Since 18 or 19 years ago when I had work on Rama I at the Ministry of Energy and often walked to Hua Lamphong MRT station to begin the long journey back to Nonthaburi, I’ve wanted to work one of these bridges into a photograph.
Back then I sometimes carried a Samsung digital point-and-shoot and tried to make something along this canal. Ever since my time studying Japanese art and culture in the 90s, I have loved the formal qualities of the bridges in Ukiyo-e and have often found a similarity of form in Thai bridges over khlongs. The problem with the iron and concrete Thai bridges is that they often look too “kitsch” for my taste and lack the subtle beauty of the Japanese versions, at least as they appear in prints.
Last night, having finally escaped the constant rainfall of the past few months? weeks? I rode the rails to Wat Mangkon and walked from there to Hua Lamphong and caught this as the walk was coming to an end.
Mood and mystery.
What’s to come?