going back to places to photograph.....Myanmar

Leica All Day

Leica All Day

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Hello everybody..........Last October I went to Myanmar and had a good time taking photos, meeting the local people and traveling around the country-side........I shot mostly tri-x that trip and I am still working on printing the stuff in my darkroom.......there are just not enough hours in my day for me to "catch-up" with all the printing that I need/would like to do.....

anyways, after looking at my contact sheets and prints, and going over in my head the things that I saw and wanted to photograph "better" and "differently", I decided to GO BACK and shoot again.......

so in 24 hours, I am going to be going back to Yangon for 7 days.......this is a "photo-trip" in the sense that I already know what I want to focus on when I am there (not a lot of traveling around the country-side doing "touristy" things)......I have a couple of ideas that I have been thinking about that I got from looking at my earlier work and I decided to see if the Myanmar embassy would give me a visa before this year's elections.....and they did...I picked it up yesterday.....

so, I guess my question is....how many of you guys/gals have returned to a place to photograph?.....I feel a lot different now going into Yangon already aware of what I want to concentrate on...and to be honest, I feel really excited....

I am going to be shooting mostly color this trip...I am bringing a lot of film....2 Leica bodies (m6ttl and m2)....5 lenses(15/28/35/50/90), a meter, a flash and a small Leica table top tripod........I really feel good about this trip right now....so excited....

cheers, michael

p.s.....I am happy with my earlier work and all, but I "see and remember" so many things now that I am dying to go back and photograph again.....
 
I do this all the time after looking at images.

It's almost like the first attempt is reconnaissance and gives you a guide for an improved approach on the second visit ... for the real photos! :p
 
Enjoy, Michael ! Looking forward to your trip report.

(the second time is always more successful than the first ;) )
 
Keith said:
I do this all the time after looking at images.

It's almost like the first attempt is reconnaissance and gives you a guide for an improved approach on the second visit ... for the real photos! :p
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Thanks Keith.......That is what happened to me in India when I went back my 2nd time and I concentrated on my "New Delhi train station" and "Calcuttas' rickshaw" photos.......

cheers, michael
 
Thanks Roland......I appreciate that....I know that I feel A LOT different now going to Yangon than I did last October.......seriously, i feel lucky that I am going back and I want to make the most of it.....
 
I made a second trip to Laos especially to rephotograph some places. I definitely got better photos because I had a much better idea what I wanted, but the excitement of visiting somewhere new was not really there. That actually surprised me.

Have a great trip, Michael. Looking forward to seeing your results!
 
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I guess we have all done that from time to time if we had the chance. Enjoy your trip, stay safe, and treat us to some of your photos when you return.
 
Oh man, I'm incredibly jealous.

I feel the same way about Myanmar too. I was there in May, and it was a little bit of a photographic mistake with the climate. Bagan hit 46ºC 6 days in a row, and Yangon had topped 40º for 40 days in a row! It wasn't conducive to productive photography, but was well worth the experience. I'm looking forward to returning either there or Nepal (my previous trip) sometime soon while they're still fresh in my mind and I know what I want to aim for content wise while I'm there.

What areas of Yangon are you hoping to focus on? Some pre-election mingling with people who are bold enough to talk to an outsider in the open could be very interesting. For all the warnings about talking politics with locals, I had some very frank discussions while I was there.
 
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Burma - beautiful country, super friendly people, lousy military dictatorship.
Why limit yourself to Rangoon? Mandalay and Maymyo are also picturesque for completely different reasons. You should be able to rent a car and travel to these locations, or take the train. Maymyo is high up in the hills, a cool summer retreat the same way Simla is for India.

I was born in Burma, my family left when I was 7, and I've not gone back in almost 40 years. If the regime ever changes, it's one of the countries I'd dearly love to visit again.
I'm still using the names that were there when I left.
 
Thanks guys for the replies.....it will be 3rd time in Myanmar.....the first time (about 3 years ago) I was in Shan State (Kengtung for 2 weeks).....the second time was last October and I visited Mandalay (I love it so much there), Inle lake, Bagan and Yangon and it's surrounding areas (villages that were hit by the cyclone)....that trip was a little longer than my first.....

this time, i only have 7 days...I am going back with already a strong idea of what I want to focus on....after looking at my contact sheets and prints and remembering what I saw there, I decided on a whim to go to the embassy and see if they would give me a visa, and I was able to free up a week off of work....it just all worked out perfectly....

I would love to be able to go back to Mandalay, I actually thought about splitting my time up and going up there for a couple of days....but I decided to take a side trip (2 days) to Kyaiktiyo (gloden rock) because I haven't been there yet and I can still focus on the stuff that I want to shoot in Yangon....

anyways, I am all packed up and ready to go...will be on the plane later today....I just packed my last roll of Kodachrome that I wll probably ever shoot in my life....I would never of imagined myself shooting my last roll of Kodachrome in Myanmar.....to me, it is so cool...

cheers, michael

Hello Robert, I agree with you about using the old names......Yangon/Rangon, Myanmar/Burma and countless others...but I guess I've been living next to it (I live in Thailand) for a couple of years that I think I just got used to calling it what every other person out here calls it.....thanks for the cool reply....I appreciate it
 
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michaelbialecki said:
<snip>
so, I guess my question is....how many of you guys/gals have returned to a place to photograph?..... <snip>
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Next week I am going back to Cuba for my fourth trip this year. Each trip is about two weeks long. I mostly go back to the same places. I will be spending my third week in Sancti Spiritus, a town with less than 100,000 people. I still find new people to photograph in spite of walking and photographing full time when I am there.

Last trip, while in Havana Centro Cuidad, I met two different people whose photos ended up in my final selection. Both times I happened to have a mini-album of 5x7 prints and could show them their photos amongst the others I did.

But then in 2005 I spent six months photographing at least one full day a week on the Daytona Beach Boardwalk. That is less than 100' wide and less than 1/4 mile long. All the carnies and I were friends but the visitors changed every day.

And I spent three years photographing usually one or two days a week in South Apopka which has around 5,000 residents. Most people there still know me although many cannot remember my name and just call me "photo man". In all fairness, I do stand out there being white in an exclusively negro community.

I believe you have to continually go back over and over. Otherwise, you just end up with the traditional tourist looking glossy overview shots.

BTW, one of the classic examples of going back over and over to really know and understand a neighborhood is Bruce Davidson's "East 100th Street".
 
O yea, nowadays the most touristy thing to do when traveling is to walk with camera taking pictures of locals and buildings...
 
michaelbialecki said:
so, I guess my question is....how many of you guys/gals have returned to a place to photograph?.....I feel a lot different now going into Yangon already aware of what I want to concentrate on...and to be honest, I feel really excited....
cheers, michael
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I do it all the time...when I was traveling a lot I would try to get to a place I shot before...
If I can return to a place several times in one week I can fine tune the shot...then there are the time when it's months (or years) between visits and things can really change...especially seasons...
What you're thinking in your head maybe totally different when you get there...sometimes I don't recognize the place...
 
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