Huahin

Hua Hin is the oldest and most traditional of Thai resorts combining a modern holiday destination with the charm and fascination of a still active fishing port. Its name (Hua Hin - head stone) is derived from the rock formations that is on the beach in front of the Sofitel Central Hotel hotel (formerly the Railway hotel, which dounled as the French Embassy of Phnom Penh in the move the Killing Fields). The beach beach stretches about 4 kilometers from the town center to Khao Takiab in the south, and a few kilometres northwards to Chaam. It is a beach is well known for its spectacular sunrises.





Hua Hin beach is never overcrowded, it is wide and long with white sand and scattered rocks in some areas. Mostly it is a tranquil beach but activities such as horse riding, kite boarding, and water sports can be found, mainly in the parts of the beach in town, where, if you want to relax there are plenty of deck chairs, sun loungers and beach umbrellas available for a small charge.





Offshore you will see plenty of boats, including naval vessels which are there to protect the Thai monarch and his family when they visit their "home away from home" at Klai Kangwon Palace, built in 1926.

20 minutes . . .

. . . that's all it took to change the sea from dark blue, and through an ever lightening sky to a pale blue rippling water to an almost flame red.


I was pleased that a visiting old friend (and occasional Flickr buddy, Maxsimus) was able to join me on an early morning shoot today to the back and beyond of Thailand, as we used to do on many prior pre dawn excursions, always for the same reason, to shoot sunrise.

However, today we got it way wrong. We arrived too early for sunrise and once our eyes had adjusted to the light (or lack of) we had to wait through an amazing 30 minute light show of colour. I'm sure Richard's camera later showed exactly what I had captured as well - even 10 minutes after sunrise we couldn't see the ruddy (a well chosen word) thing (sun) as the fog and mist were at low level, and the sun's light was being reflected off much higher clouds, colouring the sea, but obscuring the sun itself at horizon level (but now we could at least see the horizon).

No probs, we snapped happily away, despite the frequent interruptions of early morning elderly Thai exercisers who came across to us, venting their curiosity as to what the two farangs* were doing staring into the mist and distance from 5:30am. (* white foreigner)



Having exhausted ourselves at this, our first spot of the day at Don Hoi Lot, we moved onto one of Thailand's most famous floating markets - but that's another story. And "ruddy"? Yup, had we waited just another five minutes, we would have captured the big blazing red ball of a sun as it bit through the upper layers of our fog. Blast.

HDR chic (cheek), and all that jazz

Was surprised and pleased to find a comment from a good Flickr buddy on this blog, so early into its infancy. Vedd Edd is a not so rare animal these days, he's an HDR aficionado, but more than that, he's avid, an HDR connoiseur, teacher and expert, and d*mn good with his imagery. His work has consistently been of an amazingly high quality, it is highly popular and he's now in demand for his photographic workshops.

In light of his "finding" me here (and I know how that happened), I thought I'd post a couple of my own early HDR's. Above is nothing more than an early morning sojourn into the shrimp farms at the mouth of the Chao Phaya river, Bangkok's "River of Kings".

The below two images are from a sunrise taken at Wat Phai Wong Rua, a temple on the way to Suphanburi, and which houses a 26 metre high seated white Buddha image "Phra Putthakhodom". They were shot just as the sun come up, shining across a field with hundreds of small Buddhas.

Please do head on over to Vedd's blog.