Exploring Chiang Mai’s past through photos

The Chiang Mai way of life from almost three decades ago is portrayed through a collection of 45 black and white photos on display during “Passage To Chiang Mai” at Head High Second Floor in Chiang Mai, until Oct 21.

The exhibition is by Vinai Dithajohn, a Bangkok-based photojournalist who started a career in 1993. What ensued was his photographic journal of a slow train journey from Bangkok to Chiang Mai.

To experience a distinctive way of life of local people that is far from familiar images in newspapers or travel magazines awakened an explorer instinct in him and led him to hunt for photographs that no one had captured before.

Vinai was selected to participate in a one-month black-and-white photography workshop organised by the Indochina Media Memorial Foundation in Chiang Mai in 2000. That was an opportunity that allowed him to take…