot so brilliantly!
Thank you to Elsie for your tireless makeup work, to the models for sticking with the tricky shoot and to Tracie and my three photography assistants for spending a long day helping out. It was all greatly appreciated!

The final images from the shoot can be seen in this slideshow:

Some higher quality images are available on my Flickr page, along with the option to leave feedback.
Larger images are viewable in the Fashion gallery on my website at www.scottgtrenorden.com.au.
Feel free to leave your comments at the bottom of this post.
Please do not hesitate to contact me if you are interested in working out an estimate for an on-location shoot: scott@scottgtrenorden.com.au

‘Disrupted’ shoot info:
Clothing Designer & Shoot Stylist: Bek Timson
Makeup Artistry: Elsie Tan
Models: Rachael Cross, Stephi McLean & Amanda MacDonald
Assistants: Tracie Cross, Jeremy Hall, Megan Henderson & Magdeline Lum
Photographer: Scott G Trenorden
Shot on location in pine forests south-east of Armadale, Western Australia.

To celebrate these collaborations – and nutting out how to embed Slideshow Pro slideshows, thanks to the assistance of photographer and friend, Brett Dorran! – I would like to take the opportunity, as opportunities arise, to ‘expose’ to you the designers that I have been so fortunate to work with on epic projects.

The first Designer I would like to bring to you is Bek Timson.
I first met Bek while working on a ‘Vampire’ shoot we conducted earlier in 2009 and have since collaborated on other projects with her. This will include her upcoming graduation portfolio, an obviously intensely important affair, with which I am humbled to be involved.

The slideshow below is very much a work in progress. There will be many more shots to come from the Wheatbelt shoot seen at the start of the series, when time allows… I will post an update when this happens.

So, please check back in the coming weeks, as well as my Flickr page for updates and the ability to leave comments on specific photos, if you so desire.

Clothing Design: Bek Timson
Makeup & Hair Design: Elsie Tan
Hair Design (Vampires) &
Assistant Hair Design (Wheatbelt): Tracie Cross

Separate to the Designer slideshows, I will be endeavouring to write more regularly about the shooting process, what is involved, anecdotes from the day and any technical aspects that may be involved.
Do not hesitate to contact me if you’d like to read about anything specific!

Scott.

Note: Do not view these slideshows as indicative of the quality of the finished photographs; they are represented quite poorly once shrunken and uploaded to the web. They are more useful in giving a sweeping overview of the great talent of the people I am privileged to work with.

For some, the only inkling of a possible coup is the news article playing on the TV in the back of the bar they are currently sitting at, while watching people douse each other in water then coating then in mint-packed talc.

Of course, a person in this situation would very grateful for the emails, checking up on their health.
Just as they would be wanting everyone back home to know they are fine and safe.

There are only so many mountain-and-stream photos I feel it worthwhile to put up on my blog, and so I think I’ll just post this one:

The sun sets over Nong Khiau (Kiow, Khiow, Kheau.. depending on who you ask!).

The reasons for this repetition are several-fold, with the primary one being mostly philosophical.

It’s highlighted by Matt’s comment on a photograph I took of some school children in Cambodia:

“Would love to see more pics of locals like this, but I know you like to avoid confrontation.”

Initially I smiled and shrugged, but then I got to thinking about what exactly makes me refrain from putting my camera in peoples’ faces to get those ‘local’ shots.

And the answer to that simple question came almost instantaneously.

I have resolved that we, as tourists, very often treat the everyday people of Third World countries like animals in a zoo; like freaks in a sideshow or moving, living characters in a natural exhibition.

I constantly see tourists sitting or squatting a meter or two away from a local person – who is going about their oft-monotonous every day task – with their camera pretty much stuck in their face, going click… click… click.

Visitors wander the night markets, sitting on stools to shoot frames of the people trying to sell scarves and trinkets, stools intended for people to sit and inspect their wares, only to glance at their photo-handiwork before walking off without even acknowledging the worker they’ve just been shooting.

Seemingly gone is any sense of discretion or a respect for the local person’s privacy. Every other tourist here seems to have a dSLR and a ‘mini-PC’; big cameras stuck in small people’s faces, pausing to review their photographs and then repeating.

And frankly, it embarrasses me.

This is why I’ve not got many photos in my collection of people doing ordinary things.

Occasionally someone would pose or instruct me to take their photo (young kids are often quite forceful about you taking their photograph! Now!) and they would smile when I show them the photo on the camera.

I think that is their main impetuous for asking to be photographed; to see themselves on the little screen!

Also noteworthy I reckon: I’ve had a few tourists pose and ask me to photograph them, only to then hand me a business card and ask me to email it to them..! This happened a few times at Angkor Wat etc in Cambodia, and mostly by Korean people it seemed.

My quotation of hourly rates was often met with a blank stare.

So anyhow, more often than not and due primarily to our lovingly frakked up social system in the West, I usually delete photos of very young children after I take them. Probably an over-reaction, but then I really don’t want a collection of photos of little kids to begin with.

I guess what this also emphasises to me, and is quite depressing in the realisation, is that I have not taken much of any photojournalistic worth during my time away.

For if content is photojournalistic in nature and also involved photographing people then I doubt I would refrain from doing so; children working in a lumber camp or mine; monks carrying out an interesting ritual; people living in destitution in the backdrop of a big city; child soldiers etc.

On the up side though is that I feel I’ve discovered a lot in regards to the way to travel and locate these sorts of stories, what gear to travel with to do so and how you must leave yourself open to spontaneity.

For example, two nights ago in Nong Kheow/Khiau/Khiow just on dusk, while I was photographing the sunset, two fishermen told me they were going fishing and that I could join them.

I had my big old D700 and lens around my neck, the boat was small and seemingly taking on water, it was getting dark, mozzies were swarming and I had no Bushman spray on me. So I chickened out.
In the same situation with a better prepared backpack (with water and spray), my OM4 film and digital ‘point and shoot’ cameras, some 1600 ASA film and a better understanding of some of the local language and customs I would have definitely joined them on their evening fish.

Similarly in Vientiane a truck pulled up next to me with a few dust covered stone masons on the back, along with a few half-completed Buddha statues. They looked at me and smiled, and I know I could have just jumped on the back and joined them wherever they were heading.

With more confidence and decisiveness, a better understanding of what I should bring and carry around, and more mobility (physically, damn knees), I would go about things very differently.
This will of course come in time and will hopefully lead to many more photojournalistic opportunities that I’ve currently experienced during this trip.
And that is where I feel this trip has been so, so beneficial and unbelievably fun; it has taught me how to prepare for the next one, on which I will learn more how to prepare for the next one etc etc.

Until then, though, I really don’t feel comfortable taking staged photos of people doing whatever they do as their day-to-day task, as though they exist in their country purely as a living and moving observation for the rich and a/effluent.

Along with not enjoying taking those photos, I don’t really see them as being overly important. They are often devoid of emotion and integrity, primarily serving well as holiday ‘snaps’.

Most of all, and most importantly to me, I just don’t want to contribute to the Human Zoo.

But sure enough, the first thing I am confronted with after doing the walk from the bus station to the town centre is Jennifer Aniston’s squawky voice and, yup, canned laughter.
Bar after bar, playing Friends, Simpsons, Futurama, with tourist after tourist seemingly comatose, not laughing, not moving… Probably still spinning from their mushroom shake.

It’s a wise idea that one; consuming a couple of shakes containing heavily hallucinogenic mushrooms, which take an hour or two to kick in (apparently…), with no idea of how many mushrooms you’re getting in each shake.

Intelligent.

And so, yes, I avoided doing some Mark Roy-inspired research into the apparently epic drug availability and instead spent my two days in Vang Vieng chatting with Steve, the owner of the Aussie Bar, hanging out with the wonderfully bad influencing Lori and generally just having some down time.

Vang Vieng is surrounded by very unique and beautiful mountains which seem to lean to the side. Well, they don’t seem to. They do.

Problem is you can’t really see them very well due to the dense smoke that hangs in the air everywhere – a by-product of the epic use of slash-and-burn ‘farming’ going on around these parts.

“I didn’t bother trying to edit out the green-blue sky, to show how heavy the smoke haze is in these parts.

A thick smoke hangs over Vang Vieng and is even worse in Luang Prabang… Horribly worse. As the black and white photos following this one attest to.”

And it only got worse when I headed higher into the mountains towards Luang Prabang. Oh did it get worse…

Smoke on the Mountain…

I’m sitting in a café now typing this up and looking out the front doors all I can see is a grey haze.
My eyes sting and I often feel like I have moth balls stuck up my nose due to all the soot in the air.

The drive up here was unbelievable. A couple of times we needed to shut the windows of the minivan while we drove past flames flicking across the road. Whole mountain ranges seemed to be on fire. Everywhere you looked was barren; tree-less hills were dotted everywhere.

Directly ahead of us was a massive mountain range…

Slash-and-burn season is in full effect.

What would be stunning vistas have been transformed into grey, featureless horizons. Essentially, the local people have absolutely massacred the beauty of this region with their seemingly archaic practices.

The barren hills await a soon to come rainy season, when all the nutrients will be washed off the slopes and into the rivers.

“Why do they do this??” Daniel asked me.

Why do they do this indeed?

I left this one in colour to show the condition of the landscape; hazed, scarred and charred by the burnings.

A mountain range rises up through the smoke.

If I had known that things would be this uncomfortable up here, I would have thought twice about coming. In fact, I don’t know whether I would have come at all.

Tomorrow I will travel over to Nong Khiow, a small village four hours from here. I imagine it will be just as bad there.

I wonder if I should bother to go at all..?

The sad thing is, Luang Prabang is an absolutely beautiful little town (well, it’s actually quite big). It’s easily the ‘artiest’ of the towns I’ve seen so far and is wonderfully French; it’s pretty much the town Vientiane wants to be.

The architecture makes this place so quaint and appetizing and the food is sensational.

A roadside village; a common sight during the drive up through the hills. The often back onto a several-hundred-metre drop.

A tractor lays in wait, amid a charred and graded landscape.

I would love to experience this town after the rainy season, when the roads are passable but slash-and-burning is not in effect.

Perhaps I will return one day and continue north to experience the border regions and local people in their traditional ways.

Besides the extreme discomfort of the smoke, this is definitely a town to visit and eventually come back to.

After the hassle and aggravation of Steung Treng, it was nice to finally move from Cambodia into Laos.

We crossed the border without too much affair and made our way to the islands of the Deep South. One rocky road after another and we were on a small boat, chugging our way towards Don Khon Island.

Waiting on the Laos side of the Cambodian border crossing… For no apparent reason. “Yes we leave now” after which we waited another 15 minutes. We were of course waiting for more people to help fill our bus to the Islands.

After a quick bit of exploring, Derrick and I found a nice place to call home for a few days, in the form of ten bungalows lining the edge of the Mekong River.

A quaint area; there is no electricity; no cars apart from the odd tuk-tuk style minibus transport; most transport is done via the longboats on the river.

The downside to this was the lack of a fan during the day. It was rather hot for the first couple of days we were there and thankfully cooled slightly in the latter part of our stay.

Come 6pm (until 11pm) the generator is turned on and we had a fan, a plug to charge batteries and ‘brown light’ too dim to read by.
Therefore, most evenings were passed via the imbibing of a Beerlao or two in the company of often a half dozen or more people in one of the small restaurants in the area.

A quick snap of my bungalow with the LX3 camera. The mosquito net, the soft glow of the sun, the water reflections across the ceiling.. It was all very endearing and romantic.

Most of us headed to bed before 10pm to try get to sleep while the fan still ran (as it got rather hot coming 11:01pm when the electricity, and thus your fan, was turned off) which wasn’t a hard task.

Going to bed so early makes one think you’d be up early and into some important task of island exploration the next day, but alas, it was not to be.

Quite often people wouldn’t congregate until 9 or 10am for a breakfast or brunch, a coffee, a book swap and a chat.

Yup. It was a hard life on the island.

A view of the Mekong River and Don Det Island from the bridge between Don Det and Don Khon.

The lack of electricity was a bit of a let down as it meant I couldn’t while away the days with writing and working on photos.

Added to that, the noise of the generators definitely detracted from the otherwise beautiful evenings sitting on restaurant balconies that literally hang over the edge of the Mekong.

Oh, and you had to avoid sitting near a light as the bugs came in their millions.

But after from that it would be easy to still be there.

Rice paddy fields that double as grazing areas for cows in the dry season.

One of the ladies there mentioned a town north of Luang Prabang called Nong Khiow which she thought was nicer than the islands, similar in style, but more ‘modern’.

I may just have to make my way up there to have a look. And while away a few days. Maybe work on a book.

Maybe do nothing at all.

A second view of the Mekong River with Don Khon Island on the left and Don Det Island on the right, taken from the bridge between Don Det and Don Khon.

So far Laos has been a welcome slow-down from the comparatively hectic Cambodian experience.

It’s a lot cleaner and mellow; in fact it’s hard to believe that this place is actually a war ravaged country at all. There are no beggars, no constant hawkers and no limbless people that I’ve seen – in the capital at least. This may change when I travel up to the ‘touristy’ towns to the north.

The food here is nicer than what I found in Phnom Penh, the locals are happy, smiley people, the tuk-tuk drivers just say “Sabaidee!” (hello) when you walk past and other tourists are mostly smiling and jovial.

I have been thinking that if I do travel to Mongolia and China I may just fly into Vientiane and move north through Laos and into China, granting me the opportunity to see more of the northern regions of Laos which I hear are simply stunning.

I have also been thinking – as much as it’s been so great having the D700 here to capture the photos I have – that my next trip will be the black and white film trip I’ve been planning to do for a while.

This is not due to the size and weight of the camera and lens plus extras; in fact that’s been easily manageable.

I want to do it purely for the look and quality of film. Besides, that LX3 takes some lovely colour photos and video!

Bangkok in April will be a good test run.

And so currently I am spending a second day in the capital Vientiane, which sure is a sleepy little place for a capital city.

From here I think I will head to Vang Viang to meet up with Lori and to take photos of the idiots in tubes sucking on opium milkshakes while floating down the Mekong.

From there? Who knows?
That’s the beauty of unplanned travelling, after all.

I’m currently in Pakse, Laos, waiting the hours away until I can get on the overnight bus to Vientiane.

It’s currently pelting with rain, which is a nice change from intense sun (through the haze) and heat.

Laos is a stunning place, scenery-wise. The people seem lovely too, though they seem more than willing and able to take you (or moreso your wallet) for a ride. I’ve left my pack at the bus station, so am hoping it’s still there on my return…

So:
From Phnom Penh I made my way north to the border region, stayed overnight in Stueng Treng and crossed into Laos the next day.
I encountered the slimiest, dodgiest man in Stueng Treng (think that spelling is wrong), the kind who tried his hardest to get me to convert $200 US at 6150kip because you’d get less on the islands (exchange rate is currently 8550kip to the dollar). I humoured him and changed $10 so that I could by lunch in Laos.
Of course, they exchanged at 8200kip on the island.

The thing that slimey idiot forgets is that I am now going to write all about their guesthouse on TripAdvisor, telling people all about it!

I met a Dutch couple who fell for the scam too… They were not happy!

So, I headed into Laos and to the 4000 Islands, staying on Don Khon island. It was quiet and hot with no electricity bar from a generator from 6-11pm, and it was loooovely!!
I had to convince myself after a day that it was fine to do nothing!
And so I did. Stayed three nights, socialised, met lovely people, ate nice-yet-simple food.

I was on the quieter island (nearby Don Det was the so-called backpacker island, yet was nowhere near as nice accommodation) and there was a generally older tourist set there. Which I didn’t mind at all.
I befriended a lovely couple from my parent’s vintage, a Melbourne couple, who I think rather took me under their wing.
We shared several lovely meals and drinks, joined by other nice travellers.

Sadly, the bus trip from Don Kron to here, Pakse, was a complete shambles and Gayle and Derrick, the Melbourne couple, ended up on a different bus to me. The buses stopped at different places, so we got split up and this I was not able to say goodbye or pass on my details etc.

Gayle and Derricks house was miraculously saved from a firery destruction, and they’ve offered it up while away as housing for a family who lost their home. Humbling stuff.

Pakse is nothing extraordinary. Glad I’m moving on, besides which I want to get north ASAFP.

Oh, I’m writing this via WiFi on my phone too, so no photos to accompany the post.
I really didn’t take too many in Don Kron anyway, to be honest.

I shall mosey on for now. My apologies for not responding to mails at this point. I’ll try do so tomorrow in Vientiane or soon after in a northern town.

Take care, and thank you all for your well-wishes.

Scott
Xx

PS – for ease of use, if you need to or want to mail me, please use pduvphoto@gmail.com as it’s very hard to access my own server mail when there is no wifi and slow Internet.

Post-note:
Immediately after writing this blog post, I wandered back out onto the street, only to see Gayle and Derrick walking towards me. So we caught up again and swapped details.

Room after room, face after face… A horrifically solemn place.

“How can people do that??” I later mused to my dear German friend, which in retrospect was probably a very disrespectful and badly thought out thing to say (my apologies Anja).

Face upon face lined board after board stretching from room to room, making up just one floor in one wing of the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Not a smile to be seen, not a laugh to be glanced at… Not a voice to be heard. One by one we shuffled through, staring limp-jawed at the photos of every day Cambodians.
Some of the now-deceased even had the audacity to smile subtly when their photo was taken. What a mark of bravery. What a symbol of defiance, if any such thing remains when you knowingly wait your torture and subsequent death.

Upon entering the premises, it’s not hard to fathom that Prison S.21 was previously school grounds. With the blossoms in bloom and a quiet disposition to the place, at first glance it seems rather pleasant.

Then the mood, the ‘air’, strikes you before you’ve even made it into the first of the converted classrooms.

A converted class room…

Close your eyes hard enough and you can hear the screams of the victims, strung up by their wrists with ropes (arms behind their backs) dangling meters off the ground, whipped until they pass out (if they haven’t already from their shoulders dislocating and muscles tearing), then having their heads plunged into pungent sewerage water to revive them; only for it to be repeated.

Maybe this will give some idea of the sight, the smells, the screams of the place.

Again I will ask, how can people do that?
What vital string of human decency has snapped to allow any person – leader, grunt or loved one – to actually condone and carry out such atrocities?

How do you look a child in the eyes and tell them they have – like Pol Pot had – the potential to grow up to commit genocide? How do you even explain the meaning, that a human is capable of such a thing?

A cat finds a comfortable place to rest where no one else can.

Places like Tuol Sleng remain as testaments to the lowest points of human history. They stand as a monument to remind us what we as a race, as a people, are really capable of, whether we choose to accept it, ignore it, deny it or embrace it. They remind us that we really aren’t far removed from the animal kingdom in our savagery and brutality.

If we are removed at all?

A dark stairwell, stained by the shuffling of many feet.

While sitting on the beach in Sihanoukville, I saw ten or more kids playing together, dancing, skipping, setting up and orchestrating games of who-knows-what; American kids, Australian kids, Cambodian kids, German kids. No inhibitions or pre-judgements, just kids of several races playing together.

In our darkest days, there will always be this hope.