The Western Flatline

The Bridge at Night

2008-08-26T07:54:44Z

Shot late at night in downtown LA. It will look wonderful as a print, but as a JPG it's terrible. I had a to do a lot of things to it to make it work on the web that I wouldn't want in the print. The image actually has the bridge disappearing into darkness, but on a monitor it looks simply accidental, so I lightened it. That way people can see it, but it is not close to the final result.

Vernon Water Tower

2008-08-08T08:01:07Z

Another shot from my work with Doug Hill.

Loading Dock

2008-08-07T21:18:49Z

I have been working with Doug Hill while in LA for the summer, and I am concentrating on urban landscapes. This is the first of several images I will be posting in the next few weeks. Hard to tell by this tiny JPG, but this was shot with Canon's wonderful 1Ds Mk III, and a 45mm Tilt-Shift lens.

Past the Leper King Terrace at Dusk

2008-04-10T00:26:49Z

Three boys at dusk on the way past the Leper King Terrace in the ruins of the Ankor Wat temples.

Playing cards

2008-03-31T08:52:25Z

Some of the street kids from earlier posts. Playing cards in an alley not far from the river, where the tourists eat.

The Gas Station in Phnom Penh

2008-03-31T08:50:07Z

Almost every corner of Phnom Penh has a gas station. Fill up your scooter, but don't smoke in the vicinity please.

Snacks for the Travelers

2008-03-29T09:51:32Z

A young girl selling snacks to the Travelers. Minivans in Cambodia get packed extremely full - 20 people for several hours is typical. This girl was selling fried bugs. I eat pretty much anything, but found them to be simply bitter. I never got very good at peeling them though...

Another Girl, another Child

2008-03-29T09:46:30Z

This is another homeless child, being carried by a very young girl. See my previous post for context.

Girl, with Child

2008-03-29T09:36:14Z

Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Not a happy place. One of the things that happened is that the Khmer Rouge forcibly married people to one another, and then forced them to have children. Many of those children are now living homeless in the capital city, Phnom Penh. Some context: 'A pawn in the cynical game of geopolitics, Cambodia was dragged into a war it initially didn't belong to, by being carpet-bombed into submission by the US because the Khmer king let the Viet Cong use Cambodia as a supply route. After the US withdrawal from the region, it was left stunned and bloodless by the second-largest genocide of the 20th century: an estimated 1,7 million people died during the 3 years, 8 months and 20 days of the Khmer Rouge regime. They killed anyone who had any education at all - or just looked like it (wearing glasses, for instance). The K.R. outlawed all currency, all books, all calendars and watches. The farming 'old people' under Pol Pot forced the urban 'new people' in the cities to evacuate within a few days, and worked them to death in the fields. Finally Cambodia was liberated/occupied by Vietnam for ten years and was ostracized by the West for it. After the 1991 Paris Peace Accords it was kept breathless by a civil war which lingered on until 1998 and by political unrest, and killed hundreds of thousands more. Today it still has a heavy price to pay for its reconstruction in a ruthless market economy where literally everything, from governmental property to human dignity, seems to be for sale (Cambodia is ranked nr 151 out of 163 on the level of corruption according to Berlin based Transparency International). The countryside remains littered with small land mines, and the number of limbless people is incomparable to any other conflict.' I have some friends in the various places I visited (mainly working as part of cultural exchange NGOs and one focused on the KR Trials). One of them explained to me why this young girl is wearing lipstick and nail polish. The obvious answer is enough to depress you for a long time...

Fur Collar

2008-01-17T08:01:17Z

A woman with a fur collar near the Plaza Hotel.