Songkran Splash
I just happened to go to Thailand during the time of Songkran and every day I had to run the gauntlet.
I just happened to go to Thailand during the time of Songkran and every day I had to run the gauntlet.
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May, 2012Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
On a whim I booked a flight to Thailand to visit a friend who was teaching in Nakhon Sawan. It is a sizable city roughly halfway between Chang Mai and Bangkok, but doesn't receive a lot of tourists. I had no idea what Songkran was but my friend was super excited I picked that week to come visit. I made my way through the madness of Bangkok and spent the days wandering the streets getting soaked by the locals. Since Nakhon Sawan doesn't really get a lot of foreigners, all eyes were on us or rather all water guns and hoses were on us.Time
My friend and I had already "played' Songkran for two days, but on the third day we met up with some of her friends. Armed with water guns and brightly colored Hawaiian shirts we hit the street. It was late morning and the streets were full of people dancing, mopeds, and people in the back of trucks splashing you with ice cold water. You'd all of a sudden get hit with a bucket full that took your breath away. The street was a gauntlet of people running up to me saying "Kap" and then smearing my face with talcum powder. One after another and then occasionally your cheeks would start to feel like they're burning but yet cold. Got hit with the cooling powderLighting
I honestly didn’t have that much time to focus on lighting because it was a very fast paced environment of getting hit with water and trying to take pictures all at the same time.Equipment
I used a Panasonic DMC-TS2 with an aperture of f/3.3 and an ISO of 125Inspiration
It was a game of squirting each other with water or throwing buckets at one another. There was a fun aspect of running away or chasing each other trying to avoid the blast of water. I thought it would be fun to take photos with my camera held on the back of my watergun creating a first person shooter game sort of image.Editing
This picture is exactly how I took it. I got lucky with the focus going through the stream of water and capturing the background and especially the girl who is about to dowse me with a bowl full of water.In my camera bag
Since I was traveling and living out of my backpack I only carried my Panasonic with me because of it’s ruggedness and ability to get wet.Feedback
In this instance I took several shots of the same scenario but I also got rather lucky that this one came out the way it did. All the commotion and water combined with the bright colors of the street made for a fun time taking pictures.
