RE: People and Streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Just Back to Bangkok From the Trip
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Great shots, I haven't been to Cambodia for almost ten years. I imagine it's changed a lot! Even from the first time I was there about 14 years ago it had changed, can't imagine what it's like now. Even back then Thailand was becoming the west of the east, basically infested with tourists (like me 😅) and Cambodia was a welcome change of gears to a bit more real travelling. There was an island off the coast of Sihanoukville called bamboo island I think, you could hop on a boat and make your way out to stay in the huts there, it was amazing, but I've heard they've since closed down the little "resort" and it's not open to tourists anymore.
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Thank you!
I have a feeling that the whole genre, real traveling I mean, is dying. It's not only because they've set up a ticket booth at every beautiful place. It's not only because traveling reminds online shopping nowadays. It's not only because the number of international visitors grow and the number of backpackers declines in SEA (I have this feeling). It's first of all because of the constant decrease in the value of traveling. Reading a book by Gerald Darrel's wife and seeing that you even didn't need to have cool photographs from travels - telling stories was enough to collect a crowd around you in the 20th century. In the 1990s, people saved beautiful travel pictures in folders on their computers. In the 2000s, you could go traveling to see what real streets in Asian cities look like and now you only need Google.maps for that.
Since then, traveling has been losing its value as a bad crypto token - an endless downtrend.
Nowadays, traveling on only a sightseeing mission is a way to disappointment if you want something meaningful.
To me, street photography (and generally photography) is a way to escape tourism. Exploring the life of cities. Since I sell images on photo stock and my pix appear here and there, including books, it gives my travels a flavor of a mission that has a meaning.
"My travels" isn't a precise term though. I live on the outskirts of Bangkok with my Thai partner. Although with tourist visas and stamps only.
I agree with you 100% Things have been changing so much and now many people don't even need to leave their couch to have the feeling of being somewhere else. I think that's what we are all chasing, is that feeling.
That's really cool you sell stock photos, what sites do you use? How did you get into that? I've often considered it but never really had the time or motivation to look into it too much.
My wife and I have also been considering spending part of our year in SE Asia, do you mind if I ask what it's like for you doing the visa run thing? Do you have go leave every month? Do you ever get hassled by border security or are you at risk of not being allowed entry? I'm really curious about it since we might consider doing something like that ourselves at some point.
Low payments even for the East (Eastern Europe, most Asia). For the West, you can say they pay nothing. I sell on Adobe, Alamy, Shutterstock, iStock, and smaller ones. Adobe sales grow (surprisingly), the average sale is like 0.4$. If a new image is beautiful, it can be discovered on Adobe and start bringing some money.
Alamy sells rarely but you can have 10-20-50$ for a sale. You can earn money with not only general-use photos but ones with narrow use - like, a picture of, for example, a museum in some no-name provincial city in Romania or Mongolia. You need many pix like that and better not just random bad shots and clones but good ones.
Shutterstock, if not rare big sales, pays very low, a usual subscription sale is 0.1$.
There is an annoying thing: you can just copy and paste - every stock has its own web interface so you have to lose time with all this.
I sometimes think about uploading most editorial images to Alamy, and potentially profitable non-editorial selected photos to Adobe.
Most nations come to Thailand visa free for 30 days. After that, you can go abroad (Laos, Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, etc) to get a tourist (60+30-day) visa for 30$. 60+30 days means you can spend 60 days in Thailand and then pay 50$ to get an extra 30, in almost any city (no refusals). Then, you can get the second visa for 60+30 days. That's 190 days - 100% no problem.
There is no rule about how many days you can spend in Thailand. If someone says, there is a 180-day rule - don't believe it. I was in Thailand for around 240 days in 2023. No rule means an official that works with you makes a subjective decision, and Thais want more tourists nowadays...
Their main question is "are you a real traveler or you secretly work in Thailand?" So, when I leave Thailand, I try to spend a longer time outside. For example, in autumn I was in Vietnam for 1.5 months. In summer, 1.5 months in Laos.
Different Thai embassies and consulates are differently strict. Vientiane and Savannakhet ones are easy. You should read about each of them. Some of them can ask this or that. Some paranoid ones can ask you to show tickets away from Thailand, as people say.
If you have enough money for traveling, you shouldn't spend so much time in Thailand - so many nice cheap countries to go to in Asia.
Once before the pandemic - they were strict with me, sent me from the passport control to an immigration officer and she was asking "why, why, why" trying to get proof from me that I didn't work in Thailand. They stamped me 30 days - this was what I wanted (I was entering without visa - it was my second time with visa extemption rule which wasn't allowed at that time + many months in Thailand). But that stamp had a sign that I was not a good traveler anymore, a sort of.
Before the pandemic, there was a sentiment in Thailand, that there were too many foreigners and they stole jobs, etc. Now it is the opposite - the pandemic impressed everyone here.
Dang man thanks so much for all the super useful info. I'm gonna check out adobe stock and the others. As for the thailand visas that sounds pretty awesome to be honest. I don't think it would be hard for us to prove that we are not working in Thailand but you never know. My wife and I are professional wedding photographers so maybe we would get hassled, though we honestly don't really have a desire to photograph weddings in Thailand or Asia in general, we really just want to spend half our year working in Europe and then half living cheaply in somewhere nice. Thank you again so much for the info, I'll check into those consulates you mentioned when we do decide to make the move :)
Half a year is just 2 tourist visas, nobody would ever have a slight question about you.
Good luck with your research. If you have more questions, don't hesitate to ask me!