SNAPSHOTS | Joe's Bangkok
Faces of Klongtoey
Intrepid shooter Tim Russell documents an endangered Bangkok community
I
interviewed Tim Russell nearly two years ago while researching a story on Port FC, one of Thailand’s longest-established premiere football clubs, and one which draws much of its fan base from the densely-populated working-class Khlongtoey district. Russell runs The Sandpit, an extremely informative Englishlanguage website devoted to Port football culture and devoured by expat football fans. Originally from Coventry in the UK, Russell moved to Bangkok in 2012 after a decadelong stint in Vietnam where he developed a keen interest in street and travel photography. These intersecting pursuits, Port football and photography, eventually led him and his camera into the heart of the Khlongtoey community. Here, roughly 100,000 people live in simple houses and shanties built on former swamplands bordering the busy river port. Many work on the adjacent docks or in nearby 30 | MAR /APR 2020
Khlongtoey Market, Thailand’s largest fresh market. Over the last four years, Russell has accrued an astounding collection of black-and-white images he shot in Khlongtoey. Many photographers, Thai as well as international, have covered the colourful neighbourhood before, but Russell’s scenes and portraits bring out a character and soul that other shooters have, at least in my opinion, rarely achieved. Recently, the photographer— he insists on being called an amateur though the quality of his work says otherwise—launched ‘Faces of Khlongtoey’, a website devoted to his self-curated photo selection. Divided into Street Life, Market Life, Portraits, and Kids of Khlongtoey, the website so impressed me that I asked Russell if he could take me through his favourite Khlongtoey haunts. We arrange to meet one late afternoon in front of a rustic car wash under the elevated
freeway running parallel to the neighbourhood. Vibrantly coloured clapboard-and-chickenwire structures partially fill the space beneath the freeway, offering a bold contrast with the skyscrapers and shopping malls of Silom financial district nearby. “I don’t really like to use the word ‘slum’ about this area,” says Russell as we head down a narrow alley entrance. “It’s what people call it, and it’s probably about as close as Bangkok gets to such a thing, but it’s not like in Mumbai or Delhi. “Yes, it’s a low-income area, there’s poverty, there’s alcohol and drug abuse and even a little bit of squalor in places, but you always see people out cleaning the area in front of their homes. There’s a sense of community pride. I’ve never seen or experienced anything approaching violent crime.” Russell says his camera explorations of the Khlongtoey bangkok101.com
