Siem Reap, Cambodia –

To be honest, I don’t normally chimp.

I just don’t think to do it.

I try to force myself to do once or twice, to make sure I’ve got my camera set right for whatever I’m shooting.

But then I focus in on what I’m shooting, and don’t think to do it.

However, there is one situation where that all changes, and I chimp with every photo I shoot.

And that’s when I’m shooting in the dark.

I have to know how each shot is dealing with the extremely low light, so I can make any necessary adjustments.

And this was one of those times where it’s a good thing I did.

Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten any usable photos.

As is, I did take several that were filtered through a layer of condensation on the front of my lens.

Luckily, the condensation seemed to limit itself to the front of the lens, so I could wipe it off between shots.

See, chimping is where you look at the screen on your camera to see the photo you’ve just taken.

It get’s it’s name from the sounds that often come out of your mouth while doing this.

“Ooo, ooo, ooo, ooo!”

I don’t know why I have to force myself to do this.

Maybe it’s because I started taking photos back in the film days.

Back when you couldn’t see what you had shot until much later, after you had developed the film.

You had to have faith that you had taken a good photo.

At least until you got the developed film back and could see how you did, and then try to remember what you had done so that you could improve your shots.

It was a very slow feedback loop.

Now, with everybody using digital cameras, it’s a very fast feedback loop, with the ability to learn from your mistakes instantaneously.

But I still tend to focus on the fleeting moments that I’m shooting. Most subjects that I shoot are likely to change every second.

However, when shooting in the dark, everything changes.

First, I usually have my camera on a tripod, so it’s not moving.

Second, most of my exposure times are in seconds, so anything changing quickly isn’t being captured, or appears as a ghost on the resulting image.

Third, I have to make sure I’m capturing the right amount of light, so that there’s something to see, but not so much light that it’s overexposed.

So, here I was, standing in the dark, at the corner of Sra Srang, waiting for the sunrise.

The guidebooks that I had read all said to go to Angkor Wat to get photos of the sunrise over the temple.

And I had asked my driver to take me there.

He didn’t want to.

His opinion was that everyone went to Angkor Wat to shoot the sun rising over the temple.

He thought that Sra Srang would make a more unique shot.

So, off to Sra Srang we went.

And we weren’t alone.

There were a group of about a half-dozen or so people gathered on a small platform extending into the pool at the mid-point on the western side.

So we went to the north-western corner, where we were all alone.

See, Sra Srang is not a natural lake.

It’s a man-made lake.

In fact, it was the private swimming pool of the King and his wives.

A very large swimming pool.

800 by 500 meters large.

And these egomaniacs with Olympic-sized swimming pools think they’ve got a large one.

Theirs is nothing compared to this.

So, I setup where I think will make a good photo, and with the slightest tinges of light starting to appear in the sky, I shoot my first photo.

And I chimp.

And it’s a good thing I did.

Everything was fuzzy.

A thick layer of condensation had formed on my lens.

So, I began a little dance.

Take a photo…

Chimp the photo…

Clean my lens…

Take a photo…

Chimp my photo…

Clean my lens…

Over and over again, until the sun had risen enough to burn off the dew that was forming on everything around.

And the people that lived around the lake were coming out to start their day.

Directly across the road from where I was standing was what looked like an open-air restaurant, and people were starting to gather at it.

Then a couple of people took an early morning dip in the pool.

After all, this is no longer the private pool of the King, so the peasants that live along it’s edge are free to avail themselves of it.

And then the kids started showing up.

First, it was one kid, the initial entrepreneur, hawking the gewgaws he had to sell.

A hand-carved boat, or a bamboo mouth-harp.

Soon a second had joined him.

And before I knew it, I had a whole gaggle surrounding me.

It was as if they were just appearing, from out of nowhere.

I never saw a single one of them approaching, they were just there.

Each with their own collection of trinkets to sell.

I guess that’s the downside to staking out a location away from all the other tourists.

There’s no one else to deflect any of the hawkers, trying to sell me souvenirs.

So, while I would talk to them, and answer their questions, I was still trying to focus on my camera, and what I was shooting.

At least until I had decided it was time to wake my driver and head somewhere else.

At that point, I gave in and rewarded the initial couple of the young sales-kids by buying a couple of items as I was leaving.

One item each from the two of them.

And that just caused the intensity level of the sales pitches from the others to increase astronomically.

Good thing I was leaving.

They’d found a live one…

For more photos from Sra Srang, click here.