Kevin Thom - Hamilton, Toronto, Ontario Photographer

Today I spent some time thinking back to my trip to Thailand in February, 2005. It was just a couple of short months after the giant tsunami hit the southern parts of the country on December 26, 2004, causing massive devastation and a heartbreaking loss of life.

I was inspired by how Thais in Phuket reaction to the event. Despite the daunting destruction and chaos, they rolled up their sleeves and got to work repairing the damage. Rubble was swept into neat piles and cleared away, flowers were replanted, and construction got underway to rebuild demolished structures. Tourists, whose money is the lifeblood of the region, stayed away from Phuket in droves, and the normally bustling resorts were nearly deserted. So much had been swept into the sea. Almost everyone there had lost friends and relatives to that giant wave. Instead of lapsing into despair, Thai workers did what needed to be done, and then took to the beaches and played joyful games of soccer. The joy and energy was infectious, and that evening as I stood in the soft sand and panned my lens across that scene, I captured one of my most personally meaningful photos.

I’ll always remember the Thai way of adapting, flowing and rolling with the punches. If you can take this to heart, you’ll always land on your feet with a smile, no matter what the universe throws at you. This approach can be very useful to photographers. We’re often at the mercy of weather, equipment failures, financial limits, wardrobe, client demands, and other uncontrollable factors. Often, our intricate pre-made plans get demolished in an instant. Having learned to stay in the present and to observe its many opportunities has made a big difference to me. Although I always hope for ideal conditions for every shoot, I feel confident that I can adapt to create compelling photos in nearly any situation. Try it some time. Whenever you catch yourself bemoaning what you perceive to be a negative turn of events, re-examine the situation to see if it contains any hidden advantages.

I found a website that calculates distances on Google Maps. I thought this might be a cool way to visualize the my trip to China.

It shows the distance traveled as being about 32,681 km (including flights to and from Toronto), but I’m sure it was more than that. The distances were “as the crow flies,” so didn’t account for the winding, weaving roads and railroads between places. The trip started with a flight in to Shanghai, located around the center of the image, and ended when I left Hong Kong to return to Toronto. Looking at this stark map, it brings to mind vivid memories of those places and experiences represented by the magenta pins and lines.

My Mountain Man portrait of actor Ron Kebic has been one of my favorite photos in my portfolio since I shot it two years ago. I still grin whenever I see this wild looking character staring back at me.

When Ron contacted me in September to ask if I’d like to do some more photos before he cut off all of his hair, I jumped at the chance. I knew this was an opportunity to do something really fun. I proposed that we do a Mountain Man Makeover. I would take Ron to my barber, cut off half of his hair, and do bizarre portrait like that. Ron was game for it, and was good enough to wait for me to return from China so we could set everything up.

We shot these portraits today. When Ron showed up at my door, I was shocked to see that his hair and beard were even wilder than they were last time I saw him. I started by doing some “before” photos to commemorate the four years that Ron spent growing this crazy mane. To me, there’s no point in doing the exact same thing twice, so I tried to get some different emotional content into these shots.

Then, it was time to head to my local barber shop, Gus & Son. Lou (the “son”) was tasked with returning the Mountain Man to civilization, 50% at a time. Gus was amazed at the amount of hair that came off of Ron’s head during this half of the procedure. When your hair can impress a barber who’s been cutting hair for over 50 years, that’s really saying something.

After the half-cut, we headed back to the studio to play with the new look. Being that photos read from left to right, I had originally thought I wanted to shave the left side of Ron’s head first, so it would be like a transformation from wild to civilized. However, I remembered that Ron’s left eyebrow is the one that raises, so I opted to go for the right side instead. Although his 50% look was clearly ridiculous–especially in broad daylight walking down the street–it was important to me for the photos to come across more mystical or mysterious rather than funny. I wonder if I achieved that?

Finally, we returned to Gus and Lou to finish up Ron’s new look, complete with an old-fashioned straight-razor shave and a hot towel treatment.

As we walked out of the barber shop, Ron was marveling at the feel of the new cut, and reminisced about how women used to cross the street to avoid him at night. “Welcome to anonymity,” I told him.