“If tomorrow doesn’t rain, let’s go inside a superhide and take pictures of the bulls.”

These persuasive words made me so happy that I couldn’t stop smiling. 

Holding up to me, many inspirations over the past few years have been trying to push me out of Bangkok, forwarding me to go out and meet the natural world. It feels like a self-treatment; being away from the fast-changing digital world that spins so fast that we almost could not stop. 

For a Film Photographer who often ended up baffled by the working with advanced techniques and equipment, I came back to study wildlife photography from the past. I wanted to find out the raw sense in photography of how it would be without too much embellishment in its formation. I am curious of ML Parinyakorn Worawan, a notable wildlife photographer in Thailand, of his feelings in the days where he sat and waited in the forest the whole day but ended up having not a single shot after all.

As a beginner, I started out with taking small film cameras into the woods. But after 2 to 3 years, gradually, it seemed to breed itself and became a big family; I ended up having various sizes and from different nationalities of cameras and some were even mixed and matched into half-castes. 

Thanks to the black panther incident, I was stuck with the officer at the Forest Service for two days waiting for the permission to access the Phu-Khieo wildlife sanctuary…

For the first two days after, I was with A-Che, a staff from Phu-Kieo, who I asked for information and toured me around to see birds and deer near the accommodation area. Finally, while we were to explore the hatchling ducks and I was ramming slugs out of my legs, A-Che asked the question I had been waiting to hear…

“If tomorrow doesn’t rain, let’s go inside a SuperHide and take pictures of the bulls.”

That night at the camp, our conversations only circled around the stories and doings about at the SuperHide. Just like a coach directing an athlete under his supervision the night before their big competition, he revised the plans for the safety. In the meantime, the athlete was figuring out how he could snap the photos once they arrived at the battlefield. 

Next morning, my excitement stemmed up like a child preparing to go for his favorite amusement park; with my fully-packed backpack, a binocular on my waist, 135mm camera equipped with a mid-range lens on my neck, I was ready to get into the real woods.  

A-Che looked at me and smiled before he guided me along the “Checkpoint Route”.

In the deep forest, we sometimes would feel that the route was tabulated by someone for us walking through, which was partly right except for the route was not tabulated by a person, but by the animals… It was like we were the visitors to borrow their private roads. But the routes were not easy to walk on at all…

A-Che who was wearing only a pair of rubber sole shoes with waterproof socks would turned around and saw me struggling on trying to step on the right spot and getting myself off the tree branches. Along the way, he would try to make us stop and listen to the sound of the birds like the Quail and the Turdidae. But for me, just walking was hard enough. 

The binocular on my waist had not been used and the camera on my neck always got in my way while I was crawling to get over the big fallen trees. 

I tried to catch up on A-Che and at one time he stopped and looked at the ground: there lied a large honeycomb. This time, I saw A-Che being like an inspector. He tried to apply his tracking skills on inspecting the mysterious matter in front of us that how did this honeycomb end up on this ground and he said: 

“It’s the Buffalo bear…That’s its spoor and those are the nail marks on the bark of the tree”

A-Che pointed and complained. 

“The bear hit the honeycomb to the ground…and ate it there.”

An image of Winnie the Pooh enjoying honey by the tree came into my mind. But for A-Che, this was a case study for him to understand more about wildlife’s behavior. Not only that, he also analyzed and tried to seek unusual signs from the event that could indicate the interference of the wildlife beings.  

“Another three streams to cross then we will arrive.”

I inhaled deeply and slowly to keep cool and continued walking.

My running routines back when I was in the city did help me to not look as weak, but the sweat all over my face could not bear to show how actually tired I was. 

“Let’s take a short break and drink up.” A-Che said with his normal breathing. 

I tried to follow up closer with A-Che and listen to his explanation about wildlife behaviors along the way… The camera that used to be on my neck was now packed properly inside my backpack. 

After about an hour of walking where both of us just crossed a stream, A-Che turned and said to rest for five minutes in order to dry off our smells of sweat. He said the bison are very sensitive to the smell of human bodies. I took off my extremely heavy bag, drank up some water and got some rest until we were both dry enough to continue. 

“We will arrive at a catchment first in another 200 meters, and the SuperHide will be 50 meters away, South wind.”

We started walking again. Along the way, A-Che pointed at the ground where there were bison’ spoors all over. He told me by whisper that there must be a large crowd of bison coming by to eat yesterday. I looked at the catchment; a mud pool of paradise for the wildlife to gather around, especially the herbivores that came for a great deal of minerals and nutrients, and surely, the predators that are to hunt the baits down. This explains why the wildlife that came for the catchment are often very well aware of dangers.  

“SuperHide” is like a wooden hut made to cover up two middle size trees which is about 8 meters high. The stairs to get up are tied up using ropes, which A-Che later explained to me that it was to prevent the wild elephant from demolishing the stairs and this solution seemed to work. 

By following A-Che’s doing, I prayed to show respect to the holy thing before climbing up the SuperHide. I made sure my bags were all in place and looked up at A-Che who quickly climbed up and hung down the rope to tie and pull my stuff up.

I, imitating A-Che’s pace, climbed up the stairs. After settling down, I looked around and opened my back to set up the equipment. 

NIKON F3/T with NIKON 400mm f 3.5 lens on a tripod, PENTAX 6×7 with 90mm lens by one side and the binocular on the other side.

“The bison are on the hill above. I can hear their breath. If we are lucky, they will be near soon.”

A-Che whispered. I tried to hear him but the only thing I heard was the bird sounds. 

We remained silent. Everything around us began to calm down. There were slugs climbing up my collar. My heartbeat was back to normal pace. By whisper, I asked A-Che for permission to take a picture of the plain view so that in case we did not get anything, I could still have this picture hanging on my bed for memory. Besides, I wanted to let A-Che see if the shutter sound of the 6×7 would be too loud to scare off the wild animals. 

I pulled out the giant device, inside of it was a black and white KODAK TRI-X. 

I took a shot through the peephole. 

“Cha-Capp!” The shutter sound is solid and loud. 

“Be sure that you got the desired image first, then you can take with this camera last.”

A-Che said with a smile. 

During the long silence, I suddenly had a question in mind: how and why did I end up here? I felt that I should be somewhere better than a black box among this huge deep forest to look for something but then I knew this was what I had been dreaming all along the past two years; this is the place where everything is pure without embellishment.

“There comes a bull mother bison and her child coming from the right…move slowly…Let them eat first before pressing your shutter.”

A-Che strictly whispered to me. 

I was brought back from the thinking to the present by his words. I looked through the peephole, and shortly after, there came the mother and her child. They stopped by the catchment and the mother was guarding the path. I was shaken and held my breath for a second when it looked past me. A while later, the mother guided the way down to the catchment and its child followed. Slowly, I leaned over to the viewfinder and sent a signal to A-Che; telling him to pad on me when I can press my shutter.

I rechecked the focus-point. The bison mother started eating and the child mocked its mother. Just before A-Che padded me, a wind blew from my back. The bull mother suddenly switched her intention to looking at my direction. We made eye contact through the lens and the mother bison leaped out from the mud and the child immediately followed out.  

The bison know the smell best. Their eyes are only capable of seeing things from 10 meters far. 

“There is a male bison l coming down from the left.”

I almost stopped breathing and looked out at the spot, holding PENTAX 6×7 in my hands tight.

A male bison, gracefully, walked down into the mud and began to eat comfortably. 

I turned to A-Che and told him I was satisfied by the experience already even though we might not have another chance to meet more bison. A-Che, however, said there is still a chance because he could still hear their breath from the hill up above, and if the wind was calm, they might come down again. 

I had lost track of time watching a colorful squirrel running around near the peephole. A-Che poked my shoulder and told me there were two pairs of mother and child coming from the same route. I wondered how he knew we were looking out from the same spot. 

The wind was calm. The bison l mothers and children were eating happily. I was hoping to move a foot further to the right because one bull mother was blocked by the tree, however, once the signal was sent that I was allowed to press a shutter, I did without hesitation.

The two pairs of bull mothers and child let us take pictures for a while, and later, they left.

I turned to A-Che and thanked him. 

A-Che smiled.

“Let’s wait for a bit and get going.”

I looked down on the giant 6×7 that I brought a long way along with me. Suddenly, by signal, A-Che told me to be silent. He pointed out of the peephole and whispered,

Until I was satisfied with the view in front of me with bare eyes, I slowly held up the giant PENTAX 6×7 and laid over the peephole. 

The bison was right in the center of the frame, enjoying its meal…and the shutter went off.

This is the image I imagined the whole night at the camp. 

I felt my tears coming down a little…with a smile on my face.