The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

Sweet Hua Hin:

The ubiquity of it all!

The sea (The Gulf of Siam/Thailand) changes all the time. From misty . . . 

 . . . to picture postcard  . . . . .

 . . . to clear and azure . . . . .

. . . . and then stormy . . . .

. . . to the drama of an approaching storm . . . .

. . . to serene evening moods with cool breezes . . .

. . . followed by next morning's sun rise.

 . . . .  to memories of past storms.  Here we have the impermanence of wealth.

The mornings are my favorite times . . . . when the fishermen are out . . . .

 . . . and the boats head back in after a night's squidding . . . .

 . . . and when the tide is out, it is a nice time for a walk down the beach.

It is a good time of the year (The Damn Hot and Damn Wet Season) to photograph flowers. These are frangipani.

Yes, it is true even in nature: play with your stamen and you can twist it.

Incredible lotus flowers, a symbol of Buddhism, and my favorite flower.

Perfectly amazing color.

A tiny, complex world of colorful beauty.

Colorful. Purposeful. Beauty.

 Propagatory. The Lotus' universe.

Rust and vines.

Samut Songkran is about an hour's drive from my house.  It is the home of the famous Floating Market - a tourist favorite.  There are actually three major floating markets in the Samut Songkran region.  There were literally thousands of people there . . . but I only saw three real foreign tourists all day. Apparently the recent troubles in Thailand have scared the tourists away.  That is a shame.  The Floating Market is a really beautiful and fantastically interesting place to spend the afternoon

The Floating Market is actually a real functional local market built along both sides of an estuarial canal with sales being made both from the old wooden shops that line the canal, and directly from the boats that ply the canal with goods from the farms and sea.

The Floatng Market, though popular with tourists, is a living market.

Life in Thailand as it has been for thousands of years.

A traditional klong (canal) boat and boatman in traditional clothing.

The town of Samut Songkran is estuarial, so seafood finds its way easily to the grills of the boat vendors.

Timeless river trading -- the easiest way to move goods from source to market.

The shops that line the canal are old.  Many are kept in beautiful Old Thai style. This one is actually a "Home Stay" hotel.

Many beautiful touches of beauty adorned the homes.

A young Thai Tom Sawyer.

Everything from gnarly fruit . . . . . .

. . . to steamed fish . . .

. . . to grilled squid . . .

. . . to colored cotton candy in plastic cups was for sale at the Samut Songkran Floating Market.

Frangipani flowers appear in clusters.

They unfurl like a flag.

When new, they have a texture like torn paper.

Frngipanis are wonderfully symmetrical.

The symmetry leads to a secret world.

A secret world of light and fragrance.

The fragrance of the frangipani can fill your whole yard with a sweet breeze.

The frangipani holds the perfect olfactory memory of the equatorial tropics for me.

They smell like love gone.

Flower photos from my recent Lopburi week-end.

Hibiscus.

A bird of paradise back lit from a setting sun.

A flower with obvious extraterrestrial origins.

Pollination happens.

Succulents abound.

The lotus flower is ever-present in Thailand.

Lovely.

Orange beauty.

Red flower clusters back lit in by the early morning light.

Flowers in the Funeral Parlor Flower Market (FPFM).

It was fun to walk around Japan in mid-April with a camera in my hand. The weather was alternately wet and dreary and then bright and cheery.  We went on several day trips out of Fukuoka into the mountains.  We never passed up an opportunity to visit a flower garden.  It was that time of year. Flowers were blooming. It was early Spring.  Cool Spring is such a novelty to somebody like me who lives in the damp, hot tropical city of Bangkok.

In the mists of a Japanese Spring . . . and Time,

The steady mist settled upon the pink petals,

White and yellow flowers defying the wet with their unyielding cheer,

An umbrella for a mosquito.

A welcoming inn on a damp day.

Saki house recommendations.

What to take home?

To travel, to look about, to see someone in an instant.  A life passes at 70kph before a shutter.  Click.

Dried red puffs adorn a shop wall.

Small town charm in Japan.

Small, tasty, expensive specialty cakes can be found all over Japan.  Yum-yum!

The Japanese love of nature is brought into the life of towns and cities in wonderful ways.