Cambodia

My stay in Cambodia coincided with China’s Golden Week when 700 million people – half the population of China – decided to travel somewhere. It was impossible to take a photograph of any of the temples in Siem Reap without a large group of Chinese tourists (along with their guide waving a flag or an umbrella) in the frame. This was before the release of Photoshop’s „content-aware fill”, which easily removes unwanted subjects from the shot, so l needed another strategy. I also wanted to photograph the local monks, who would come out after the visitors closing time, when I had to leave. So I asked my fixer to take me to the head monk and tell him I’d like to make a donation if one of his disciples would be kind enough to show me around the complex. I ended up with not one but three monks who took me to an amazingly authentic temple, off-limits to outsiders, that I’d never have seen otherwise. It was the best spent $50 of my entire stay in the country.