Asia analog.
I always thought that capturing photos on film was really cool. I like the aesthetics of it, I like how they look. And what fascinates me the most, is unique and kind of perfect in its own way. That every photo is a moment, a memory
frozen in time, burned into the 35mm film roll. And yes theoretical is every photo ever taken a moment frozen in time, but there's just something about photos developed on film. I feel like what is captured on them, is way more connected with the actual moment and place in time they got taken in than digital. phots. Maybe it's because the image on a developed film is literally light from that moment burned into the light-sensitive piece of plastic behind the lens and not a bunch of data rendered into a picture by a computer.
I also love how simple it is. A film camera doesn't give you lots of options. You can´t just take pictures to infinity, look at them after you made them, decide whether you want them darker or brighter.. or maybe a different f-stop, or, the angle is shit so you take the picture from a completely new perspective. All that you can´t do with a film camera so it comes down to, seeing a subject and taking a photo. The shutter clicks and the moment that just passed got burned on film forever.
Now a while ago my dad gifted me his old Canon A-1 36mm film camera and I was really happy about it. I still don't know how exactly it works and I'm a little bit afraid of the manual mode since I'm so used to just seeing every change I do directly on screen, but I don't take film photos with the plan to create the most insane pics the world has ever seen, but rather to capture memories. So I was fine with just keeping the camera switched on auto. So now that I had my own film camera and a couple of trips to Asia upcoming, which were my first trips outside of Europe.. and I knew there would be some really memorable memories to be made, it was out of question if I would bring it with me or not.
That's my old Canon A-1. It has scratches all over the body, the mirror has some marks which leave dark spots on the photos, and sadly, my 50mm is starting to disintegrate.. But it´s still working and has
seen a lot.
I would like to share some in-depth "analog photography tipps" to make this whole thing more interesting, but to be completely honest with you, I don't know shit. I just press the trigger and hope something good comes out. And sometimes that was the case and that's what I want to share in this article.
Cool photos on film of Southeast Asia.
The moment of arrival on Koh Samui, If you are planning on visiting any of the many small islands located on the east coast of Thailand, Koh Samui airport is gonna be a subject of matter for you. And not only because it's pretty much the only airport in this area, but also because it's insanely beautiful. Koh Samui Airport is really the most astonishing airport I've ever been to. But I will talk about that in another article
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Ferry to koh tao
From Koh Samui on everywhere you go, island-wise, will be via ferry. They don't cost a lot and the time schedule is also pretty decent. There are ferries going between Koh Samui and Koh Tao multiple times a day.
8°22'26.0"S
115°27'02.2"E
Pura Besakih is Balis's most important sanctuary. The so-called "Mother temple" is located, at about 950 above sea level, on the southwest slope of the still-active volcano Gunung Agung. It´s assumed that the temple was build in the aight century. The whole areal extends over 3 square kilometers and there are a total of 200 buildings.
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time I drove in traffic was in Bali. You can do that if you are careful, but I wouldn't recommend that. There is a lot of traffic on Balis roads and I had a couple of dangerous situations which could have had a bad ending. For example, I once was driving across a crossing and I just overlooked a truck coming from right really fast. There were no stoplights or signs or anything so we both were just driving without thinking a lot. That's typical for Bali and it's usually no problem because everybody is really careful and on a scooter. But it's a different story if it's a truck going 70km/h and the driver is not "very careful". I had a short moment of shock because I was already right in the center of the crossing and way too late to hit the brakes, but I snapped out of it and hit the gas so we got over it before the truck hit. So what I'm saying: Driving in Bali can be a lot of fun, but it can also be dangerous if you don't feel safe on your bike, or if you simply just do stuff that is out of your comfort zone. The road really ain't a place to be trying to be badass, I mean it is if you are badass okay? but take your time to get there and don't feel too cool too quick on your 125ccm. I'm speaking from experience. And if you don't wanna do this for your own safety okay, but do it for the safety of others. I saw 2 accidents in my time in Bali, one of them was because somebody just drove off the road and into the ricefield one meter below on the really narrow shortcut in Canggu, not a big deal. The other one was an almost accident and was because a tourist just slammed the "streetside" door of his car open without looking and a local almost crashed into it.
Balis traffic is not that dangerous if you know how to handle it. There appear to be absolutely no rules and the chaos can be overwhelming but. There's one essential rule and that is "Drive carefully and responsibly". That's how Balis streets work. Everybody just drives how he feels safe and it doesn't really matter where or how fast, don't drive on the other side of the road tho. But everybody looks out for the other and so, compared to the insane chaos, there are surprisingly few accidents. And most of them are caused by tourists who are not knowing what they are doing. It´s just, you have to trust these rules and you have to play along, be fair, don't do anything stupid because there are no obvious rules, look out for the locals just as you would want them to look out for you, which they do and most importantly, don't
be an asshole.
BALI´S
Tracks
So far I've been to Bali twice. I went there without having a driver's license twice. I rented a motorcycle without having a driver's license twice. I drove all around Bali with my rented motorcycle without having a driver's license twice. I got stopped and asked for papers by the police twice. I paid a 500.000 rupiah fine twice, was told to drive carefully now because the traffic is dangerous right now.. "rush hour" and I was off again.
Now.. I'm definitely not telling you, if you're planning on visiting Bali anytime soon, to just grab a scooter whether you have a license or not, because it's the fucking coolest thing you can do. Driving around on Balis busy roads, meandering between the cars and if there's not enough road
for you just take the sidewalk, nobody's gonna get mad. For real. Nobody's gonna get mad. It's like Bali is your personal scooter race track. And the fines aren't that high anyways so it's definitely worth it. I'm not telling you to do that okay? Who would do that? But no, now on a more serious note. Driving in Bali is just really cool and for me, it would be an actual reason to go there again, just for the bike rides. It's a lot of fun to maneuver your small 125ccm scooter through the rough traffic, passing between cars on all lanes, searching for the fastest path in this asphalt jungle, and sometimes the fastest path leads you onto the sidewalk. But you should really only do that if you feel safe on your bike. I personally learned driving on Bali. I had some experience with mopeds from friends, so I kinda knew how to handle them, but the actual first
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Alright, I hate those fucking bloggers who are talking about "hidden gems" and "secret locations", almost untouched by tourists, and how magical these places are because there barely any people, especially other tourists. And then they just give away where these untouched secret places are. Like, what are you doing man? Won't be a secret place for long after your 2 Million subs saw it. I don't know, I get it that you would want to share your impressions with others about insanely beautiful white untouched beaches, crystal clear water, and beautiful lagoons swarming with exotic marine life but.. if you just give it all right away to literally EVERYBODY and even title your video or blog post like "Balis INCREDIBLE hidden gems NO ONE knows about" it makes it hard for me to believe that they do actually care for the "special" "magical" places they visit and that they aren't some greedy little click baiting attention whores.
So because I'm way better than them and just a genuinely superior human being, I will not give away any information about the whereabouts of this "hidden gem". If you really wanna find the beach tho, you will. And I can live with that, I can live with giving away subtle hints to the location. That's at least better than just making the fucking coordinates public because then just literally everybody can go there. People that just don't care will come to beaches like this, people that usually lay on the beach all day, doing nothing but looking at 17-year-old local girls' asses while thinking about if they're 18 and how they could fuck them. People who are whistling for the waiter in restaurants and all that shit, and man, I don't want people like this to know about places like this. So.. if you just give away hints, there's at least a chance that the people who actually find the "hidden gem" are a little bit more, I don't know how to call it, cooler? Because they show some sort of interest and you have to have some sort of respect regarding the locals to actually find the place no one knows about. I hope what I'm saying makes some sense.
9°31'57.8"N 99°41'36.7"E
Koh Phaluai is a really small island in the Gulf of Thailand. I think it's really unknown to tourism and we actually discovered it while looking for islands near Koh Tao or Samui via google maps. There's a whole article to Koh Phalui if you wanna hear more in detail about this.. yeees
"Hidden Gem of Thailand". What I still can say about Phaluai is that it might be the island that came the closest to the pictures I had in my head when I first heard exotic names like Bali or Costa Rica or Thailand. There's this one beautiful nearly white beach. The shore is lined with these bushes that, at the time we went there were in bloom so there were a lot of butterflies feasting on the yellow flowers. The mighty green cliffs on the landside and this rugged island in the ocean, towering over the bay, make the whole scene even more beautiful.
With food in Thailand, it's just the same thing as in Bali. It's just good. you can really just eat anywhere, from some seemingly dirty street food wood shack to the most exquisite restaurant, you are almost
guaranteed that you'll like it. And that's not true for traditional Thai food only, basically just everything is good. I don't know how they do that.
In our time on Koh Tao, we tried Seafood, Thai, Mexican, American, Japanese and some street food stalls. They were all good and I ate the
best Mexican food to this day there. I still dream about whatever I ate there that day. Sadly we went there on our last day so I couldn't even try some other things there, or order the same dish over and over again because it was good okay? What I also learned to love were this couple of street food stalls in the parking lot of the 7eleven we used to go to. We ordered something from there once, because we wanted to try it and also because we were a little hungry but not hungry enough to go to a restaurant.. and also restaurants are expensive (comparatively).
So a snack was welcome. From there on I went there every day I think for grilled chicken skewers. My mom ordered tofu skewers wich also were really good, but I fell in love with this completely dried-out but really spicy chicken things on a stick wich were somehow
still kinda tender.
on this article with the last couple film fotos I have left, sadly I lost somehow a whole roll with 36 pictures, but I still hope you enjoyed what you saw. And maybe I was able to inspire some of you to pick up an old film camera, or any camera to go create some memories.
