Since taking photos takes time, I will ride by bike and tent through Southeast Asia from September 2017 until March 2018. The working title “SüO17/18” refers to this project (it means southeast Asia 17/18 in german language). I selected the destination approximately one year ago but I had no special reason for choosing this specific region, it just came about. The route is planned loosely. I start in Bangkok, ride from there to the North, then to Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. I’ll navigate with maps, the ones made of paper.
Preparations were quite versatile and spanned from earning money, self-building certain parts of the equipment, acquiring a new lens and developing a photo-processing and back-up workflow which is completely based on USB-power and needs (almost) no laptop.
Photographically, I came up with some ideas. Realities will show which of these I can implement. These are the topics I’m interested in: everyday religion, the threshold between tourists and locals, people of mountainous regions and their struggle with external influences like the Vietnam war or increasing flows of tourism, the use of war-weapons-trash and UXOs. I also want to further explore topics I’ve captured before, such as “overland” and “tristesse”. And I want to attach a special value to the photography of people, which just got a raw deal in the past because of inhibitions from my side.
Under the header “current”, I will post every once and a while about the where, how and what of my project and build up the new photo-series underneath. Use the following comment-space or the “contact” tab for questions and suggestions but please keep in mind that it might take a considerable time for me to answer your request when I’m on my way.