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SEEING INFRARED
SABINA-LEAH FERNANDEZ TURNS THE PAGES OF MARTIN REEVES’ NEW BOOK AND ASKS THE PHOTOGRAPHER TO DESCRIBE HIS FAVOURITE IMAGES
“I SHARE with MARTIN the rare privilege of having visited Angkor back in 1992,” begins Her Royal Highness Princess Norodom Rattana-Devi of Cambodia, in the foreword of Martin Reeves’ new book. The tome, Angkor: Into the Hidden Realm, is a selection of black and white infrared images of the ancient capital and the people who add to its mysticism.
Born in England in 1963, Martin (above) discovered his passion for the craft of photography at the age of seven when he was given a black and white Polaroid camera – perhaps a precursor to the film that would later become his medium of choice. He busied himself taking photos of whatever he could, including his sister and his pet parrot, and upgraded to his first film camera on his 12Thbirthday.
Though he left art college to become a builder, Martin did not forget his love of photography. He was so inspired by rock band U2’s haunting, infrared album cover for The Unforgettable Fire that he started capturing shots of ancient ruins using the same medium.
A trip to Asia in the 1980s led him to historic sites, including the Taj Mahal in India, Thailand’s Sukhothai and Myanmar’s Bagan. But in 1992, when he discovered Jayavarman’s ancient civilisation on his first visit to Cambodia, he felt like he had fallen in love.
I was lying down on the ground to take a break. Everything was shrouded by trees when this hole in the foliage appeared out of nowhere. It was like an aperture amidst the trees, revealing the majestic Angkor Wat.
“I like pictures where people are looking at me; infrared reacts so well with eyes. This little elf-like girl was wandering around the grounds with this stalk, using it as a fly swat. Just looking through the viewfinder, I knew it would be a nice shot. I gave her a dollar afterwards, and she went skipping back to her family happily.”
“It was as if infrared film had been designed to capture Angkor Wat. It was the perfect match of medium and subject. Infrared film makes everything appear dateless and mystical – and when you take a site as haunting as Angkor Wat, the effect is doubled. The pictures come out looking off the scale,” says Martin.
“Colour photography immediately places an image in the 20Th century or after,” he continues. “It’s harder to put your finger on when a black and white image was taken.”
The film, which captures infrared light that the human eye cannot see, gives foliage a supernatural glow. It works particularly well with people, giving them a distinctively otherworld quality which is reflected in the photographer’s luminous shots of Cambodians, capturing snippets of their lifestyle.
“It’s very important for me to only have local people in my pictures. The style of the shots wouldn’t suit having a Western tourist in modern dress hanging about the temples,” he explains.
Getting back to Angkor became an obsession for Martin. In 1992, he had the temple grounds mostly to himself, but he could see that it wouldn’t remain a forgotten city for long.
"This is the west entrance to Ta Prohm on one of my early visits. Entering these through these magnificent gates was like embarking on a Tolkien-esque adventure. The trees around this sculpture have since been cleared by the restoration crews and it just doesn’t look the same.”
“ This is probably the weirdest picture I’ve ever taken. There wasn’t a soul around and these kids suddenly just appeared. If you look closely, there’s a face, a teddy bear and a side profile of a man fishing on the right hand side of the girl’s face. Not surprising that ghostly figures appear here and there, since infrared film can record things which the naked eye can’t see.”
The following years became a desperate race to capture the ruins before they became a popular tourist attraction and Martin returned to Siem Reap numerous times until 2004.
A selection of the beautiful images he captured in those 12 years has recently been compiled in Angkor: Into the Hidden Realm, with some of these also on permanent display on the walls of the ultra-hip Hotel de la Paix in Siem Reap.
Now based in Bangkok, Martin believes that Angkor Wat still holds some undiscovered treasures, waiting to be found:
“Angkor is so massive. When I go around on my bicycle, I’m always able to find something new – some gem of a temple in the middle of a paddy field or some unexplored structure that pops up out of nowhere. It’s like an endless supply of subject matter.”
“The monks never left Angkor. A young novice was wandering around the temple, up the steep stairs in the inner sanctum. He had such a lovely face: child-like, unpretentious and happy. It was midday and the light was rather harsh. I could see that he was going to glow because of the deep shadow behind him.”
“ I was escaping the heat in The Bayon in 1992 and found this nun sitting inside. I had no idea what she was saying, and she didn’t understand me either, but spiritually I felt very comfortable being there with her, not awkward at all. ”
“I started talking with the waitress serving me breakfast at my hotel and it turned out she was studying traditional Cambodian apsara dancing. We went out into the countryside to find these sugar palm trees. I chose them to accentuate the lovely shape her hands made.”
“This is probably the most photographed tree in the world, and for good reason too.
I love it because it seeded on the top of the temple over 300 years ago and it’s now dripped all over the structure. You can’t tell whether the roots are pulling the building down or holding it up; they’ve become one. It’s one of the few places in the world where nature has been allowed to bond with a man-made structure this way. ”
Angkor: Into the Hidden Realm (first edition 2007) is available at all leading bookstores in Thailand and Monument Books in Cambodia. Order online at www.monument-books.com and visit www.thehiddenrealms.com to view Martin’s Asian portfolio. Publisher: Mark Standen Publishing Company ISBN: 974-2530-11-4 (hardbound) Price: US$50
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