I'm feeling reflective these days...a lot of people ask me how I got into portrait photography specifically baby & children's portraitures. Well, I remember exactly when and how I fell in love with it.
It was the summer of 2003. We were on a tiny laid back island called
Ko Samet, about a half day away from the bustling city of Bangkok in
Thailand. It was such a relief to come to this paradise island where there were no such thing as big hotels but just wooden bungalows lined up along the long stretches of salt-like sand which transcended into the wide calming clear ocean.
It was the beginning of the week and the timing couldn't have been more perfect. According to my trusty Lonely Planet guidebook, the best time to visit this island was during the week as most of its visitors are Bangkokites who only visit during the weekends. The island was quiet, just a few Europeans and I remember seeing a Japanese couple who we shared our beach with...and that was it.
During this time I was just starting to get into photography and had with me a"big" camera. I would take photos of anything and everything. My breakfast? Snap. My waitor...snap. My feet in the sand...snap. A colourful boat in the ocean...snap snap snap. I snapped aimlessly just because I could.
We were at a local open beach cafe (it was really just a bunch of chairs and tables on the beach at the back of a shack) and I think it was closed since no one came to take our order and there wasn't a menu to be found anywhere. We were sitting at a table with our feet in the sand when along came a toddler out of nowhere! I had no idea if it was a girl or boy and no idea who's child this was. The toddler came up to me and took my sunglasses and played with it while talking baby jibberish (which was probably Thai) and a couple of English words. Now, most people would look for his/her parents but me, with my camera in hand thought "opportunity!" and took a couple of photos of this happy-go-lucky toddler who had the cheekiest of cheeky grins.
I looked at the photos and it was the photo above that I fell completely in love with. I loved that with this camera, I could capture an expression and an emotion all in one. I was hooked.
I spent 4 days on this beautiful tiny island in Thailand 7 years ago and will forever remember this toddler who introduced me to my passion of portrait photography.
