A photo shoot with Aleks in a Bangkok park
Sometimes I take very simple outdoor photos—without lights or any preparation. That was the case with this shoot too—a styling and a trip to a park. In this case, a park in Bangkok.
My model was Aleks, who usually spends several months a year in Thailand and lives mainly in Singapore the rest of the time. That has changed recently, but more on that later. Asians like models from outside Asia who have features associated with Asian women—it makes them look very unique. That is why Aleks has exactly the right look for Thailand and the surrounding countries. Especially after dyeing her naturally blonde hair and covering her blue eyes with brown colored contact lenses. For a long time, her agency—Area Managment—specialized in girls who looked somewhat Asian (although lately the trend has been moving toward Asian or half-Asian models). And where is Aleks from? Poland :)
Nikon D810 | 50 mm | F/2.0 | 1/200 | ISO 64
Photogenic parks in Bangkok
There are several parks in Thailand's capital that work well for a photo shoot among trees, ponds, and greenery. I had to choose one of them…
Lumphini The most popular is Lumnphini, but every part of it looks fairly similar and it is always crowded. I have been there many times, but never to take photos, and I doubt that will change.
Chatuchak and the surrounding area In Chatuchak, right next to the world's largest market, there are several adjoining parks that look like one huge park. Unfortunately, it is crowded there too, and there is not much variety. However, another park had just opened in the same area, and it is more interesting. For now, this new place remains much emptier and has the potential for more varied shots. That does not mean you could not take cool photos in the older parks, or that they would all look the same. Definitely not. I simply discovered a place long ago that makes the others pale in comparison, so that strongly affects my judgment. If I compared Lumphini and Chatuchak with the parks near where I lived in Poland, they would not come off badly. Just ordinary parks, only with palm trees instead of birches.
The parks include not only the area marked in green, but also the area on the right, where the blue metro line runs
King Rama 9 Park King Rama IX Park seems by far the best to me—a very photogenic, large, and incredibly varied park, because every part of it has a completely different atmosphere. It has a Chinese garden, a Brazilian garden, and many others that look as though they came from entirely different parts of the world. You could do a huge number of completely different-looking shoots here. This was the place I chose. Unfortunately, unlike the previous locations, this park is on the outskirts of Bangkok—closer to Suvarnabhumi Airport than to the nicer residential districts—so I visit it very rarely. What is more, there is neither a metro station (MRT) nor BTS nearby, which leaves a taxi ride through the ever-present traffic jams.
Interesting fact #1: This park was named in honor of the previous king, Bhumibol Adulyadej Rama IX. His full ceremonial name is: “His Splendor, the Great Lord, the Strength of the Land, Incomparable Power, Son of Mahidol, Descendant of the God Vishnu, Great King of Siam, His Royal Highness, Magnificent Protection”.
Nikon D810 | 50 mm | F/2.0 | 1/200 | ISO 64
Plan vs. reality
The original plan was to use many locations around King Rama IX Park and create photos that were as different from one another as possible, with all kinds of styling. As if they were several separate shoots with one model. I was supposed to join the team at Damian's apartment. He was responsible for the makeup, while Tatiana Mc Cat prepared different outfits for our model there. There were fittings, clothes being adjusted with safety pins, and so on. This stage dragged on so long that we reached the shoot location only shortly before sunset, so in the end we had to change our plans and settle for no more than two outfits in one area. The distances in the park are considerable, and walking around the pond takes quite a while too. To make matters worse, we could not use flash lights. Given the time of day, there was no time to play around with setting up lighting in more than one place; after all, lights in an outdoor location like this only supplement the ambient light. I did not even try to set them up in a hurry, because to use them at all, you first have to pay 2,000 THB (about PLN 250)—that is the fee for doing a shoot in this park. You can take photos without paying, but not with lights or reflectors. The amount seems fair because the scenery is genuinely great, though of course free would be better :). We decided that we would simply come back earlier another day and do a proper shoot. This time, we ran so we could at least take a few photos before it was too late. We chose the Chinese part of the park and an Asian-inspired outfit.
Nikon D810 | 50 mm | F/2.0 | 1/200 | ISO 64
Thai sun
For most of the year in Thailand, the sun sets at around 6:30 p.m., and it gets dark very suddenly. I have the impression that golden hour in Poland lasts several times longer than it does in Thailand. Especially in Bangkok, where the sun is hidden by skyscrapers long before it reaches the horizon. There are no buildings like that near the park; instead, the sun was hidden behind clouds for most of our shoot.
Years ago, when I did outdoor shoots in Poland at 25° Celsius, I thought it was warm, and 30 degrees was already hot. After years of living in Bangkok, at 25° I would be more likely to wonder whether to bring a jacket or risk freezing in a T-shirt. During the day, however, temperatures like that are extremely rare here. I am not sure exactly how hot it was during our shoot, but at this time of year a feels-like temperature of 37° is normal, so it was somewhere around that. This is a problem during photo shoots because weather like that is not only exhausting, but also makes very shiny skin much more likely. Still, I have photographed in full sun on the roof of a skyscraper a few times, including twice when it was over 40 degrees. That is real hell—a shaded park, regardless of the temperature, feels incredibly comfortable by comparison :)
Nikon D810 | 50 mm | F/2.0 | 1/125 | ISO 64
That is why the best time for photography in Bangkok is between November and February. It is not extremely hot yet, while the risk of rain is almost zero. That is also when the most tourists come here. In April and May, the temperature can be exhausting because it may be much hotter than it was during our shoot. The following months are a little cooler again, but it may rain. I would be least inclined to do outdoor shoots in September and October, when it rains for about an hour almost every day. On the islands, the rainy season is longer, but that depends on the particular region.
Mosquitoes. Mosquitoes everywhere…
Another problem with outdoor shoots in Thailand is similar to one in Poland. Near lakes and dense vegetation—exactly in places like the parks mentioned above—the mosquitoes never leave you alone. Thai mosquitoes are different from Polish ones: very small, but they bite just the same. I tolerate mosquitoes well enough that when I go to places like this, I usually cannot even be bothered to use repellent spray, but the model could be covered in red marks after only a moment, which is hardly good for the photos. In other parts of the country, however, there is a risk of malaria and dengue, so I always used the appropriate products there too.
#Protip: when traveling far abroad, there is no point in bringing insect sprays from home, because their effectiveness against species that do not occur in Poland may be negligible.
50 mm vs. 35 mm
All the photos so far were taken with a 50 mm lens (FF). I have written on the blog before about my approach to focal lengths for outdoor shoots (and I definitely did a live stream about it). In short: for a long time, I thought I used 50 mm outdoors only because I did not have a wider lens. I thought 35 mm, or even around 20 mm, would be better, but when I finally bought such a focal length years ago, it became clear that I simply liked 50 mm (and still do). In my frames, outdoor backgrounds look good at this focal length, but at the same time there is little enough of the background that unwanted elements do not keep getting in the way. In other words, you do not have to prepare the entire set for a single shot. Whenever I put on a wider lens, however, I want to change a whole lot of things behind the model, and in the end I go back to 50 mm. After all, in this type of photo you generally do not use blur as strong as in portraits and many other kinds of photography, so the background plays a much bigger role.
There are exceptions. The photo below was taken at 35 mm; unfortunately, the autofocus missed:
Nikon D810 | 35 mm | F/2.0 | 1/125 | ISO 64
With this much distance from the model, even at F/2 the background blur is only symbolic. So if I ever start doing more outdoor shoots, a 35 mm lens will probably still be in my bag, but a faster one. And to be clear—I am not saying that 50 mm is better for outdoor shoots than wider focal lengths. I prefer 50 mm, that is all, but as you can see, there are exceptions.
Later, we moved a little farther and took a photo with a slightly different, though still Asian, atmosphere (and still out of focus :)):
Nikon D810 | 35 mm | F/2.0 | 1/40 | ISO 64
I used a bit of grass near the lens to create the green glow. It always ends the same way—there are plastic bags and other accessories in my camera bag for situations like this, but in the end I use branches and whatever else is close at hand. And usually it still ends with nothing more than tests and normal photos, without trying anything fancy.Interesting fact #2: The full name of Thailand's capital is a little longer than simply “Bangkok.” It is: “The City of Angels, the Great City and Residence of the Sacred Jewel of Indra, the Impregnable City of God, the Great Capital of the World, Adorned with Nine Precious Gems, Full of Vast Royal Palaces, Equal to the Heavenly Home of the Reincarnated God; the City Given by Indra and Built by Vishvakarman.” In the original: “กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยามหาดิลก ภพนพรัตน์ ราชธานีบุรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์ มหาสถาน อมรพิมาน อวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยะ วิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์”.
That was then
Most shoots on my blog were described as they happened or with only a slight delay, but this one took place… four years ago. The photos were published back then, but most were different from the ones I included in this article. A few days ago, I decided to go through the entire shoot and choose some additional frames to add variety to the post.
Tatiana lived in Thailand a little longer and then returned to Russia. Aleks continued living in Asia for a long time, but eventually moved permanently to the United States and will soon return to modeling there. Damian did the makeup for my models on a few more shoots, and we will probably take more photos together in the future. I, on the other hand, still have not returned to this park, so it is time to change that soon!