KAMPOL

Here my latest work for Wallpaper cover, Thai edition, Febuary 2010 issue. The theme of this month is all about how to ‘Eco-friendly living’ and I just realized that this cover actually look a bit like the painting ‘American Gothic’

Painted by Grant Wood in 1930 and has been considered one of the important work of 20th century american art. What’s a coincident! Both in the composition, pose and the message… This might come from our old day from university with Art history class that put this painting in our brain until it influencing a big part in our work without realizing it.

The shooting went on with the saving environmental too. This result in using main SUN as our main light and that left me burn for a few day after spent 7 hours on the roof of the studio.

The clothes come from Spring summer collection 2010 from all big brand like Dior, Prada, Louis Vuitton and many from new local Thai designer that design a collection using eco-friendly fabric.

The magazine is out now for all Thai Wallpaper fan and I hope everyone love it :-))

This is the first time for me in Istanbul and It’s not gonna be the last time!

Istanbul citys located in the north-west Marmara Region of Turkey. That placed the city between two continents, Asian and Eroupe. I was travelling there in summer and the weather is real nice.

I had a chance to stay in the very nice hotel, The Ciragan Palace Kempinski Istanbul, that used to be a palace and one of the old building nowadays used as a palace suite for anyone with money to stay.. I think it more than about 20,000$ per night!!?!!? I am only staying in the standard one if you are wondering about it…

The day trip in here combined work and sight seeing at the same time. I went to the Grand Bazaar and lot of place in town for a nice location for shooting this including Ottoman Neo-Baroque, Ortaköy Mosque, Sultan Ahmed Mosque, Basilica Cistern and many more…

One of the most interesting is the old harem, Topkapi Palace, that inside is so beautiful made me felt chilling just to walk around inside.

The other interesting things is that I can tell people here has so many love for CATS as I could see cats running around everywhere in the city but rarely see dog around… maybe they tend to keep dog inside, I don’t know… even one cat I saw was sitting in front of fishmonger shop waiting for some fish, how cute it is!

It’s a trip not in the city of light, New York, but a jazz and high way to heaven route 66… This is New Orleans and Albuquerque, New Mexico. I got this chance to travel round in US for ‘Honeymoon & Travel’ to the place not many Asian tourists would list in their holiday. The trip start with 27 hours of fight from Bangkok to Tokyo and Tokyo to Chicago before heading to New Orleans and then Albuquerque.

The first morning in New Orleans was about start working. We having the popular dough at ‘Cafe Du Monde’ for breakfast with a photo shoot inside the shop.

The dough itself, for me, nothing different from a Thai desert made from flour fried in oil and selling on the street called ‘Pa-Tong-Ko’. What different here is they serve it with lot of icing sugar and every bite I took I feel very bad the same as when I having Krispy Kreme doughnut! I just feel like I’m getting fat another stone!!!!

Inside the cafe is decorated with lot of feature feel so French colonial. As here used to be pretty much about French and also a lot of VOODOO thing too!

One of the most interesting night here was when we went to have a dinner in one of the restaurant here in New Orleans. It was a Jazz bar and the owner threat us with honour and when we having dinner we were very enjoying good wine and nice JAZZY!!!

We also enjoying a nice day trip along the Mississippi river. It was a very nice sunny day and we had lot of fun there…

After a few day in New Orleans we heading to Albuquerque, New Mexico. It’s a trip we visiting the route66, ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California before ending at Los Angeles, encompassing a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km)

We had visiting and have some breakfast at one of the most beautiful hotel I have ever been, Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa. The hotel sit on the stunning view with lot of activities for their customer including horse riding and balloon trip.

And then we went to have lunch at the ROUTE66 restaurant. It was about hamburger and fast food, with no offense, I can’t believe how people eating these kindda food.. It’s just so not healthy and FAT FAT FAT!!!!!!!

And this will be another trip I would remember very well how nice it is. Here the link of the Albuquerque isuue of Honeymoon & Travel. I will put the New Orleans issue up the page soon if I’m not too lazy to scan it ;-))

I’m not in Tokyo at this time but am in Sendai and Kobe. Here Cherry blossom are everywhere for about a week to enjoy in April. This was a chance to experience some authentic Japanese apart from manga and Harajuku girls.

We stay in very nice and traditional hotel and yes it has a hot spring here. So basically life here apart from working with fashion shooting for Honeymoon & Travel, it is about sight seeing around town, relaxing in hot spring and yes having a big Japanese feat most of the meal!

The food we have here are much more a surprise. Every evening at the hotel they always serve some kind of feat to us (am already forgot what it called in Japanese). It had all kind of Japanese food you could imagine including ‘uni’ or Sea Urchin  (I must say I don’t really like it, but well I’m not a raw food lover anyway). So every dinner, food will start serve one after another (sure lot of Sake too) for over two and a half hours. It absolutely made me felt like a KING!!!!!

I also had a chance to try fresh young Sake that not look like Sake but MILK in Sendai.. It has very sweet taste with a strong alcohol. I must confess I’m not enjoy that much would prefer a normal Sake to drink than sweet alcohol!

And when am in Kobe, What else could it be but try the best beef in Japan and I want to assure you all.. IT THE BEST BEEF I’VE EVER TRY! and everyone should try when you are there.

At the very last day we stop by doing some shopping and I brought some interesting stuffs from Issey Miyake and Comme Des Garçon (there are pretty much cheap in here compare to Bangkok and London, I mean quite reasonably price here) before pack our bags and head to the airport. And I hope in very very near future I be back there in Japan real soon.

It has been a long time since I’m visited Moscow and recently just look through the old photo files on the disk and what i found is a memories.

It was a trip for work actually not even much a holiday but apart from stressful situation to get the fashion shooting done for Wallpaper* magazine, I would say it pretty much a HOLIDAY for me. Moscow is very interesting city, my top favorite things here is Architecture, Sculpture of the important people and also monument around the city too. I know lot of you guys especially American would list this country on last as a holiday destination.

And well if you wanna know they are a dark side of the city too. Apart from beautiful building, It is a traffic that is very bad start from 4pm to midnight. That I think it might be a result of road systems in town that build to be a circle of ring road from the centre and sure too many cars in here as well. The guys that is our Russian guide, (we need a guide to survive here as no one speak english! I mean very few) called their own town as ‘Lord of The Ring’ town dub from the road system…

I was in Moscow probably the best time of the year! Well, how could you imagine how hard it is to live in temperature -30ºC until you try once and this i called it the best time of the year to experience it. It was in late December and early January. All the lake and all canal already turn to be an ice.

The hard part to live here i think it is the night! It was so cold that i could not even walk round with bare face and nothing on my head. I’m sorry PETA but I think this is the place that seem resonably to wear ‘Animal Fur’ to keep you warm. I mean yes you could wear some man-made fabric but that I’m sure would require so many layering and might cost you more than having a one off fur coat that would be with you for a lifetime. Anyway, PETA I only have rabbit fur hat! Apart from that scarf and coat are just wool, and a nylon bomber jacket inside with 4 more cotton layering, ok!?…

The sun in here at this time of year would come out around 5hrs that it! I think it about 9am. to 2pm. then it start to get dark as a night. This is the reason why lot of picture I took look very much like sunset picture, eventhough it support to be sunrise at about 9am. or 10am.

One of the most beautiful thing in here is the tube station or they called it METRO. It is decorated with a real palace touch for common people. Every stations has a different theme of story but they are all contained hi-standard luxury apart from the train itself, well, a bit more communist minimalism theme in green army style train.

We decided to go for a fast food for a meal. Even though, McDonald is just round the corner but we decided to have ‘Kumpir’ or Jack Potato that is quite popular fast food in Russia. These Jack Potato shop in Russia is like a McDonald that happen to be in every street near you and easy to get and for me look more healthy than BigMac for sure.

Here a link to some our fashion picture for Wallpaper* Thai edition, Russian issue. It was a real hard work againt the cold weather. I remember that our 120 film camera stop working because of the very low temperature and poraloid seem useless as it not develope any picture on it and adding to all those troubles our models start to had problem with the cold as well. Luckily that our 645 Digital camera managed to safe our trip!