Category Archives: Culture Angkor Wat. There can be no symbol more iconic of Cambodia’s attempts to guard its glorious Khmer past or of it’s hope for a self-determined future. The world’s largest religious monument, built between 1113 and 1150 during the reign of Suryavarman II, Angkor Wat was designed as a microcosm of the Hindu universe. The outer moat represents […]  I’m in Cambodia at the moment with four gifted professional photographers and thirteen talented amateurs. All I can say is this: Thank heavens I’m not taking pictures for my living! It’s not that my photos are bad – well, not all of them – it is just that those taken by everyone else are extraordinary. […]  “Try to focus on one thing – it could be one colour, one idea, any one thing, really,” instructed our photo-tour guide Gavin Gough. “Don’t just wander around taking pictures of everything!” Now, I have enormous respect for Gavin, Bangkok-based travel photographer and teacher extraordinaire, but I was about to head into Yaowarat, Bangkok’s Chinatown, […]  The English word ‘souvenir’ comes from the same word in French; in French le souvenir can be the memory itself, or, as it is in English, the keepsake in which the memory is signified. Photographs are my mementos, my souvenirs, but some of my clearest memories of our long walk in the Pyrenees never made it onto […]  Thailand goes to the polls this Sunday. For weeks, the streets of Bangkok have been lined with colourful political posters: posters with pictures of bland-faced politicians and their pork-barrel promises of fiscal payouts to just about every demographic; posters of “everywoman” in her tennis whites and “everyman” in his golf gear; posters depicting the candidates […] |
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