The Venice of the East…
Rob Irving continues with his adventure of making sure WPA’s Thailand Workshop Tour goes to plan by sharing some of his insights and images along the way…..
Khato and I spent a very pleasant afternoon exploring the canal (khlong) networks of Bangkok in our private Long Tail, there are many ways worth exploring Bangkok, but none of which are as relaxing and gentle as by boat… watching life go by from the serenity of the waterways, an activity that really shouldn’t be missed when visiting this great city…
The Photographic opportunities are many and varied, but one of the aspects that really grabbed me on this particular trip was our Long Tail’s ‘Captain’ at the helm… his dexterity in controlling the boat, the dance he had to perform to manoeuvre such a craft, his concentration and complete skill.. What a perfect subject for Portraiture…
I shot this portraiture with Canon’s 40mm f2.8 Pancake lens… physically, an absolutely tiny lens – only about 10mm long, so drastically reducing the overall weight of the camera+lens combo making for an extremely usable travel optic. Its angle of view (when matched to my Canon 5D’s full-frame chip) is just a little wider than one’s actual field of vision; the beauty of this is that the perspective remains natural, adding to the realism of the image. It’s sharp even when wide-open at f2.8… If I were to criticise it, it would be regarding its auto-focus which is a tad slow, but not an issue really… If I were to take only one lens with me on my travels it would be this, and at less than £140, considering it’s quality, a veritable bargain!
So if you only had one lens, which would it be???? Do you have a favourite ??
