I was sound asleep in the van as our photography workshop group headed back from an early morning shoot at Kompong Phluk (a floating village on the Tonle Sap). I was just plain knackered but super excited about the images I had shot through out the morning...but that is a story for another time....suffice it to say it had been a late night the evening before...and I had crawled out of bed bright and early that morning to go shooting. So when we got back to the vehicle, and the opportunity to rest presented itself, I snuggled down and got some shut eye.
So I'm napping away...semi-oblivious to the world around me...when I hear one of my fellow workshop mates get excited about something they spotted on the road. I debated opening my eyes...sigh...I really really really wanted to sleep...but the competitive photographer in me huffed in impatience, kicked me in the behind and yelled at me to wake up so I would not miss out on a photography opportunity...after all I didn't know when I would be back in Cambodia again.
Lucky for me I had fallen asleep with one of my cameras on my lap, in this case it was Zee, my Fuji XE1. I looked at what the interesting thing was....and lo and behold there it was...one of the many images I had hunted on my trip to Cambodia. An image that told the story of how Cambodians Travel! I had about 10 seconds to get my shot, and I am so happy with the result. Thank heavens for other photographers who pay attention...thank heavens for my internal photographer who values an image above sleep.
For those of you who find images like the one above fascinating, I'm going to point you towards a fantastic photography book I got called "Carrying Cambodia". A collaborative work between 2 photographers, it is a photographic record of creative transport in Cambodia. I was lucky enough to meet and travel around with one of the photographers in the book Conor Wall, and I have to say he is an amazing teacher and photographer with an amazing sense of humor...but I digress....