Duncan Stearn's
Pattaya Books Web Site

Pattaya Snaps by David Kuri & Duncan Stearn
A review by Duncan Stearn

Since I was involved in the production of this book it would be inappropriate of me to shamelessly sing its praises. Equally, I wasn't about to write a positive review under pseudonym in an attempt at fooling discerning readers. Instead, I'll deal with the logistical, factual and, dare I say it, philosophical aspects of the book and leave you to make up your own mind.

Pattaya Snaps, A Celebration of the Women of Pattaya is the first book of its kind to deal photographically with the very reason for Pattaya's existence and continued growth and success: its women. The book contains 450 photos and runs to 96 pages. No less than 344 of these pictures (or 76 percent) were taken at night. Of course this is when the best of Pattaya womanhood is on display.

Walking Street is to the girls of Pattaya what brightly coloured feathers are to a peacock. Along this strip and in the area immediately surrounding it was where David Kuri and I spent a lot of time taking intentionally candid shots.

As any photographer knows, good candid shots are hard to get at the best of times. The difficulty was exacerbated by the element of light: there wasn't any, so we had to rely on the efficacy of flash photography. This is not necessarily the best medium under the circumstances. Equally important, and adding to the difficulty of obtaining good shots, was distance. Thai girls have an internal mechanism capable of instinctively knowing they are about to be the subject of a photograph. We rarely managed to catch girls completely unaware unless they happened to be some distance away. Then we had to allow for movement, both theirs and the other pedestrians. Many was the time we had a great shot come into view only to have it spoiled by somebody walking in front of the subject at the crucial moment.

The one area where we were relatively unencumbered was shooting in Diamond A-Go-Go. The owner of the go-go, Khun Tee, has lived and worked in Pattaya for more than 15 years. He set up Diamond A-Go-Go, in the alleyway leading from Soi Diamond to Pratamnak Road, in 1999. Since then he has worked hard at promoting and improving his business. He knows the value of advertising his product and among his many ideas was a series of dance contests featuring chrome pole huggers from local establishments competing for substantial prizes. These contests and the photos we were given permission to take during them have been included in this book. We also produced a booklet entitled Dance Fever that covers the dance contests in far greater photographic depth and is also unique, not only in Pattaya but in Thailand. Inside Pattaya Snaps there are photos taken inside Diamond A-Go-Go not associated with dance contests.

This is far from being a perfect book. I know why it hasn't been attempted previously: it's a difficult task that requires vast chunks of time and effort and the result is not necessarily as good as you might hope. It would have been easier to do it in black and white. Would have been cheaper as well. Instead, we opted to go down the road of realism rather than artistic licence. In this regard the book is unique and captures the women who live, work and play in Pattaya in a way that has never been tried before. Perhaps in 2050 when historians look back and attempt to describe a Pattaya that may no longer exist, they'll turn to Pattaya Snaps as a research tool and use some of the photos to illustrate their points to a disbelieving audience.