bangkok by katharina hesse

216 Responses to “bangkok by katharina hesse”

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• marcin luczkowski

  January 1, 2009 at 6:22 am

  I did not read this articles carefuly at all, I’ve been looking for this % of thai women prostitutes, so I could made some mistake and I think there are old data, but here are links

  http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/54/072.html

  http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE5D91239F937A25754C0A967958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2

  Prostitution in thailand is very interesting topic. I have to read more about. When I will have time.
• Katharina

  January 1, 2009 at 6:52 am

  Blogger,
  my reply to John Vink was:
  December 31, 2008 at 8:31 am
  “John,
  as I said: I dont have my papers here with me…”

  …which in your comments suddenly becomes :
  “the photographer insists that 7 out of 10 women “….

  WHERE DO I INSIST ?

  just to be followed by :
  ….”the photographer needs it to sell the photo and also to justify the trips to that brothel.

  WHEN DID I SAY THAT I MUST SELL THE PHOTO ????

  I hope the photographer had “fun” with her subjects but she should also be naked and involve her self with the subject because now she acts like she is saving the world. Another Peeping Tom with a camera.”

  PLEASE PROVIDE ONE QUOTE WHERE I “act like I want to save the world”.
  THANK YOU!

  PS: Strangely the direct accusations in this post seem to come from anoynmous people. Blogger, why is that ?
• bobblack

  January 1, 2009 at 1:45 pm

  charles :)))

  yes, that’s it exactly …it’s always been a difficulty for me, not only the grandiosity of much photography and/or the sense of importance, but a lack of perspective…we’re just renters here, in this world, just renters, not land owners, monachy, kings…just folks passin’ through…the traffik exhibition was an example of everything i hate about the art world (and i have a place in that world, though it’s a difficult one), but in the end, even that doesnt matter…we’re just here for a short time, and each of us does what we need to: to me, just simple: write some good books, make some good photo books, leave the world less damaged by my appearance, and above all, make safe and full my wife and son……by the way, last year when i exhibited the work i had made for David for the EPF (and our memories brief as photos), i printed all as 5×7 and put in a small box…people could touch, hold, re-order, whatever….scratch (yes, a punch of the pics got scratched)…sold each for $50…just wanted to make the point that photography needs to be democratic…and more importantly our vision is a gift from those we photograph…how i lable myself, by the way, “photographer” and “writer”…i’ve always hated the terms (for my writing) poet/essayist…and for my photographer “artist”…cause what i do is just document the world, my own world, my memories of it, my relationship with people and place and moments…and u should know how much i have always loved touchmei’msick! :)))…cant wait to see cypher….

  hugs
  running
  bob
• Lassal

  January 1, 2009 at 4:43 pm

  BOB …
  just wrote you an email.
• herve

  January 3, 2009 at 10:11 am

  Hi all

  Katrina, sorry you did not try to signal me when you were coming to Thailand.

  personally, since we talk of one picture, a single picture, I do not think it’s about (thai) prostitution, or bangkok, or anything. It’s a contemporary picture of a woman nude on a carpet, incidentally/apparently asian ethnically (so many “asians” with all types of nationalities). In that, it can awake emotions, allusions, opinions/suggestions that may reach beyond its artistry and subject/discipline.

  One of the problems of treating prostitution in PJ or literary terms, is that more than often the prostitutes are always prostitutes first, “over all”, and not often anything in second, or not that much (when put next to being a prostitute). It seems that this is all we need to know. so it goes as such (not me speaking here): “She is a prostitute… Prostitution is the same scourge all over, with maybe degrees of physical violence perpetrated on women differing”.

  On the contrary, if we believe prostitutes are not just prostritutes, or not only prostitutes (I can be quoted again), there is no way, this single picture can even start to say anything about that reality. Someone mentionned her life outside of her job, proper. Indeed.
• Photographer

  January 3, 2009 at 12:39 pm

  Without reading into what I think it means, cause my opinion doesn’t really matter, this is a beautiful evocative photo. Nice work.
• Katharina

  January 3, 2009 at 3:18 pm

  Hi Herve,
  I sent you a message. Hope you got it.
• Eva

  January 4, 2009 at 3:29 pm

  “When you are in a fun mood in BKK maybe you agree to one thing, however back home with family or your employer,… cough cough… you never did “that” ? And the last thing you need is a pix of you and a lady in a short-time hotel or in the redlight districts published in a magazine ?
  That´s the reason why we removed all identifiable (sp?) pictures but one. Maybe try to imagine that many guys you meet there are Western/Thai business people, guys on holidays with families back home, family men just seeking some unofficial fun etc… To crash in there with the conviction that you have every right to use your own pictures afterwards without paying any attention to what dammage you may cause to those guy´s lifes strikes me as a bit egoistic or unappropriate. If the men and the women trust me and give me access , why then would I screw them around ?”

  While (whilst?) I can understand about the model release (don’t think it counts if you make pics in public?, it’s hard to understand this way of thinking of yours, Katharina, to me. Family men, like you are suggesting, screwing their families back home is ok, but not taking and publishing pictures of them because they’re on unofficial visit? Don’t think I can (want to) follow this trail of thought.

  Anyway, I’ll wait for the final edit of your essay.
• Henry

  January 5, 2009 at 6:10 am

  Joe
  December 31, 2008 at 6:45 am

  well said Joe!
• Sidney Atkins

  January 5, 2009 at 2:23 pm

  Katharina,

  If art is something visual that not only pleases the senses but forces us to think and ask questions, then you have certainly succeeded far beyond expectations with this photograph! I was tied up last week and couldn’t leap to your defence when this dialogue was apparently at fever pitch, but I think you held your own quite well.

  But the main reason I am writing here now is to congratulate you on your short piece on ‘Delayed in Bangkok’ appearing in the January issue of the Digital Journalist’s Dispatches from the Field section. For other readers who have not seen it yet, here is the link:
  http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0901/delayed-in-bangkok.html

  Cheers!
• Katharina

  January 6, 2009 at 4:55 am

  Sidney,
  thanks.
  The reactions reminded me a bit of Rashomon…. except that-unlike in Ryunosuke´s story- not everyone was indeed a witness (in the broadest sense )….
  :)
• Henry

  January 6, 2009 at 9:48 am

  does the girl has a life beside posing for the photographer? does she care about her child? does she has a family? how is her life when she is not “working”? where does she live?
  this picture leaves the impression that she just posed for some cash.
• Katharina

  January 6, 2009 at 10:00 am

  Henry,
  maybe read the beginning of the thread….
• Henry

  January 8, 2009 at 11:25 am

  “Bangkok, November 28, 2008:
  Nat , 22, a prostitute and single mother, poses in a short-time hotel.”

  thats what I read Katharina, did I miss something? when looking at a photograph I want the image telling me the story, do I have to read the thread to understand?
• Harel

  April 5, 2009 at 5:40 am

  Hello everyone. As a scientist, I am not sure anymore that life can be reduced to a class struggle, to dialectical materialism, or any set of formulas. Life is spontaneous and it is unpredictable, it is magical. I think that we have struggled so hard with the tangible that we have forgotten the intangible.
  I am from Republic and too poorly know English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “Cheap airline tickets for italy tickets cheap tickets discount airfares but france had not cheap airline tickets for italy north west africa she desired.”

  :o Thanks in advance. Harel.
• rex

  September 15, 2009 at 12:29 am

  Questions (Q) and comments (C):

  Q: Did you pose the prostitute? If so, why did you pose her in this fashion? Why did you make the lighting so dark and grungy?

  C: My observation of this photo pose is that it is very morose, like what you might see in a coroner’s photo file. However, if you were ever to enter the red light district in Bangkok, you would instantly see the complete opposite of this image. The sex workers are very energetic, very acute, very daring, very business oriented. They speak English and Thai and even a little bit of Japanese. They want to earn large sums of money very quickly. They have no qualms with whom they have sex with, whether he is a customer is 18 years old (fit and handsome), or 80 years old (bald and fat) — money has no face. I am speaking about the philosophy of the majority of sex workers, not the minority.
  There is a politic to photo-art, like any other art, and there are two view-points an observer can hold. The first is that prostitution is an awful, terrible, demonical trade of flesh for cash, whereby women are either forced by someone or something into a fate of misery and self-loathing. The second view-point is that sex workers are making an incredible amount of money and that they are working in the pleasure profession, pleasing men (or other women) by the virtue of their female beauty, seduction, erotic fantasy, and sexual mastery.
  People quickly adapt to the environment they choose. The choice is always available in Thailand, like any other part of the world that people without education are free to work in either the unskilled (low wage) market, or… they can work in the pleasure industry. This is a choice very few straight men have. The majority of straight men without education are doomed to a life of hard-labor or dead-end sales jobs. There are straight men that choose to enter the gay pleasure market, and I assume such a choice is not an easy one to make. But the primary goal for people in the pleasure industry is MONEY. In no other profession can an uneducated man or woman earn approximately $100 / hr. The motivation is obvious. The emotional outcome is part of the personal price each man or woman must make when choosing his / her profession. This applies to firemen, policemen, soldiers, ambulance drivers, nurses who work the grave-yard shift, etc. There is always a price to pay for the choices we make. But the choices are clear and the pain comes with the territory. Football players suffer broken fingers, broken ribs, broken heads, broken teeth, broken everything… but they know the risk and they know the reward. They are not stupid, so never feel pity for a man or woman who chooses to gamble. Win or lose, the choice is always present. And human nature is lustful for sex… and for money.
  Another side to the Thai sex worker in Bangkok is that the she is also earning a little extra money for rent or her cell phone bills. These girls work solo, and they choose who they want to pleasure and at what price. They usually have a lot of fun, because (I must restate) most girls choose who they want to pleasure (and be pleasured by) for the night, just as any other (non-prostitute) female in any other country may choose to have a one night stand in a bar on a Friday night for free.
  Don’t be fooled. There are many stripes on the Thai zebra. Not all have the black stripe of sadness. Take a closer look and you will see a very driven people aiming to climb NOT out of poverty, but into the lap of luxury.
  Bangkok is a very modern city and the people are not the misbegotten country bumpkins most ego-centric Westerners believe them to be. These are not the leper children of Vietnam, Burma, and Cambodia. They are a proud people with very specific goals for the future. Once again, I speak of the majority of female sex workers in Bangkok.
  These beautiful girls know their worth and they will make you pay – nose, ears, and a pound of flesh — for your pleasure. They are sophisticated and they are waiting for your ATM cards.
  The worn out hookers with baby in arms belongs in the pages of National Geographic, not in the real world of Bangkok, Thailand. Next time you see a prostitute… check her fingers for gold rings. You will not be disappointed. The gold is real… but nothing else is.

  I make the suggestion to the photographer: Place the subject in her true environment, not the one you imagine for her. I challenge you.

  FROM: REXMILES@HOTMAIL.COM