The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

Beautiful Flowers Abound in Hua Hin, Thailand:

Sweet.

Sweet Buds . . .

The tiniest of flowers.

Bees pollinate Lotus flowers.

I just can't seem to keep away from photographing these wonderful scenes.

This raggedy orange Hyacinth was simply fantastic.

The orange Hyacinth stamen.

This is the only orange Hyacynth I have ever seen in this 'raggedy' configuration.  Fascinating.

Not flowers, but Koi. I loved the reflections on the surface of this pool beneath a Frangipani tree.

I spent last week-end in Hua Hin, Thailand.  While walking about the grounds of the Dusit Resort & Hotel with my 70mm Sigma macro lens, I spotted a Jackfruit tree fruiting. Wonderful.

The Jackfruit, I believe, arrived on this planet in the lunch boxes of Visiting Alien Creatures (VAC). They are extremely difficult to handle, and even more difficult to extract the bubble-gum-flavored bright yellow succulent interior fruit meat. Obviously, they spat (if spitting happened to be an anatomical option for the VACs) the Jackfruit seeds out, eventually spreading about the hills and lagoons of the Earthen tropics.  The Durian shares this same extraterrestrial, transpermatic origin.

Jackfruit begin as a thumb-sized main trunk protrusion.

This very young fruit shows surface organization.  I have no idea what these would look like on the inside at this point in their development.

As they grow, they begin to form their characteristic spinney surface.

The spines eventually become quite large and frightening, a common feature of fruit with extra-terrestrial origins. There is NO WAY you can convince me that this organism came up through some kind of Darwinian selection process on THIS PLANET . . . . NO WAY!

A fully mature Jackfruit is the size of a Grizzly Bear's head and can weigh up to 30 kilos (70 pounds).  It grows right out of the tree trunk on its own stem, not hanging from a branch, another common feature of non-Earth fruit origination. The leaves do not look like they would be featured in a dendrological field manual either.

How we spent Saturday morning: Offerings.

Old Monk.

We stayed with friends in their mountainside retreat.

Our architect friend's front door!

The interior of their mountain cabin was absolutely beautiful.

The cabin interior.

Pretty little touches everywhere.

The guest bedroom.

And a place to wash up before diner.

An amazing air fern garden!

A giant white orchid growing out doors.

Simple beauty around the cabin.

My daughter is visiting Thailand so we took a couple of days on the klongs (canals) in and around the Samut Songkhram region.

We hired a long-tail boat to take us through these swamp canals.

The people and houses along the way were very photogenic.

Living on the klongs is a very old way of living life.

A still life in the swamps of Samut Songkhram.

Life on the klongs.

Fishing dog?

The water was very high and full of silt due to the flooding in Central Thailand. The children loved it.

Small villages dotted the main klongs.

But all klongs lead to the Floating Markets.  Although these are popular with tourists and photographers, they are actual working daily markets.

Tropical fruit is brought to market along the klongs.

A timeless scene along at the Floating Market.

Tourists from all over the world come to be photographed!!

The klongs are serviced by a variety of boats.  You can go for hundreds of miles/kilometers on the klongs of Samut Songkhram.

I spent the day at Chatuchak Week-end Market . . . along with a couple of hundred thousand other people. It is an amazing place: 35 acres of over 5000 stalls with everything on earth for sale.  It is just an interesting place.

The narrow isles fill up as the day goes along.  Around 200,000 people visit on an average Saturday.

In addition to the shopping, there are some pretty good places to eat Thai "street food" . . .  and take wonderful photographs.

The weather was not too hot today, but the sun was very strong.

My daughter, Kirsten is visiting and she enjoys the shopping at Chatuchak (called "JJ Market" by the Thais). Nice Magritte touch on this display, no?

Entertainers abound: There are young Thai traditional music buskers too. This boy was very good.

All kinds of buskers: this xelephone orchestra was very good.

A Thai clown musician.

He was happy, but couldn't really sing or play his guitar.

Chatuchak is a photographer's paradise . . . especially if you like color and pattern studies.

Color and pattern . . . .

Color and pattern . . .

Color and pattern.

I'm afraid this shop keeper has had too much color and pattern.

I think this fellow has had more than too much color and pattern.

There were too many interesting things to see and photograph.

And I learned one very important global political lesson today: there are indicators that the Islamic Revolution may be coming to an end soon.  I just get that feeling.