GFX100S: “Abandoned Places” x Anuphan Sukhapinda

More than Full Frame Project: “Abandoned places”

Every time when we start to travel the most exciting moment as a traveler and photographer is to research and explore for the new destination to go. I think the moment to release the shutter on a place we have never seen before is really so special for me whether it was the snowy mountain, the desert full of the star at night, the colorful city which is unlike anywhere else in the world, the long and beautiful waterfall in the middle of the jungle.

 But at this moment, to travel across the globe to go to such a destination above it seems to be really difficult to explore those new stunning photo spots on the other side of the world. On the other hand, this situation makes me more focused on something near. I started looking for beautiful destinations in my country then I realized that there are many amazing places around but it has been overlooked for a long time.

So we are trying to explore the destination nearby, especially the destination that has been overlooked. Some places that we used to drive past or walk pass but never realize that it was there. All the destinations in this project are located in Thailand which we can easily access by car and definitely safe from the COVID19.                 

Many places in this project we have to work under a difficult situation because we didn’t have enough time to photograph it under the tight schedule and also the weather conditions are not really supportive. We always have the backup plan for the shooting. One plan is decided for the shooting under good conditions like sunshine, clear sky but another plan is decided for the shooting under bad conditions like raining, no sunlight at all. I might say that in this project I have to work against the limitation of time and the unpredictable weather conditions.

Because of the difficulty of working, I have the Fujifilm GFX100S as a main camera to work on the project. Its performance gives me more opportunity to capture the moment even though I have to capture it under difficult situations. GFX100S offers me a high resolution at 100MP together with the high quality photo which has a lot of flexibility to make a post processing. The IBIS in the camera also helps a lot to get a razor sharp image with the hand held photography because it is not possible to use a tripod in some places. Furthermore, the focus stacking function also helps a lot in some photos that I want to control the depth of field to cover from foreground to background. All those amazing features and the medium format quality are packed in the compact and lightweight body which allow me to travel light and it makes my life a lot easier to travel with this smallest medium format system that I have ever used. 

Let’s see the destination that I have visited with the concept and technique that I use. I hope this project will encourage you to explore something around you more and more under the limitation of traveling in this year.

The abandoned beach

Pattaya is a very famous place among the tourists and local Thai people. On the north side of Pattaya there is the beach with the pile of stone that is called “The Godzilla rock” because its shape looks like the back of the Godzilla, the famous monster. This spot is really good to shoot the waves hitting the rock with Pattaya city as a background. The technique to shoot this photo is using a slow shutter speed to capture then you will get a beautiful motion of the wave.

The lonely tree

There are many beautiful beaches in Phuket but the beach with the big tree growing in the middle of the sea is just a few. This beach is located in the direction that the Sun sets so we can shoot the silhouette photo of a tree with the colorful sunset background. The secret is we have to research the tide time information and shoot this scene on the day that the high tide is in the evening in order to get the photo that the tree is in the water with the sunset background.

Colorful field

This is the colorful field full of the flower in Kanchanaburi which is the province on the west side of Bangkok. Normally this field has nothing special but only in February the flower will blooming and make this field full of color. The technique of this photo is to shoot with the polarizing filter to make the sky more saturated and the good timing is in the morning because the sunlight is not too strong.

The gate of time.

The ancient site is one of the favorite spots for the photographer because of its classic mood and tone and the detail of the historical object. Ayutthaya, the old capital of Thailand has many of those ancient shooting spots and it’s very near to Bangkok. We found this gate covered by the tree in one of the historic place in Ayutthaya and we plan to shoot it in the evening to shoot the model against the sunlight, unlucky we are not in the right timing so the Sun is not in line with the gate then we put the Sun behind the tree to softer the light and shoot this photo.

Green bamboo tunnel

I used to travel to shoot the bamboo tunnel in Japan. It is a really stunning photo and I wish I could take that kind of photo in Thailand. Then I tried to explore the bamboo tunnel in Thailand and finally found it in Nakornnayok which is one hour driving from Bangkok. The difficulty of this photo is the lighting is very low so I have to push more ISO to get high enough shutter speed to make it sharp.

The lonely rock above the sea

Samui island is one of the favorite tourist spots and most of the famous photo spots are located by the beach. Then I want to find a shooting spot in Samui which is not the beach or seaside. I heard from the local people that there is a big sailboat shaped rock on the top of the mountain. We have to use the 4WD truck to travel up the mountain and walk for a while to the spot. And we plan to shoot this in the middle of the day to get a crystal clear sea and the bright blue sky with the PL filter attached. I think this photo is very easy to shoot but the way to travel to the location is toughest in this project.

Seaside jungle

When we talk about the jungle we might think about the mountain rather than the sea, isn’t it? But this location, which is the alpine jungle, is just a few meters away from the sea. During the research for this project I got the information from my network from the south that there is a beautiful seaside alpine jungle along the beach in Phang-nga which had never been unveiled before so we went there to shoot it. And during the time we shot there was raining and it made a foggy effect in the background of the photo.

Movement

There is a big and beautiful waterfall which is very easy to access by car in Yala province, the most southern part of Thailand near the border to Malaysia. I plan to shoot a waterfall to represent the movement’s emotion and this waterfall is the right one for me because it is beautiful and has never been unveiled before. There are no other photographers at the spot but me and the team on the shooting day, just a small group of children are swimming in the waterfall because it is quite a big pond under the waterfall and the current is not so strong. There are so many locations to shoot and the lighting is not so strong then it’s not difficult to use a slow shutter speed to create the moving effect of the waterfall.

The field of the sugar palm

This location is one of the famous photo spots to shoot the field of the sugar palm with the reflection of the palm on the water. But I have never seen a photo of this beautiful field of palm with the model before. So I went to the location and I found that there is no spot to shoot the model with the reflection on the water if the photographer walks on the walking path. The only way to get the reflection of the model is the photographer has to get down from the walking path and walk through the muddy field to make a shot so the position of shooting from the muddy field is the key to get the reflection of the model for this photo

Lotus shadow

This location is the temple near Bangkok which is one of the popular photo spots among photographers. I try to shoot the photo with a new perspective at the temple and the concept is to put the pagoda, the lotus and the model all together in one frame so this photo needs to be sharp from the foreground to background in order to represent those 3 elements that I plan. The focus stacking function is the solution for this photo. I can control the depth of field to cover from the lotus flower in the foreground up to the pagoda in the background automatically to achieve the final image in my head.

Two worlds

The temple of the dawn is one of the iconic photo destinations for the photographer around the world. Our mission for this project is to find a new perspective to shoot the pagoda of the temple. I spent a couple days looking for the location to shoot the pagoda and I finally found the spot at the restaurant near the temple. I shoot the pagoda under the sunset sky with the reflection from the shiny stone table of the restaurant then I get a nice photo with a very clear reflection of the pagoda with a beautiful sky all together in one frame.

Shining sky

Bang pra basin in Chonburi province is one of the famous recreation spots nearby Bangkok. It took about one hour driving from Bangkok to the basin then I take the advantage of a short time travel to the location to estimate the possibility of the matter of beautiful sunset from my place in Bangkok and if it looks likely to be a moment of beautiful sunset I will start my car and heading to the location to shoot the model with the background of basin under the beautiful sunset sky. The difficult thing about shooting the model with the sunset is the strong contrast between the model and the sky. Thanks to the flexibility of the GFX100S file I can keep the beautiful detail from both the model and the sky.