As referenced in the first of the blog posts covering 2024’s November trip, I’d spent an afternoon pacing the streets of central Pattaya looking to find some good street photography opportunities. In hindsight I’d have spent more time on this than I did, maybe a day or two more and also, I’d have got my timings better!
Walking from North Pattaya into Central along Soi Buakhao in the late afternoon throws up a hive of activity with plenty of street vendors, the hustle and bustle of traffic and early starters to the upcoming nights debauchery. It has such great potential for shooting in with so many faces and unexpected things. If you are there at the right time and the pockets of light fall in the right place, then it’s gold. This, I’m afraid to say, I did not accomplish!
The main problem is that Brendan and I didn’t set out until it was already golden hour. By the time we’d made it into the Treetown area (a good 20-25 minute walk) we were already losing the best of the light as the sun fell behind the tall buildings hugging the skyline. Undeterred though, we did several circuits of the side streets looking for every opportunity that presented itself, working right through until the early evening where the vibe started to change and it became more difficult to find the right shots.
For this I shot exclusively on my 50mm 1.4 lens. I find it a pain to use sometimes as the focus is so hit and miss if not shooting on Live View, but when it hits it’s easily the best lens I have and being able to open it wide helped a great deal when things got dark,
Anyhow, here’s a selection of shots from the walk, plenty of Brendan (who I suspect might prefer being in front of the camera than behind it!) … and a sunset I shot on the beach a day or so before!
