Photographer Dax Ward on Capturing Bangkok's Abandoned Beauty [S5.E53]

Greg interviews Dax Ward, an adventurous photographer best known for his beautiful photos of dilapidated buildings and abandoned places. Dax begins by explaining that he was a very late starter to photography, getting a DSLR for the first time in 2015. After a random trip to the airplane graveyard down Ramkhamhaeng Road, he developed an affinity for shooting forgotten and abandoned places. 

As it turns out, Thailand (and Bangkok in particular) are perfect places for this style of photography due to the number of unfinished construction projects from the financial crisis of the late 1990s. Additionally, there seem to be a surprising number of new business ventures in the area that fail for whatever reason or another, so there seems to be an endless supply of possible sites for Dax’s style of photography. 

The guys discuss how Dax discovers and gains access to his locations. It’s surprising what a couple hundred baht here and there will do to the attitude of many Thai security guards! Dax then details his research methods and how he manages to build a compelling story around each set of photographs, something that many other photographers don’t bother with.

In a world where almost everyone has the technology in their pocket to take a decent photo, Thailand is lucky to have an intrepid, creative photographer like Dax to show us how to do things right.

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