PHOTO-A-DAY CHALLENGE

Rain, Scared Dogs, and Temples in Thailand

Week 78 of the photographic documentary of my daily life

This is the week where Medium’s latest changes upset a lot of photographers and some of them even decided to stop a long-term photography challenge, because well if the pictures aren’t displayed in their worthy size, there’s no point in sharing them at all.

I find it sad. Sad that Medium took this feature from us. The feature of being able to choose the image size and place. But I also find it sad that some writers decided to stop sharing their photos. While I totally understand their decision, I will miss their photo essays.

I was also upset. At first, I thought it was a glitch. If I’d just wait a bit I can enlarge the images again. I thought. But then it all came differently. I send my thoughts and feelings to the Medium community. They acknowledged my E-mail. Not more or less.

Well, and now I just continue writing. I could choose to leave Medium, but for that, I enjoy the community of writers and photographers way too much over here.

Plus, I must admit, over the past two years I’ve been out here, I haven’t read a single article on the desktop. I read all the Medium articles on my tablet. I’ve watched all your stunning photographs on my 8-inch tablet. In the app version. There is no real difference for me now.

And no, I did not ignore the quality of your photography. Sometimes I turned my tablet to see an image larger. But even without that, I insist, I could see the real beauty of every single photograph. And the tablet doesn’t display the pictures larger — if old or new image settings, it stayed the same.

And while we continue to complain we knew from the beginning, the only consistency on Medium is change. You never know what will change, but to stay alive and afloat in times of a fast-changing internet-based society you have to keep changing as well.

I am as upset as you are right now, but I chose to focus on the positive things in life. And here are my joys of this week.

My husband was training a student today at work. All of the crew had left already but we were still there repeating movements and trying to get the important words into the student’s brain.

This was when it started to rain. And when it rains in Thailand, all hell breaks loose. The roof we were standing underneath makes the sound of the rain 100 times louder. We could barely communicate anymore.

And all of a sudden Brownie, one of the dropzone dogs, appeared out of nowhere. As we were training the exit out of the plane, she would just sit there, right beneath our feet. When I got up and moved around, she followed me.

I thought these dogs were used to the sound of the rain by now, but it seems the rain still scares them. Or at least this dog.

Today we were invited over for dinner by friends of ours. While we are all somehow connected to the skydiving industry, we’re a bunch of international adrenaline junkies.

Represented on the table was Slovenia, Germany, Namibia, Thailand, China, and South Corea. And guess what, when our Thai friends introduced us to the “Korean Barbeque” how they called this dish in Thai, our Korean friend protested against it “this is not how we make barbeque in Korea”.

However, there’s a different name in Thai for this as well. It’s translated to “Pork-in-a-pan”. You fry the meat in the middle on an elevated part of the pan and around it is a soup where you cook veggies in it.

I realized I only share pictures from the air when talking about my work. But when we’re photographing a skydive, we also take the second part of it into consideration. The landing.

Having a smaller parachute, the photographer (in this case me) lands before the tandem pair (my husband plus passenger) and can film the “touch-down” from a perfect angle.

I didn't sleep well last night and woke up with a bad headache. There isn’t much that keeps me from going to work but today was one of those days. I stayed in bed all day long and only got to see the big clouds from my window.

After taking a Covid rapid test in the morning, just to confirm I could go back to work, I hit the road and was off again. My husband stayed at home because we didn’t have many clients.

On my way home I took this picture as well as the lead image. I just wanted to share with you what my road to work looks like and the surroundings of course.

Tuesday is our off day and while I still wasn’t feeling great, I wanted to drive to a nearby lake, inspect nature, and whatever else we got to see.

We drove past a religious site and decided to stop and check out this Buddhist temple. The insides of it were closed and it appeared they were renovating the property but we still got to admire the love to details they put into it.

This was a dragon-like statue protecting the entrance of the property.

We went to a nearby shopping mall today and when we got out I looked up and saw these bright yellow flowers. A sign the dry season is coming to an end.

I took a second picture to capture the scooters and Tuktuks waiting in front of the mall as well. This is probably what describes Thailand the best in one picture. Scooters and Tuktuks.

This has been my week in photographs. 7 days. 7 photographs. Anyone can join. Once. Or weekly. It doesn’t matter. We welcome everyone! Dennett was the one starting this photography challenge in summer 2020 and many have participated ever since.

Erika / Eileen / K. Barrett / Juan / David / Mia / Susan / LensAfield / Kim / Barbara / Diana / Barb / Sandra / Shruthi / Ellie / Pene / Olive / Gustavo / Jane / Penny

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