I am leaving on a series of planes that will eventually get me to the Russian border in the Ukrainian town of Kharkov. I also plan on spending a weekend day shooting in Chernobyl and visiting a few radiated and abandoned ghost towns. I think the weather will be cold, but I am hoping the 80 RADS keep me warm.

This shot below is not of a CCCP secret testing bunker, but I think it looks like one, at least according to my 1980’s cold war Bond-shaped vision of the Soviet nuclear program. It is actually of the airport in Bangkok, Thailand. If you zoom into the large version, you can see some nice details.

Asia has some amazing airports, but this one in Bangkok is perhaps the nicest. After getting through customs, the selection of shops, restaurants, bakeries, etc., rivals any other high-end airport or upper-crust mall in the world.

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Here is a room which has the collective net worth of Thailand’s neighboring countries. Unfortunately, since Buddhists renounce wealth, this is both priceless and worthless at the same time.

If they were to trade in a few square feet of that gold, they could probably buy some iPod Nanos for the entire monastery. They can get on iTunes and buy some of that Buddhist chanting music, which may be a good escape for them.

I put a few other pictures below of some neighboring temples.

Here is just another sunset in Bangkok with a series of longboats streaming by on the river.

This was taken a bit after the coup, so I was not able to capture the Molotov cocktails or anything dynamic like that.

This is a nice HDR shot I grabbed of a Buddhist temple in Thailand. I would have called this “Heaven Opening”, but I don’t think that makes sense over a Buddhist temple. If you squint, closely at the sun rays, you can see your other lives.

This shot is decidedly not Russian, not secret, not a bunker, but maybe it has held a few cosmonauts. Anyway, this place was just way too cool not to photograph.

I was burning hot, sweating like a nearby migrant worker, but I just had to stop to take this HDR, since Buddha asked me to and all… you don’t want to ignore that guy.

This is where one of the narrow dalipidated canals empties out into the main river. The living conditions aren’t the best, but you do get free meat from the dogs that float by.

I was lucky to catch the sun right behind the temple… Sometimes I say that luck is the residue of design. But in this case, it really was pure luck.

Over the weekend we hung pictures up at the gallery. Everything looks pretty sharp and those of you are coming to the gallery opening should see something a bit different, perhaps. I don’t know… impossible to be objective, but I do know it is different than what is usually shown there at Halcyon.

I’ll be showing about 45 pieces. Here is a sampling of the ones at the show. You will notice the first three are exceptionally pointy.
Dark Storm over Vancouver:

Intricate:

Spires of God:

Farewell Holland:

Fourth on Lake Austin:

This is Nathaniel:

Rush Hour in Seoul:

One Night in Bangkok:

Here is one of the many Buddhist temple complexes scattered around Thailand. This one has some very nice spires in a cool configuration.

Here is probably one of the most detailed temples I have ever seen. If you have time, zoom in to see the bigger sizes.

Here is a bright and gilded temple I came upon in Thailand. These temples are surrounded by scammers that tell you the temple is closed and no tourists are allowed. They try to get you to go to their little store a few blocks away to buy wooden figurines and plastic buddhas to hang from your tuk-tuk mirror.

The water is disgusting. At one point, I was trying to take a picture of an interesting bit, and there was a big while plastic-bag thing floating into my frame. I was thinking, “Stupid dirty Bangkok!” and then I pulled down the camera to look and it was actually a dead bloated dog.

…as evidenced by this picture:

Here is a festively colored area of a Buddhist temple in Thailand.