The Secrets of Island Photography - Page 1
Take one English bar owner built for comfort rather than speed, an American photographer with a busted knee-cap courtesy of a Pattaya baht bus, a follicularly-challenged Australian journalist and nine young and attractive Thai ladies, ranging in age from 18 to 28, and you might think you have the beginnings of one of those erotic fantasy letters that are a feature in such stroke magazines as Penthouse and Mayfair. Instead, this was the multi-cultural melting wok tasked with travelling from Pattaya to Koh Samet and back again in a little over 24 hours in the hope of obtaining a set of photographs to showcase the superb talent available at the Secrets Bar and Nightclub, situated in Soi 14, off Walking Street.
Anyone who has much to do with the sub-genus known as the Thai working girl would probably be thinking the end result would finish as the bare bones idea for a Hollywood blockbuster entitled Mission Impossible III: Herding Fish. As it happened, nothing could be further from the truth. I don't know whether the moon was in the seventh house, Mercury was aligned with Mars, and Uranus was out to lunch, but our nine female travelling companions proved to be amenable, accommodating, garrulous, vibrant, fun and, above all, professional throughout the trip, even when they had been deprived of food and sleep for more than a couple of hours. As the photos were to show, there was an unconscious symbiosis between the nine resulting in a shoot worthy of a Sports Illustrated annual.
