 I was working on the Asian Tsunami story outside of Phuket in a destroyed fishing village when I came upon a large gathering of Buddhist monks. As luck would have it my driver could not get a name or location where they were from, just that they had come to pray for the dead. The Asian tsunami of 2004 resulted in at least 227,898 fatalities. Ten thousand died in Thailand alone. Entire Thai fishing villages were wiped out.
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 For my 65th birthday, I gave myself a photo assignment to Varanasi, India. Thought to be one of the oldest cities in the world, Varanasi had always been on my "list." So my first morning there, I took off searching for photos and found myself wandering the city's alleys. In my research, I read about India's sacred cows and how a nation that suffers massive poverty supports wandering cattle through its streets. I often waited patiently for my chance to pass in Varanasi's alleys. I understood that it is part of the culture and religion, and it was beautiful for me to experience it. The Pushcart Camel is next on my list.
I was there in January, so I recommend going instead in March or April. I am not a cold weather person; I wanted to photograph Indians and the devoted bathing in the Ganges, of which there were few. As I photographed, I was never told "NO" during my entire visit. Some asked for money, but that was not a problem for me. I considered it the same as buying a fellow human a coffee.  In a soon to be cornfield in Pailin, Cambodia, I photographed this ex-Khmer Rouge soldier I'm 2003. It did not start out well. He and his wife were suspicious of a westerner carrying expensive looking cameras. Slowly my minder that day, Pon Lok, himself a former soldier under the command of Pol Pot convinced the man that I was ok and that photographing him would be a good thing. I was looking for a serious pose but was getting nothing back. It was clear he would not reveal much. And then looking out over the lens I was using I made a face "such as a old man with no teeth would. He began to laugh , I began to shoot.
 Most of the other novice Buddhist monks at the Hman Kinn Monastery and Orphanage shied away from me the day I was there. I was in Myanmar on another assignment but always found time to visit this monastery. There were more than 300 orphans there. They would all soon be novice monks. The young monk surprised me when he walked past the others to come right to me. "Hello, Mister," was all he said.
Links at the end of this video are no longer in service, full story can be seen at www.davidleelongstreath.com
In September 2002 I spent five weeks working in Afghanistan. Things changed there recently but looking back I can't help but wonder if anything has changed at all.   This is from a Yangon, Myanmar steam train facility repair yard. I was attracted to this image first as a simple color scene. Later when working it I thought what would it have looked like in black and white, as a more than just a little contrast images. Frankly I thin both images are unique in their own way. Attached a comment and let me know what you think.
When I lived and worked in Bangkok and other Southeast Asia cities I would often just hop on a local bus or subway, ride for 10 minutes, get off and wander with my cameras. I started this when I was a young sailor working as a photographer in places like Africa and the Mediterranean. I never knew what I find but I was sure that if I sat in the hotel or stayed on the ship I would get nothing. So I would just wander. Bangkok to me was a great place for this. Shoot a little, walk a little, eat some noodles, drink a cold beer and then back out to see what I could see. I shot this moment of a mother teaching her young child how to pray at a temple not far from the Bangkok train station.  A massive 7,6 magnitude struck northern Pakistan on October 8, 2005 while I was somewhere on a corner of the 2005 Japanese Grand Prix. I knew it would not be long and I would be there on assignment. Because I was late getting the scene, the boss in New York decided to partner me with AP writer Robert Tanner, who I soon found was a capable reporter in a disaster scene. He was also just a cool dude to hang with which made it all the easier. We set out on our mission in a Pakistan taxi with a driver who never met a curve he could not pass on. We were to provide photos and on scene audio reporting for a new project called “multi-media.” I was thrilled, it meant working for my old friend Brian Horton who was now the head of the new department. Gathering digital photos was the easy part, filing back to New York however proved to be a daily hurdle. A full accounting of the story can be view at https://www.davidleelongstreath.com/pakistan-diary.html  Pakistan father with son in damaged home.  My first year in Bangkok began in January 1997 during the dry season. Daytime temperatures could climb above 100 degrees, and all of the city's concrete and tall buildings only intensified the heat. The rain began five months later.
At first, the showers were only an hour long. Then the monsoons followed. As a street photographer, I've been a student of life and all of its quirks. Once, when I was shooting for the AP back in Oklahoma, I was told that there were always opportunities for photographs, no matter the weather. You just had to look for the shots. Such was the case with the egg man and the monsoon. His choices were the same for me that day in Bangkok's Chinatown. Sit still and wait or get wet. |