About the Photographs
By John Goss
photography for this book began on my first visit to Thailand in 1988, before it became my home.I soon switched from taking tourist snaps to documenting the puzzling sights in street, market and fairground. Most Thais I queried paid little attention to the meanings of the everyday things around them. So lots of these images remained unexplained until this collaboration with Philip to uncover the origins and interconnectedness of things like coins in ears and poodle-shaped bushes. As with many people, my first encounter with things Thai started with my discovery of Thai food. Perfumed soups, Technicolor gelatinous cubes, drinks tasting like spiced wood in hand-embossed mugs a sensory over load calmly overseen by portraits of monarchs in every restaurant. While pop in many countries has become appropriated by commerce, in Thailand these mundane marvels of found art' remain an unselfconscious part of daily life. I've tried to record this unsung beauty, free from the posed and styled quality of many books and magazines on Thai culture. These scenes, encountered through serendipity, were not set-up or re-arranged, though a handful of images needed some composing. While Thais love to prepare for portraits, I've sought to record their smiles in a natural, impromptu way. I shoot in natural light wherever possible, avoiding flash, using a range of Sony digital cameras. Two-fifths of the photographs are by Philip Cornwel Smith. He, likewise, brought years of images to the book, drawn especially from festivals and performance. As foreigners, we are, inescapably, observers, but we've tried getting to the heart of the action. Philip was stampeded by men in animal trances at the Tattoo Festival, wiped flying perspiration off the lens at the boxing ring, and found himself becoming part of the comedy routine he was photographing. Some pictures needed to be sourced, mainly related to mass media. We thank those who kindly supplied images in the acknowledgements. Overall, our picture choice covers every taste and every region, because there's more to Thai pop than cosmopolitan Bangkok. These images offer an invitation to experience the mixture of ancient origins and global hybrids, official culture and under ground intrigues that envelop anyone on a walk through modern Thai life.