Jake Catlett Photography

About

So, to begin things, I guess I should introduce myself to those of you who don’t know who I am, what I do, or why you should be remotely interested in reading what I have to say. So, here goes:

Hi everybody! I’m Jake. I’m an American guy who’s been living in and traveling extensively through Southeast Asia for the past 8 years. My love affair with the region started as a result of a love of the cuisine, a keen interest and ability in foreign languages, and just a general curiosity of places and cultures far removed from my homeland. My second trip to this part of the world started in early 2001, and was meant to be a 6 month extended vacation, sabbatical, party, escape from reality, whatever you want to call it. I’m still here, and have no immediate plans to leave this cozy little corner of the Earth.

Originally my love affair began with Thailand, but after working in Chiang Mai teaching English for half a year, I was forced to accept that my paltry salary wasn’t going to afford me a decent living. I’d heard that jobs were more plentiful and salaries significantly higher in Saigon, Vietnam, and so I headed there in a final attempt to continue my life in Southeast Asia.

Both things were true about Saigon’s teaching market, as well as the fact that Vietnam’s visa regulations were, surprisingly to me, much more simplified and liberal. Feeling much more welcome and comfortable in Vietnam, I settled here, and that’s where I’ve been since January, 2002.

I love teaching English, it’s fun and rewarding, and I’ve got a good standard of living, however I’m a bit too ambitious to be happy with the same position and responsibilities ad infinitum. Over the past several years I’ve worked diligently on other personal and professional interests that are now shaping the direction my life is taking.

First, my obsession with foreign language has led me into some great relationships and experiences, which have ultimately become professional pursuits. I had my first book, Vietnamese For Beginners, published through Paiboon Publishing. I’ve got a second title finished and it’s currently “in queue” for publication, and I’ve done several random jobs involving translation and interpretation. Starting mid-October I’ve got another translation job beginning, and I’m hoping my work involving language services will continue to expand.

Secondly, and more important for the content and direction of this blog, is my photography. I’ve been interested in photography for many years, however in the past my lack of experience and education in photography, and the costs involved with buying a “real” camera (SLR as compared to point and click), coupled with the expense of film and processing made photography an economically forbidding hobby to take up. I would happily snap roll after roll of film on my trips, hoping for a few good shots, fully understanding that if I had more technical knowledge and more flexibility I would be able to take much better shots.

In 2005, while preparing for a one-month trip to Peru and Bolivia, I decided that it was high time for me invest in a digital camera and do away with the old craptastic camera I’d been using for years. I discovered that manufacturers were finally producing consumer level digital SLRs, and went ahead and purchased my first “real” camera, as I thought of it then.

I had no idea whatsoever that my new Nikon D50 and two crappy Sigma lenses would change my life.

I went on that trip to South America in 2005, and snapped thousands of shots while I was gone. And, hey! 3 or 4 of them were actually pretty good! I hadn’t had time to properly familiarize myself with my camera, or even the fundamentals of photographic theory before I left, and spent lots of time scratching my head, trying to figure out what the hell ISO settings were, and how or why I would decide to use one or the other. The camera got set on auto, and that’s where it stayed. After returning to Vietnam, I dutifully put my camera away in the corner of my closet, where it stayed for over a month.

In late December of that year a not-so-random encounter with a pro photographer I barely knew resulted in the two of us going out together for beers and photos on New Year’s Eve. After watching me take some shots and seeing some of my photos he basically said “Wow, you don’t understand a damn thing about your camera! But you know how to see a good photo…” He taught me what my ISO settings (and a few other marginally important things like that) were and said we should shoot together a few more times.

We shot together more and more, and through the experience I gained and a kick in the pants or three every once in a while from my buddy, I quickly started to develop a deep interest and ability in photography. In a mere matter of months it grew from a desire to take nice photo album shots of my vacations into a serious interest, into a hobby, and then into something much more. Photography became a lifestyle for me. My camera and what I did with it became something I was planning my life around, not something I brought along with me. Where I was going, what I was doing, what I was planning, who I was with, all of these things started to be more and more dominated by photography. I found myself spending much more time outdoors, observing my surroundings, discovering new places. I began to get a much more developed idea of what the people and places in Vietnam were about, and my understanding of the culture grew. Soon, my photos ceased to be snapshots of “stuff I saw”, and started to grow into definitions of things I understood, my way of capturing my vision of the world around me and allowing me to show it to other people. It became a way for me to not only to discover new things, but to understand them, then see them differently, and then express that sentiment. It started to become my life.

I started to believe more and more that it was possible for me to turn this into a career. The more I worked at it, the more my friends and my family seemed to be supportive of what I was doing, and finally, in a complete absence of any marketing or self-promotion at all, I began getting offers for paid work, both in the form of contracts and in the purchase of individual images for both editorial and commercial purposes.

It started to become clear to me that first, I was going to have to formulate a plan, an idea, and to target a market before I could be successful. I also wasn’t going to be able to pull this off while working 6 mornings and 6 evenings a week teaching English. Through my own personal interests, counseling from at least a few trusted friends, some needed support, both moral and financial, from my family, and a hell of a lot of planning and hard work, I’ve managed to set myself up with the equipment I need and a bit of a nest egg so I can give it a shot.

So, about a week ago I quit my job and started off on my latest adventure. I’m still in Vietnam, and after taking a short trip up to Hanoi to start things off, I’m back in Saigon and preparing to leave for Laos in 6 days, where I hope to spend the majority of the next 6 months taking pictures and building a library of stock travel photos to market. I started a website, the Laos Photo Library, to market and promote the work I’m going to do while I’m there, but still didn’t have another means (besides Flickr) to show off my other work in an organized fashion. My friends have been telling me to write about my experiences for quite some time, and after a conversation and an offer to help with site development from my good friend Josh Sullivan, I decided to start this blog as a means to let people know what I’m about, where I am, and what I’m doing, as well as show off some of my personal work that I don’t intend to actively market. Thanks, Josh. I owe you a lot more than a couple of beers, apparently.

So there you have it. Blahg, blahg, blahg. After putting up this intro I’m going to start on my second entry, detailing my oh-so-exciting experiences with crappy weather and digestive infections up in Hanoi over the previous several days. My last week here in Saigon I’ll be running around, tying up loose ends, taking photos before I go, and generating some more shtuff to write about. I’ll be making regular entries while I’m in Laos about what’s going on there, and in December I’ll be making a trip to India for a few weeks, which should result in some great stories and fantastic image galleries. After all that… who knows? I’ll just have to wait and see how successful I am at this, and if you’re reading my blog, then so will you! Wish me luck if you want to, and here’s to hoping that this winds up being the introduction to a success story. And if it isn’t, then damned if I’m not going to have fun along the way.