The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

I went out and about on a Saturday with my friend John Stiles.  We saw many wonderful things and listened to some fantastic music.

The Bangkok "Chinatown" is a very messy, noisy, busy place with a huge amount of human activity, mostly to do with commerce.

I really do not get down to this part of the city enough.  Even though about 30% of Bangkok is underwater, life goes on in the rest of the city without adult supervision, as we expats like to call it.

Busy, busy businessmen.  Here we see a shop dedicated to selling fake rice sacks; "Value Added" takes on a whole new meaning.

Chinatown, along the river, is the oldest part of Bangkok.  The buildings exude a worn and aged charm.

When I first moved to Bangkok I had the fantasy of living in one of these kinds of neighborhoods. What, exactly, is the beauty here?

I spotted a sign on the main street saying there was a temple down the alley.

We found a very old, and beautifully kept, Chinese Buddhist Temple wedged among the tiny passageways of old Chinatown, Bangkok.

The courtyard of the Chinese Temple was festooned with yellow lanterns.

I poked around a side and found the leprous temple keeper and asked if I could go in and pray.  He nodded yes. The space was magnificently decorated.

The new temple banners showed the signs of recent ceremonies conducted in honor large donors.

There were many small vestibule-like altar rooms around the temple . . . .

. . . that were exquisitely decorated with the phantasmagoria of the Chinese Buddhist pantheon.

Many famalies lodge their hopes, prayers, and wishes here.

Each altar had become a new construction of a unique spirit world.

Every detail tells a story from ancient Chinese spiritual literature, like these incense holders with peacock fronds.

The Buddhist Temples in Thailand are not archeological curiosities, but living places of spiritual refreshment. I love the celebratory use of twinkling holiday lights.

I made a large donation before we left and received a special honorary receipt from the kind temple keeper.

As it grew darker we descended into the deep back alleys of the Bangkok Chinatown.

A yellow inflatable boat in a dark alley was one of many clues that nearly thirty percent of Bangkok was under water from massive flooding . . . but not this part.

By nightfall we found our way back to the commercial streets.

The mix of mercury vapor and neon lighting played nicely upon the telephone lines across this old Chinatown storefront.

Every once in a while a photo just creates itself right in front of you.

Damn Tourists.  Not really.  Peter, an out-of-towner visiting my friend John, trying to figure out if it is better to take the Skytrain or taxi to get to Victory Monument Circle from Chinatown.  We took the taxi.

Victory Monument Circle on a Saturday night.  It seemed almost deserted, no doubt, because of the floods.

Down this small side street off of Victory Monument Circle you can find the best blues, funk, and reggae in Bangkok.

The Saxophone Jazz and Blues Club.  I am always happy to be there.  There were two bands on that night.

The House Band fronted by a very talented blues guitarist.

His BB King covers were noteworthy.

But the highlight of the evening  was a funk/reggae band I had never heard.  They came on at midnight and played until 3:00am! The completely rocked the joint . . . got everybody up out of their seats and dancing!  Definitely one of the best live bands I have heard in many, many years.  I will go back to see them again . . . and soon.

Only 4 foot 9 inches, but the most powerful and controlled singer in this quadrant of the universe.  Every band member was very, very talented.  Amazing!

Here are a few more images from that wonderful day . . . . saved as a slide show (which I am still figuring out).

I am not feeling too bad about selling my drag race car and giving up my race shop any more. The drag strip and my former shop are now under about a meter of water. I hope the new owners got the race car out in time!

I came across this photo today while cleaning up in my studio/office: R.I.P. The last of the old order Danish sailors, Lennart Reisdorff, my brother-in-law, on the Madsen family farm, Grimmelokkevej, Fyn, Denmark, Christmas 1989.

The nice doctor at Bummungrad Hospital let me take this photo of my X-rayed foot with my iPhone.  He says that everybody does it now.  He also said that it would take "4-6 weeks for it to heal on its own." Bummer.

We couldn't stand sitting around the house worrying abut whether the canal (klong) next to our house would rise and flood us out . . . so when an invitation came from good friends to go to Jomtien Beach to sit on the beach and play golf with them, we jumped at the chance.

Our friends happen to own the Siam Country Club, where my wonderful wife played for two days . . .

. . . . and a beautiful oceanfront condo . . .

. . . with a very beautiful Thai style interior . . .

. . . a very, very high Thai aesthetic at work here.

I roamed the beach and adjacent fishing port with my trusted 5D Mark II.

While walking down the beach, I came across students from the Thai-Austrian School, who had walked across the street from their school for a break on the beach.  Seeing I had a camera, they HAD to pose.

Thee are many, many expatriates living in this part of Thailand (Pattaya area), including many newly affluent Russians. They all like to sit under a parasol and drink beer all day.

Without a doubt, the number one beach chair.

Or one chair for yourself, and one each for your seven friends.

At the beach there were Hot Dog Kite Surfers (HDKS) showing off at all hours of the day.

Some of them were very good.

Some of them were excellent!

It was a family beach.  These boys were having lots of fun.

I could not make my mind up which photo to post of the boys in the surf . . . so here are both!

I remember doing this as a boy: just you and the sea.

On one end of the beach was an old fishing basin.

Very nautical, no?

I loved how the bows of so many boats lined up.  Beautiful.

Such a bright day . . . . with a polarizing filter on my camera . . . . and a mass of colorful Thai fishing boats.

There were workmen repairing the Jomtien pier, so I walked out in a supervisory capacity.

The Jomtien Pier, with a small tree, offered many photographic opportunities. This B&W is only OK.  I will work from the raw file for a better B&W shot.

Really, there was no reason to manipulate the image; it was quite wonderful as it came out of the camera.

Then again, with a slightly different exposure . . . . it becomes very moody.

It was a day for moody, almost Biblical, skies.

Heavily back-lit, this person in a tube gave the impression of floating in moonlight when converted to B&W.  Nice. Strange.

I woke up early on the second day and went down to the sea.  A fisherman was out casting his nets.

He set and retrieved his ring net many times, but, after an hour, I didn't see him catch any fish.

He finally gave up and left.

I walked back down the sea shore to the fishing boat basin.  The light was beautiful.

The fishing boat basin was man-made.  You can see the big hotels and condos of Pattaya in the background. Jomtien is about 20 kilometers east of Pattaya.

The sun was bright and clear, the colors vivid.

There was so much material for photography . . . so many evocative images.

Many curious details of the fisherman's life.

Dropping anchor.  Many small boats came in during the morning's high tide.

Wonderful colors and shapes . . . .

. . . . that could be photographed from several angles.  I was overwhelmed with trying to figure out all the possible compositions!

In the end, I just sat and watched this old fisherman make and repair nets.