When asked which photograph among his deep portfolio is his favourite, former chief photographer for the Associated Press of Southeast Asia David Longstreath recalled a picture he took of a boy standing in front of the chapel that held Mother Teresa's funeral in Calcutta, India.
"There were thousands of people there, showing their respect for Mother Teresa, and this boy was just standing outside in the rain holding some flowers, waiting to pay his respects. It was a great moment. If I had to be identified with any one of my photos, it would be this one," he said.
Longstreath will be exhibiting his photographs for the first time anywhere at the "A View From The Edge" exhibition, which opens tomorrow at 6.30pm at the Cho Why event venue near Chinatown and runs until this Sunday. The exhibition will focus on his work documenting the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, the death of Pol Pot, and Mother Teresa's funeral, as well as some new photographs from his travels around Thailand and neighbouring countries. Entrance is free.
"I'm not the kind of person to draw attention to myself," said Longstreath, who told Life that this exhibition was brought about only at the insistence of his friends and colleagues, many of whom have been trying to get Longstreath to display his work for years.
A National Guardsmen during the Rodney King riots, 1992.
"I wanted to start small, so I chose Cho Why as the venue for the showcase. It's sort of like a trial to see if I'll enjoy doing more of this in the future," he said.
After over four decades in the thick of things, Longstreath is retired and has been living in Thailand since 1997, after he accepted the position of chief photographer for AP's SEA office. Most of his time is spent travelling Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries, photographing local lifestyles for his travel blog Layers Of Thailand.
"All throughout my 15 years at AP in America, I always wanted to come work in Bangkok," he said.
"I've had friends and colleagues who work here and they all said the same thing: Southeast Asia is the most visual place on the planet. I've seen their pictures, and I knew what they were saying was true.
"When you're a photographer and you find a place where you can get really great photos, you tend to want to stay."
One of the most notable assignments Longstreath received upon his arrival was to photograph the corpse of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot in 1998 for a pool of photos collected by the Thai army for all members of the press. His photo became the most widely used among the world's newspapers when the report of the Cambodian dictator's death was published the next day.
"We had to stop in an abandoned gas station in Surin to send the photos by satellite dial-up internet," recalled Longstreath.
"Back then, sending even 1MB of data took hours, so you'd better be sure the ones you sent were the best ones you took."
Longstreath said that the slow internet speeds of the old days meant that photographers had to focus a lot more on quality than today, when technology has allowed anyone with a smartphone to snap dozens of photos in the hopes of finding one decent one.
"Ninety percent of the photos you see on Instagram today are crap," he said.
"Almost every photo you come across today is a scene. A good photo should capture a moment, not just be a visual documentation of a scene. A moment makes you stop and look at it."
Longstreath elaborated on this concept by recalling an experience he had photographing the devastation of the 2004 tsunami in Phuket, when he came across a man praying on the beach by the ocean for his lost sister.
"He knows his sister is dead, that he'll never see her again, but what can he do but light some incense and pray, you know? That's a moment. It's a human emotion that I can relate to. Between this and a picture of wrecked buildings, which would you rather take?
"Good photographers will simply know when they come across a moment, or they may even be able to identify potential moments and prepare in advance. It takes a certain intuition that can only be found through experience, or you simply have no soul and don't see any moments at all."
Longstreath says that young photographers today should spend time at art galleries, studying the concepts of light, shape, form and texture. But they should also take time to just sit at a café and observe the people around them.
"When you arrive at a new place, you can either just walk around absently or you can try and observe the movements, patterns and behaviours of the people around you. Once you understand human behaviour, then you'll be able to create photographs that really capture an emotion or moment."
David Longstreath's "A View From The Edge" is on view at Cho Why, from tomorrow at 6.30pm until this Sunday.
