Chiang Mai 2004. Girl dressed as flower in the flower festival and beauty pageant. Buy this photo
Had the most unlucky day yesterday. I accidentally scalded my daughters finger in some hot water, she fell down from her baby chair and hit her nose, I cut my finger on a piece of glass after a glass-bowl broke, my niece fell down the stairs, we ran out of water in our house and finally, at 7 in the evening we heard a large explosion and all the lights went out…….. What happened? A nearby power plant apparently got overloaded. Didn’t think it would be fixed during the night, but 10 minutes later we actually had light again. Whew.
When I checked the calendar and saw it was the 13th, somehow, I wasn’t too surprised!
All things in perspective, could have been a lot worse I guess. It’s not like I fell off Mt. Everest or something. I finally got around to reading Jon Krakauer’s account (“Into Thin Air”
Excellent read…
But the little story I wanted to share here is about another chain of events, crossing 4 continents, starting with me walking into a noodle shop in Thailand 6 years ago to a South American boy now having an African vulture tattooed all over his back!
To make a long story short, in the Thai noodle shop they told me there would be a local festival that morning, I got my camera and went out to find it. Along with a bunch of other press photographers not having anything better to do, I covered the event that day. Subsequently, a picture I took before the big parade started (picture above) went on to win an award in Denmark, it was published, exhibited and won me two seats on an African photo safari. Among the pictures of lions and elephants I came home with , was a picture of a vulture…
Years go by, last month I get an email from South America: A boy’s uncle was in an accident and got paralyzed. Uncle’s nickname is “The Vulture”… And as a tribute, his nephew now wants to have my photo tattooed all over his back! He was kind enough to ask me permission and if I would provide the photo for free. Normally, I never give photos for free, but this was an exceptional case. Besides, I wouldn’t have a clue about how to calculate a fair license fee for that kind of use. (Back cover, full page, derivative work, circulation=1 ???)
I just asked to get a picture of the final tattoo once it was done. Not sure if I should now include it in my tear sheet portfolio… Original vulture photo here, “published” below :
