There is Street Photography Nirvana in Bangkok, Thailand. The place to find it is Aperture Tours (www.aperturetours.com). There are three options. The daytime Bangkok Street Photo Tour (3 hours one on one lessons). The Bangkok Night Photo Tour (3 hours one on one lessons). And the option I took the Bangkok Extended Tour (6 hours one on one lessons, day and night).
The photographer/teacher who led my tour was Paul Lukin (paullukin.com). Croatian born who moved to Thailand 10 years ago to practice his Muay Thai kickboxing. There came the point in his life, where he decided to stop the sport and start his photography career. He has not looked back.
First of all, I need to point out just talking with Paul for 6 hours, about his passion for photography, how to improve your street photography and understanding the difference is what separates a great photographer, from the many mediocre photographers, were worth the price of the tour.
We met at Hua Lamphong Train Station. Immediately we started taking pictures of the old but stylish train station and the people in the train station. Off we walked towards Chinatown, stopping at one of many famous temples along the way.
In Chinatown Paul led me through the backstreets. It was a whole new city hidden behind the main streets of Chinatown. Grocery stores, ice houses, food stalls, people betting on Muay Thai, and local housing units creatively making the most of their small living space.
We took a tuk-tuk to the pier where we could take a boat to the famous Wat Arun Temple. We spent a large portion of our time here, taking pictures of the temple and the incredible statues and ornaments within the temple’s grounds. We took pictures of the diverse tourist, the Buddhist Monks and the sights of the river that bordered the temple. We topped off this part of our tour by climbing up the six flight of stairs of a restaurant across the river to get an incredible night time picture of the lit-up temple.
Paul and I finished the wonderful day observing and taking pictures of the Buddhist Monks gathering for evening prayer at the Wat Bowonniwet. It was incredibly surreal to see a steady stream of monks humbly arriving for their evening prayer.
It was a great photographic and personal experience. Paul was an excellent mentor and a great person to hang out with for six hours. The final part of the Nirvana experience was the Thai people. There was no anger or rejection of any of our photo request. They embellished it and rewarded us with many pictures of the wonder Thai smile.
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