The Photography of Dr. Jeffrey P. Harper

Bangsaen, Thailand is a sleepy little seaside resort town about two hours drive from Bangkok.

Normally people come to Bangsaen to sit under the parasols to eat sea food and maybe frolic in the water.

Beach chairs and a view of the Gulf of Siam.  Nice.

Bangsae is organized to receive many, many seasiders.

Perhaps take a dip before . . . .

. . . . before having a snack of fried grasshoppers or grub worms, maybe even some . . . . . .

. . . . or even a "five foot stick" (although it looks shorter then that).  It's great to be at the beach.

But two week-ends a year the streets of central Bangsaen are closed off and barriers are erected to hold the Bangsaen Speed Festival. It was a cloudy day, not perfect for photography, but I did the best I could.

The race draws a wide variety of race cars from throughout Thailand and a few from Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and a "V8 Supercar" from New Zealand.  The locally modified KE Toyota and Chevy race truck are fine examples of the race cars present.

Many of the race cars would be right at home on any race track in the world.  The workmanship and preparation of this EVO was outstanding.

There are many classes for racers to participate in.  My friend, Khun Mac (MacTec), qualified this car number one on the grid for his class - and won the race . . . but was DQed for being underweight.  Oops.

There is seemingly a class for everyone.  This bubble hooded EVO-powered Mini from Hong Kong was a little work of art.  It looks like a '57 Chevy pick-up front end.  Nice.

Some of the cars had very big budgets, but most were locally made using a lot of used engines with a few racing upgrades, like this Toyota.

The pit area was quite large, and always full of action.

One of the most popular classes is the "One Make Class," where identical Toyotas or Hondas race together, under a set of rules that govern the extent of modifications.  The racing is very close in these classes.

Another One Make Toyota Class pit.

The bucks up teams looked very professional.  This is the Toyota tent.

A lot of ingenuity went into this home-built SuperCar class racer, although I had to be concerned about some of the safety features . . . . that went missing.

What would a car race be without the race girls?

The Big Cola race girls were particularly noteworthy.

Walking through the pits I spotted this model . . . and she looked familiar.  I remembered her as one of the Volvo models in the beautiful big wolven hats I photographed at the Bangkok Mortor Show. She couldn't believe I remembered her! Her name is Alita.

Like at races everywhere, there were features between the races, like the parade of classic cars.  This 1958  Fiat was immaculate . . .

. . . . as was this classic Toyota pick-up.

But tight class racing is what Bansaen is all about! This is from a "Modified Vintage" class race.

A nicely prepped Toyota KE 4-door.

Some drivers were better than others.  A sideways Toyota.

My friend Peter and I scouted the best photo angles and locations.  I got lucky with this wheel up Rothman's Mini.

I even managed some accidental art.

The One Make Toyota race was tightly contested.

We had a good location to shoot the cars going around a double apex curve that gave a lot of the drivers problems.

As over 50% of all motor vehicles in Thailand are pick-up trucks, it only figures that there would be road racing trucks at Bangsaen. The pits and track were still wet from an earlier sudden splash-and-dash thunderstorm.

There are three classes of racing trucks: vintage, standard, and modified. These Modified Truck Class racers were very fast and agile through the twisty bits.

There was a fair amount of bumping, nudging, and pushing between the race trucks.

 A race truck at speed.  Very cool. The race trucks are all turbo diesels.

After a long day we headed home . . . but fortunately NOT in this local Bangsaen bus with the big stereo!

Took a soothing long-tail boat trip up the rural canals (klongs) of Samut Songkhram recently. Wish you were here.

If you have ever driven from Bangkok to the beaches of Hua Hin, you will have driven by the salt pans of Samut Songkhram.

Sometimes when you drive this road you see workers out in the salt pans preparing the salt for harvest.

The pans are flooded with sea water, from the nearby Gulf of Siam, and left to evaporate.

As more and more sea water evaporates, and more is added, the salt in solution becomes so saturated that it crystallizes.

To help the process, the salt crystals are raked up into rows and piles.

Working in that briny water all day in bare feet . . . . .

After all the salt has been removed, it is prepared for flooding again by a rolling machine.

These salt pan rolling machines are unique.

Wind mills are used to power the pumps that supply the sea water.

I found a good excuse to go out on the road to try out my new Canon IS 24-105mm f4.0L lens with my new Canon 5D Mark II DSLR.

On the road with visiting friends Jeff & Sharon from Oregon.  This time we drive west out of Bangkok to Kanchanaburi Province where e visited the famous "Bridge over the River Kwai."

Many thousands of Dutch, British, Canadian, and American soldiers were killed in the building of the bridge and the "Death Railway" from the Thai coast up through Hell Fire Pass to the Burmese boarder. Many of the killed were buried here in an Allied Forces cemetery in Kanchanaburi.

There seemed to be many, many cemeteries in Kanchanaburi.  These are Thai Chedis at a Wat.

A Chedi forest.

The two hundred mile drive was through rough, dry hills dotted with many interest features, and typically strange development.

At the Hell Fire Pass Memorial there was an ostriche farm.

Hell Fire Pass, the route of the Death Railway from here to the Three Pagoda Pass and the Burmese boarder..

A fun thing to do on a road trip in Thailand is to turn off the main roads when you see tourist signs like "Tiger Temple." Tigers under construction.

We saw this fabulous hilltop Thai Wat from the road and turned in for a look see.

Strange hills at dusk in silhouette at the Wat.

The Wat had a special water Bikku.

We spotted this flower, some kind of a fly trap, growing from the trunk of a large tree. 

We arrived at the Burmese boarder just as it was getting dark and were turned back by Thai military personnel.  We drove back to the Nature Resort, rented a cabin that didn't have water, complained, and were given individual de lux cabins on a lake.  I awoke the next morning to geese in the fog.

The fog slowly lifted revealng a fantastic nature reserve . . .

. . . and this tree house.

We enjoyed "magic light" of the morning taking photographs of everything.

There was a cloud in the sky, but only one.  A rare day of blue sky in Thailand . . . a perfect day for a family outing to the ancesteral grave plot 65 kilometers south of Bangkok.

I went to Chonburi with my wife and her extended family to visit the family grave plot and to pay respect to the ancestors.  There is a valley full of these graves.

Many of the family graves are beautifully detailed.

We stop first at the cemetery shrine to send our blessings and revere the ancestors.

Much incense is lit and sustenance is offered.

Offerings are sent to the other side.

I am reluctant to post the photos of my family and the grave site out of respect to their privacy.  However, among the activities that day was sending "Hell Bank Notes" off "to the other side" for use there, should the need arise.

The spent incense ends up on this large stone.

The cemetery complex is tended by this old man.

After the grave side memorial, we always go to this small, very old, Thai town of Talad Hua Kun Jae to have lunch together.

Talad Hua Kun Jae is a typical rural Thai village: wooden buildings, a central market, and a very slow pace of life.  Nice.

It was a hot and bright afternoon in Talad Hua Kun Jae.   A good day to stop in for a quick bowl of fiery noodle soup.

Looks like something one might see in Alabama in the 1930s . . . the only thing missing is Walker Evans lugging his big box camera with James Agee trailing behind taking notes for my favorite book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.

The old wooden buildings had the patina and textures of age.

Old wooden Thai country market towns . . .  yummy textures.

For Walker Evans.

Rusted corrugated roofing and weathered old wood . . .

Small town life in rural Thailand.