Evaluate My Photo

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

A few months ago I visited the Chiang Mai Foreign Cemetary to shoot the Flying Tigers Memorial for a project I'm working on. I ended up shooting the entire cemetary. This is a photo of one of the oldest if not the oldest graves found there. I took a distracting piece of blue plastic pipe that ran across the front of the cement drain pipe out of the photo and added a warming filter effect.

[kash]

sorry but this is just a point'n snap photo for me, try to crop it and make it tighter and adjust some contrast and lights, then maybe.

[canuckamuck]

I agree that it needs some cropping. I would like to see less of the bottom and less of the left side.

I think the lighting is apropriate for the subject. The shot has depth, perpective, and it is an appropriate shot for editiorial illustration.

The unfortunate part is the dark object to the right of the grave (distracting) and the cross on the right is cropped a bit too much, I think we need to see a bit more of it for balance and to help with the graveyard scenario.

[Nordlys]

A few months ago I visited the Chiang Mai Foreign Cemetary to shoot the Flying Tigers Memorial for a project I'm working on.

Interesting.

I knew some flying tigers members were shot down over the north and interned in Japanese concentration camps (some of whom among British, Australian and Dutch POWs worked in slave labor building the death railway). But I didn't know there were those buried up in the north in foreign cemetery. How many Flying Tigers are there buried there?

I've made many shots like this at foreign cemetery in Bangkok on South Silom road in black and white some 25 years ago that are much older than the year inscribed on this grave. They've excavated the cemetery and moved all the remains to Nakhon Pathom years ago as it was too prime an estate to be occupied for 100 - 200 years old foreign cemetery where it's probably forgotten by the descendants of those buried there (but Chinese cemetery next to it still exists). Too bad, it was one of the legacy of the good-old Bangkok.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Nordlys

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

Actually there are no Flying Tigers in the cemetery. Several years ago after they discovered the remains of William "Black Mac" McGarry's P40 in Mae Hong Son they decided it would be fitting to create a memorial to the Flying Tigers and the Free Thai forces. There was a Flying Tigers reunion in Chiang Mai when the Memorial was dedicated. To my knowledge, the only Flying Tiger to have been buried in the Chiang Mai area was John "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk. He and his P40 were both buried near Lamphun. His body was later recovered and reburied in the US. The remains of his aircraft were never found though as I recall a story villager brought bits from a P40 to a local official after the war but would not reveal where he found them. If that's true Newkirk's plane might have been sold bit by bit for scrap.

[Nordlys]

How many flying tigers were there shot down over Thailand and Burma? And how many killed?

And why the reunion and memorial in Chiang Mai? Because they can't have one in Burma?

I have one of those fake Flying Tigers A2 leather jacket with fake "blood chit".

[ChiangMaiAmerican]

I think the reunion was held in Chiang Mai largely because they recovered McGarry's P40 and put it on display in Chiang Mai. The Memorial was created by Thailand to honor the AVG and the Free Thai.

Chiang Mai airport was the site of a successful AVG raid in which 15 Japanese planes were destroyed on the ground. The AVG lost two aircraft that day. John "Scarsdale Jack" Newkirk was killed. McGarry bailed out and was captured. He spent most of the war as a POW. Late in the war he was spirited out of Thailand by the OSS and the Free Thai.

McGarry's aircraft is the only AVG P40 wreck that has been recovered. There is one other in a lake in China but plans to recover that one have not materialized. The remains of Newkirk's aircraft may still lie buried Lamphun but they have never been located. The rest of the AVG aircraft were destroyed during the course of the war after the unit was disbanded when the US entered WWII.

Edited January 4, 2008 by ChiangMaiAmerican

[Nordlys]

I think the reunion was held in Chiang Mai largely because they recovered McGarry's P40 and put it on display in Chiang Mai. The Memorial was created by Thailand to honor the AVG and the Free Thai.

Do you have the photo of the P40 wreck and the memorial too? When was the reunion held?

Seems a bit odd Thailand is honoring AVG when they sided with Japan in the war. After all AVG served Kuomintang, not Seri Thai.

Edited January 4, 2008 by Nordlys