24 hours in Bangkok with a Mamiya 6
I’ve always loved photographing foreign cities. I can happily lose myself for days wandering the streets with a camera in my hand. For me it’s a wonderful way to engage with a place. So when in December 2018 I had a 3 day commercial shoot in Bangkok I arranged to arrived a day early and gave myself an afternoon and evening to look around. I’d packed my Mamiya 6 and 75mm lens as it’s a super compact option and perfect for this kind of thing. 5 rolls of Portra 400 in my pack and I was ready to take a look around.
Not knowing the city, I’d booked onto a photography tour advertised on AirBnB. When I showed up at the meeting point (it happened to leave from the lobby of the W Hotel where I was staying) it turned out the two other guests were Americans on holiday rocking an Xpan and a Canon AE-1, so we were in for a more interesting afternoon than I had expected. “Ice” our host was a local photographer and once he saw we were not just looking to take selfies in front of temples he took us on a tour of the backstreets of Bangkok.
Over the next few we passed laundry and workshops, street stalls and hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Having a local to guide us meant we didn’t have to worry about getting lost and came across a whole bunch of interesting places. With Ice acting as our translator we had some lovely moments with the people we met, learning a bit about what they were up to and how the local area had changed over the years.
The Maimiya 6 is perfect for this kind of situation. It handles just like a giant Leica M7. For most situations I set it to aperture priority auto exposure, set the exposure compensation to +1 to ensure I get good shadow detail, then just focus and click away. The viewfinder is large and bright and the rangefinder patch clear with a sharp edge, making focusing very quick and the shutter is almost silent. If there is any drawback it’s that the camera almost makes it too easy to blast through a roll of 120 - if you’re not careful you can shoot it like it’s a 35mm camera.
Anyway, let’s get to the photos. Here are a few of my favourites from the day. Click on one to scroll though the gallery:
