Workers and labourers. They have both fascinated and perturbed photographers since the dawn of the industrial era. From Lewis Hine's haunting shots of child labour conditions in early 20th Century America to Sebastiao Salgado's stunning reporting on the world's manual labourers at the turn of the 21st century, images of their hardships and plight are what create social change, along with keeping the rest of the world humble and thankful for what they have.
Though this subject has been tackled for almost a century, different photographers have managed to take on different angles to show working conditions as best they can. One novice photographer, Thamarong Wanarithikul, has been making the rounds in the Thai photography scene for his unique take on the subject. Titled "8 a.m.", his series of works is currently on exhibit at Silom's Kathmandu Photo Gallery through Feb 23.
Taking on "the God perspective", Thamarong's lens looks down towards the street where tired workers sit or lay on the back of pickup trucks as the golden morning light shines on them. The stunning lighting and rare bird's-eye-view angle at first glance makes the scene surreal and look cinematic. And with the same characters and props repeating over and over again, audiences quickly realise that Thamarong incredibly captures the same few trucks, carrying the same few people every single day.
"It all started because I walk to work every day," said Thamarong. "When I go to work I have to walk over a pedestrian bridge. I've done this for 10 years. One day I looked down [to the street] and saw a pickup truck stuck in traffic. I saw people sitting and sleeping on the trunk and I thought this would be a nice photograph."
Thamarong failed to whip out his phone to snap a picture in time, but the image was stuck in his head. Ever since, he's brought his camera to the pedestrian bridge.
"That was the starting point of 8am I started in May 2007," he said.
From Mondays to Fridays, Thamarong would stand on the same spot of the pedestrian bridge from 8am to 8.45 and then run to work. Drawn by the image and the composition of the photographs at first, the profound meaning of the works came by later in itself. From the pollution to the lack of safety to exhaustion, Thamarong's images simply show life as it is, which speak a thousand words about the working class in Thailand.
The challenges, of course, are aplenty. As Thamarong isn't able to control the environment, all he can do is wait.
"The first challenge is I don't even know if the truck will be coming or not," he said. "The second challenge is if it does come, it might come at a high speed. So if there's no traffic, I won't be able to take a photo as well. The third challenge is the weather. If it's raining, people won't be sitting on the trunk -- they'll be squished with the driver [inside]."
Through patience and perseverance some of the sets took 30 days to shoot.
"There are actually 15 series, but seven are on display," he said. "I chose seven because the rest are still ongoing. This first set [is complete because] I wasn't able to get any more photos of them. No matter how long I waited, I couldn't get another photo. So these were exhibited first."
"Once these pictures were published people kept asking me if I had so much time in my hands," he continued. "I'm like any other office worker. I have my responsibilities from 9am to 6pm. Everyone has the same amount of time but it all depends on how we manage it and use it. Instead of waking up and working, I wake up a little earlier to do something that I love."
"8 a.m." runs at Kathmandu Photo Gallery on Pan Road, Silom, until Feb 23.
