The Bayon in Angkor Thom. 2006
This year will mark 8 years since I made the switch from film to digital. From the word go I’ve followed a policy of archiving everything and never deleting. That may see a little unnecessary and possibly overkill but it doesn’t cost much to store and you never know when an old file may prove useful, even if it’s only as an example of what not to do. As I write this, a 2TB hard drive can be had for about US$120 and that’s good for approximately 80 000 RAW files from my Canon 5D Mark II and even more if the files are from an older, lower megapixel camera. By making use of the cataloging and filtering power of Lightroom, it’s quite easy to manage all these images that are scattered throughout multiple drives.
While some images may never be able to be used – out of focus, wrong exposure, etc – others have potential but just need a little time. I like to occasionally take a random dive back into my older rejects from time to time, particularly when a new generation of software is released. Such was the case earlier this week when I found myself with a bit of spare time thanks to a weather delay. Lightroom 4 beta has been out for a couple of weeks and offers a number of improvements in the Develop module and I’ve been spending a bit of time with it. In fact, the last 3-4 shoots I’ve done have had all the processing done in LR4 rather than 3.
Life on the Lake. Tonle Sap, Cambodia 2006.
I fired up one of my archive drives that held photographs from my second visit to Cambodia from 2006 and added them to the new Lightroom. Scrolling through them in the grid view as small thumbnails, I randomly chose a selection of images to work on. They were all photographs that hadn’t been used before for various reasons, mostly because I’d been unable to pull the photograph that I knew was in them out of the RAW file. Running them through the Develop module with the 2012 process version in LR4 finally started bringing the potential out of these files. The photographs that were in my head when looking at these RAW files were now starting to appear on the screen in front of me.
Sitting Under Buddha. 2006
After adjusting the various sliders and a little work with brushes, things were looking good but weren’t quite there. Another version 4 was released recently and that was Nik Color Efex Pro 4. This operates as a plugin from Lightroom but in this instance I decided to go via Photoshop so that I could Color Efex 4 on a layer. Each photograph was opened and various adjustments made to suit the needs of each different image. On the Bayon photograph that leads this post, I masked the effect out on part of the image but for the others here, it was applied in full. I could have used the control points in Color Efex Pro 4 to achieve the same effect but it was a little quicker to just add a layer mask to the area I wanted to reduce the effect on.
In The Boat. 2006
The moral of the story? Delete nothing. You never know when a photo is just waiting for the correct engine to make it work.
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Wat Damnak, Siam Reap, Cambodia
Wat Damnak in the town of Siam Reap, Cambodia is the setting for this month’s desktop calendar. As always, click on the links below to get the size you want.
A quick announcement – the sign up page for the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk is now open. This year we’re heading to Yehliou on Taiwan’s north coast on Sunday October 2nd. Sign up and come join us for a fun afternoon. I’ll have a more official announcement about it next week.
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Beng Mealea temple, Cambodia is an Angkor-era temple dating from the early 12th century CE and built during the reign of Suryavarman II
Few people come away from a trip to Cambodia’s famed Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples without some kind of Indiana Jones / Lara Croft fantasy. Even if it’s just a passing thought, as you finds yourself with a quiet moment of solitude amongst the ruins, it’s easy to imagine being the first explorer to stumble upon the place. Despite the almost one million tourists annually that visit the UNESCO World Heritage listed site, there are still opportunities to escape the crowds and revel in those fantasies. For travel photographers, the Angkor region never fails to delight while there. You may be standing shoulder to shoulder with 100 other photographers all trying to capture the same sunset but you do it anyway because it is such a spectacular scene. The majority of tourists who visit Angkor do so on a three day pass, rushing around from site to site until they begin to blur together, and in the bars and restaurants in the nearby town, you can often hear people stating that they are “templed out”. In a seeming contradiction, travelers who take advantage of a seven day pass don’t seem to become so overwhelmed by everything. Having the ability to take things at a more relaxed pace, to break up the trip with a side journey to the floating villages on the lake or the bird sanctuary, allows for a more thorough enjoyment of the ruins without them blurring into one another. For those who really want an adventure though, taking a trip to one of the more remote temples is a must. At a site such as Beng Mealea, you can really believe that you are an intrepid explorer, and you will return with photographs, stories and memories that suggest as much.
Located approximately 60km north east of Siem Reap, Beng Mealea is the place to go if you want a real jungle experience. Unrestored and largely covered in dense vegeatation, if you approach the ruins from the western entrance you’ll truly get a sense of discovery as you get a first glimpse of the West Tower rising in front of you. Head over a collapsed section of terrace and into the enclosure, taking where you step, especially if it has been raining as it gets extremely slippery. This is not for the faint-hearted. If you after something a little easier and safer, make use of the main southern entrance. Inside the enclosure itself, the increasing popularity over the past few years has led to wooden walkways being constructed but there are still places that most don’t venture into.
Beng Mealea itself was constructed in the early 12th century CE by Suryavarman II (1112-52). Although a little smaller than Angkor Wat, it features the same basic floor plan, although you would never know it to look at it, such is the state of ruin. It literally appears to be a huge pile of rubble hidden amongst the trees and therein lies its charm. Unlike all of the other temples in the Angkor region, at Beng Mealea it is possible to walk along the tops of walls and on the rooftop. Whether this is desirable is a point of debate. To some, it’s an essential part of the experience but to others it is just hastening the damage that is being done to the structure. Most information about the temple has been lost to history. What is known is that it is constructed primarily of sandstone and is dedicated to the Hindu God, Vishnu, although Buddhist motifs can also be seen in places.
A trip to Beng Mealea is a must for those who desire a little extra adventure and wish for a sense of discovery. Dave Perks and the team at Peace Of Angkor were some of the first to arrange trips there and are my recommended choice, particularly for photographers as the company is run by a photographer.
I’ll leave you with a slideshow featuring additional images. All are available for licensing, as is a longer written article that can be supplied for editorial usage upon request.
With waterboarding and other torture methods once again in the news this past week, and the 34th anniversary of the fall of Phnom Penh to the Khmer Rouge having just passed, it’s timely to take a look at Tuol Sleng, or S-21. In the months following the 1975 Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia, they established a number of security prisons throughout the country where torture and executions were routinely carried out.
Warning – Graphic, disturbing content follows. Click at own risk.
Tuol Svay Prey High School was one such location. Renamed as Security Prison 21 (S-21), the prison was set up Comrade Duch, currently on trial for crimes committed while serving as director of the prison. The five buildings at the school were converted into a prison, torture and interrogation center in August 1975. Classrooms were converted into tiny prison and torture chambers, the windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire and the buildings were enclosed with an electrified barbed wire fence.
Between 1975 and 1979, approximately 17000 people were held at Tuol Sleng, with between 1000 and 1500 imprisoned at any one time. Of these 17000, only 12 survived. At first, the prisoners at S-21 were mainly from the previous Lon Nol regime and included soldiers, government officials, as well as academics, doctors, teachers, students, factory workers, monks and engineers. Upon arrival, each victim was photographed and made to give a detailed autobiography starting from childhood. On average, prisoners were kept in the prison for up to 3 months, after which they were taken for execution.
During their time in Tuol Sleng, the prisoners were subjected to a number of “rules”. Failure to abide by these would result in severe beatings. The ten regulations were
- 1. You must answer accordingly to my question. Don’t turn them away.
- 2. Don’t try to hide the facts by making pretexts this and that, you are strictly prohibited to contest me.
- 3. Don’t be a fool for you are a chap who dare to thwart the revolution.
- 4. You must immediately answer my questions without wasting time to reflect.
- 5. Don’t tell me either about your immoralities or the essence of the revolution.
- 6. While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all.
- 7. Do nothing, sit still and wait for my orders. If there is no order, keep quiet. When I ask you to do something, you must do it right away without protesting.
- 8. Don’t make pretext about Kampuchea Krom in order to hide your jaw of traitor.
- 9. If you don’t follow all the above rules, you shall get many many lashes of electric wire.
- 10. If you disobey any point of my regulations you shall get either ten lashes or five shocks of electric discharge.
The interrogation system was one of torture, designed to elicit confessions to whatever crimes the confessors accused people of. The vast majority of prisoners were innocent of the crimes but confessed due to the torture methods they were subjected to. Prisoners were routinely beaten and tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging. Sleep deprivation, starvation diets, waterboarding, rape, cutting with knives, suffocating with plastic bags, pulling out fingernails while pouring alcohol on the wounds and holding prisoners’ heads under water were all used to extract the confessions.
Confessions could run to thousands of words, with hundreds of names of family, friends and colleagues being listed. These people were then arrested and brought in for interrogation. The confessions were typically a mixture of real and imaginary events. Following confession, the prisoners were taken outside and killed. For the first year, the killings took place at the prison, but once there was no longer any burial space left, they were taken to Choeung Ek, a killing field 15km away. There, they were killed by being battered with iron bars, pickaxes, machetes and other makeshift weapons and buried in mass graves.
Today, Tuol Sleng is a genocide museum. It has been left the way it was found when the Khmer Rouge fled Phnom Penh. Thanks to the detailed biographies and photograph the jailers demanded, several rooms are now lined with black and white photographs of the victims. Prior to 2002, a skull map was also on display, however it has now been dismantled. The Choeung Ek killing field is also preserved as a memorial, and both locations are important reminders to humanity of the horrors of war and genocide.
Situated on top of a 525m cliff in the Dangrek mountains of northern Cambodia is Prasat Preah Vihear. Straddling the border between Cambodia’s Preah Vihear province and Sisaket province in Thailand, the 11th century Angkorian temple lies on disputed ground. Over the past millenium, the temple has been located at times in both Cambodia and Thailand. A 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague stated that the temple was a part of Cambodia.
Access to the site was soon restricted by the civil war in Cambodia. With its position atop a remote clifftop, the temple was easily defensible. Long after the Cambodian plains below had been taken over by the Khmer Rouge, soldiers loyal to the Lon Nol government continued to hold Prasat Preah Vihear. In wasn’t until late May 1975, one month after Phnom Penh had fallen that the Khmer Rouge managed to gain control of the temple. It was reported as being the last place in Cambodia to fall under Khmer Rouge control.
After the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1978, Prasat Preah Vihear became one of the locations that the Khmer Rouge fled to. The continued guerilla war throughout the 1980s and 1990s meant that, save for a brief time in 1992, access to the temple was still restricted. It wasn’t until 1998 that access from the Thai side was possible, after the last remaining Khmer Rouge soldiers negotiated their surrender to the Cambodian government. Ironically, after being the last location to fall to the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s, it was the last site that any significant numbers of Khmer Rouge fighters controlled at their final surrender. Access from the Cambodian side only became possible in 2003 after the completion of an access road.
In 2007 the process to have Prasat Preah Vihear listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site began. After Cambodia proposed the listing of the site, Thailand protested stating that it should be a joint proposal. Both countries were in full agreement that the site met the requirements for listing as a World Heritage site, and it was decided that Cambodia would submit the proposal and Thailand would back it. However, protests from opposition political parties in Thailand in June 2008 led to Thailand withdrawing its support of the nomination. In response to the protests, Cambodia closed the border and continued with the application process, and on July 8th UNESCO awarded World Heritage status to Prasat Preah Vihear.
A week later, on July 15th, tensions rose after three Thai nationals crossed the border and attempted to place a Thai flag in the temple grounds. Several dozen Thai soldiers were reported to have crossed the border, with one losing his leg to a landmine leftover from the Cambodian civil war. Over the next few days, more troops entered the temple, with as many as 1000 soldiers being stationed in the area. 400 Thai soldiers occupied a pagoda in the temple itself, claiming it as Thai territory. High-level talks the following week couldn’t resolve the dispute and more soldiers and heavy weapons moved to the area. In August, Cambodia claimed that a second Angkor-era temple complex, Ta Muan, was being occupied by Thailand, to which Thailand Fine Arts Department Director, Kriengkrai Sampatchalit, responded, saying that the temple ” is located just about 100 metres from the border on Thai soil”. (Note – I’ve been to that temple and it’s more like 10m from the border).
Talks later in the month saw an agreement to reduce troop levels at Prasat Preah Vihear ahead of a meeting between the two countries’ foreign ministers. Tensions were raised again in October, with firefights between Thai and Cambodian forces that left a number of soldiers dead and wounded. The dispute is still unresolved, although both sides have agreed to seek peaceful solutions.
UPDATE – News the morning, April 4th is reporting more fighting with at least 3 dead.
We’re roughly halfway through the theme contest. Remember to make your guesses in the comments. Good luck.
A young Cambodian girl at the Wat Thmei killing field memorial in Cambodia. The Killing Fields were a number of sites in Cambodia where large numbers of people were killed and buried by the authoritarian Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979. Never again.
Scenes from the floating village of Kompong Phlukk on the Tonle Sap, Cambodia
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