Jo 19 Female Sex Worker, Thailand 2007

Is this series a "safe Sex" project or an attempt to reduce the sex trade in Thailand? The pictures are rather flat, violate any suggestions of "good"portraits, etc.

Dr. Dave

I am not a big fan of directional lighting and prefer flatish lighting (influenced by Avedon's use of flat natural, open shade lighting for his book "in the American West.) I chose this type of lighting because I like seeing everything and wanted to reduce shadows to see more. With the 8x10 negative you can make very large prints and show tons of detail, something I wanted.

As to the reducing the sex trade, it is a mega dollar industry, I doubt that some photos will do that. I guess ideally these photos might raise awareness to a problem that exists in many countries around the world (not just a Thai issue).

My main goal was a bit simpler thou, I wanted with these portraits to remember the people that are often used up and forgotten by the system. In the bar I photographed this lady Jo from I also photographed 7 other woman workers in 2007, when I went back in 2008 to continue making photos with the same people only 1 worker was left, all the rest were in jail (1), married off (1), left because of age (1) or had disappeared for unknown reasons (the rest).

I make the photos because I think it is important to remember these lives.

Thanks for your comments Gerry

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