Picture This
Meet Nicholas Coffill, the Siem Reap-based author and major driving force behind the remarkable and fascinating new book Photography in Cambodia – 1866 to the Present
Published by Tuttle, which does a fine line in Asian-centric tomes, this hardback book takes the reader on a journey from the early beginnings of photography in the Kingdom (we begin with a reflective looking King Norodom in 1866), through to the first foreign tourists, the heady days of independence in the 1950s, the tumultuous war period, and through to the present day. But Photography in Cambodia is so much more than that, with Coffill accompanying the selected images with essays on the country's history, and background stories on the photos and photographers themselves. It's an incredibly well-researched book, and one that belongs on the shelf of anybody who has spent any time living in or visiting Cambodia. I recently caught up with Nick, ensconced at his studio in sleepy Siem Reap, to learn more about this labour of love.
Hi Nick, how is life for you in Siem Reap today?
Simon hello! Life in Siem Reap today is great. With the improvement of the overall infrastructure, Siem Reap has become the best place for bicycling in Southeast Asia. It’s been combined with an improvement of the banks of the river that runs right through the center of town, which has been uplifted into a cool snaking park bounded by cafés and coffee shops and local food hawkers.
During Covid I was doing photographic research in a small country town in rural New South Wales. As you could imagine the natural social distance in outback Australia is about 30 feet anyway! With the local butcher, vegetable market and hardware stores remaining open, it was only socialising at the coffee shop I really missed.
Can you share a little bit about your background?
As a kid I lived on a cattle, wheat and sheep station in western New South Wales. My dad was a keen photographer all his life, so naturally that rubbed off on me. I went to the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney, and then started working in museums as an exhibition designer.
Photography and its projected image has always been part of the art of the stage designer, and an important element used by museum curators telling their stories about the histories of a country.
So tell me more about your new book. I understand it was based on a live show you did called ‘SNAP!’?
Too true. About eight years ago I was working with my business partner, Jon De Rule, on a live media project in Cambodia. It was called ‘Snap! 150 years of Photography in Cambodia’. It was a TED-talk, but more live media and theatre. I used my museum skills doing field research in Cambodia, and online research of international collections.
My theatre skills moulded a piece of spoken theatre with historical photography and projections across various screens and gauzes. By using recorded and live music you can begin to sweep the audience into another world. Jon also came from a theatre background, and he understood the need for a good acoustic environment, subtle lighting and good timing to create an engaging experience.
So how did that lead you onto the book project?
The show was a great success, and both Jon and I were really enjoying being performers using visual images as our script. Naturally the show had to be short and sharp to create a powerful moment. So when I decided to create a permanent rendition in book form, the template was already set to take on the more expansive content a book could provide.
Are the photos part of your personal collection?
Only a few photographs are part of my personal collection, which I had slowly accumulated through online auctions and rummaging through secondhand markets. I was particularly interested in incunabula; chocolate and cigarette cards from the early twentieth century, or postcards and discarded photographs. That sort of thing. I have little personal interest in ‘art’ photography, or those photographers considered essential to a mainstream cannon. I think my early interest in social history in museums reflects this collecting habit.
There were a few generous private collectors of both historical and contemporary fields who lent the highlights of their collections. I should call out Phillipe Damas from Singapore and Darryl Collins in Siem Reap who were particularly generous contributors. But I suppose a good majority of images came from national libraries, archives, and museums from all around the world; New York, Paris, Canberra, Singapore, Japan, Illinois, Arizona, Phnom Penh and right here.
Siem Reap is home to the Center for Khmer Studies, an elegant public library set in the calm grounds of the Buddhist Wat Damnak. They had a particularly valuable collection of popular magazines from the 1950s up to the late ‘80s. The library staff were extremely generous and gave me full access to their research collection.
What was your writing process like for you? How did it evolve as you got further into the book?
In many ways this wasn’t a writing process – it was a collating and editing process. Of course, when working on the book I could be more methodical and detailed. The writing process was merely a reflection on my decision about what photograph would be included. It either had to represent a significant cultural or political moment in Cambodian history, be an example of a well-regarded photographer who has worked in the country or be idiosyncratic in its content. Sometimes all three elements coincided.
Formally however, I tried to write firstly about what was in a photograph, secondly about allocating the photographer’s image to a particular historical moment, and finally, about the value of the image to Cambodian history. Though I’d often jumble the format to sustain reading interest.
Meanwhile, I was also very keen that each page or spread was a story unto itself. The book is divided into nine chapters based on the familiar political history of Cambodia. This enables the reader to dip into and out of the book with ease and to comprehend the underlying social and political influences of the moment.
I was conscious that many Cambodian readers who would be interested in the book have English as their second language. At the very beginning I endeavoured to create a popular and readable literary style without any academic pretensions.
There were some references to specific Western artworks that, upon reflection, I’d edit out. It was a bit pretentious and irrelevant to the particular photograph - though there is one exception - Pech Sophea’s studies on page 230.
I imagine there were many photos left out - how did you manage to whittle down your selection?
One way was to use the criteria I had to set out above, the second was to focus on the particular photographer or the particular historical event and to see if there were some juicy impressions I could bring to the surface.
Then the final layout of the images across the page also helps to illuminate what I would call ‘visual blur’ - stuff that didn’t pass the filter of book design. A photograph may have appeal when held in the hand, or viewed on a computer screen, but fails on the printed page. Not all mediums are friendly to all images.
What led you to choose the final cover image?
Well, that was a tussle between myself and Tuttle! I favoured two alternative images, one of the young boy taken in 1923 holding up two fish with a great degree of youthful pride (page 69). Another image was of a young Cambodian (see above) crouching down in front of a photojournalist’s camera surrounded by Khmer Rouge cadres in Phnom Penh in 1975 by French photographer Roland Neveu (page 173). He’s wearing a pair of cut-off jeans and has a cheeky grin. He would have been a city boy and was unaware of his impending danger as the Khmer Rouge put a stranglehold on the city. With our hindsight we know he may well have been killed.
Tuttle though wanted an image that included Angkor Wat. Simply put, they wanted a recognizable image that would help sell the book to an American audience that may have been unfamiliar with other, more subtle Cambodian imagery. I accepted their advice on the cover, however, as Tuttle has produced hundreds of excellent titles on Asia so they know their readership.
Finally I chose the photograph of a 1950s group sheltering from the sunlight and observing in the distance the towers of Angkor. I think it has appeal as it represents the transient visitor experience observing timeless monumentality - something many of us would appreciate.
Now that it's done and published, are there any photos you regret not putting in?
Regret?! I’ve got one thousand regrets Simon! I suppose that’s the foundation for volume two. No, to be honest, I’m very proud of the balance of the overall selection. Every specialist will snipe ‘why didn't you include so-and-so!’, which is the cross any historian has to bear when they are creating the first in any field.
What was the most difficult part of putting the book together (and how long did it take)?
Really, the most difficult part of the research was navigating the different online collection management systems that museums and galleries had built for their collections. Once you had chosen an image, you often had to use a different portal to get full rights of reproduction, and then another one for payment. They were often very labyrinthine and required an assembly of various codes, logins, and passwords.
It was demanding, however I just had to be calm and take each little technical step at a time to achieve the final successful result.
Going on just the imagery, how do you think the photos tell the story of a changing Cambodia?
Certainly, one of the most endearing threads to look at this large range of 170 years of photography is the changing body language that is inherent between the photographer and the photographed. Apart from one or two unique examples, it wasn’t until the 1950s, when there was a radical change in Western values inherent in the new wave of teachers, photographers, travellers and anthropologists coming to Cambodia. They engaged with Cambodians in a more relaxed and friendly manner compared to that found pre-WWII.
The other interesting thing for me was trying to find the earliest thumbprint of a Cambodian photographer. It was actually very difficult. There were glimpses before the Second World War, but only in the 1950s, when locally published magazines for the emerging urban middle class were produced, do we see Cambodians taking photographs of Cambodians. But rarely was an individual photographer given credit.
In the 1960s and 1970s, many foreign photojournalists covering the Vietnam War saw Cambodia as a sweet holiday spot - Phnom Penh was known as the Pearl of Asia. The journalists brought their lightweight 35mm cameras with them to record the local battlefields. But unlike Vietnam where there was a well-organised American logistical system to manage the media, in Long Nol’s republic it was absolute chaos.
So the international photojournalists had to rely on local Cambodians outside the military as their runners. Naturally, friendships developed and skills were passed between one another, and within a matter of years, a new crop of skilled Cambodians were covering the local war for the domestic and international press. That brief five years created some of the most powerful conflict photography in the country’s history.
While you have a chapter on the Khmer Rouge, it's refreshing you don't overly dwell on these years - people often overly focus on those tragic events, while you portray it as important, but one part of the nation’s history. Was that a conscious choice?
Thank you for pointing that out, Simon. Indeed, it was a very conscious decision. Across a 170-year timeline, five years is relatively insignificant. While I am not playing down the enormous physical and emotional damage from that time, a balance and perspective was needed to present a breadth of parallel genres.
One thing I did include was photographs of everyday Cambodians wearing the traditional Khmer Rouge black uniforms with the red cotton scarf. But I included images that were taken well before the Khmer Rouge came to power in 1975 and well after they had been ousted from Phnom Penh in 1979. A keen reader would realise that their influence waxed and waned throughout the countryside well beyond the four short years of total control of the nation.
I realise it's a difficult one to answer, but do you have any particular favourite photos and why?
I do have a favourite, taken about 1898. It shows a collection of food hawkers mingling outside the dance pavilion inside the grounds of the royal palace in Phnom Penh. What is captivating about this photograph – and we don’t know who the photographer was - is that unlike most formal colonial photography, here is a bustling collection of food hawkers, kids and officials going about their everyday business.
One kid is holding up his bowl of noodles to the camera, almost in recognition of the photographer, while another fellow in a smart straw boater and white suit is hoisting his drink cup in salute. On either side you can see people are pulling back to allow the camera a greater view.
The photographer obviously has a good rapport with everybody in this scene of bustling bodies and everyday life, which is extraordinary as it’s in the grounds of the Royal Palace. There is no kowtowing to royalty, there is no apparent class etiquette. The image is an absolute revelation in that it shows how power structures amongst people of various ranks can very quickly dissolve when nobody is watching.
What do you hope that those who buy it take away from it after they have finally finished reading?
I hope people realise that women photographers are well represented in the wide range of photographers who have been captivated by this wonderful country.
And also to observe that no great Western photographer appears to have had a putative effect on local image-making. Sure, there were broad outside cultural and political influences that fractured and warped Cambodian society, however local photography had to respond to the tropical heat, the light, and the Cambodian way of doing things.
Finally, there is a new generation of Cambodian photographers who are exploring their past and using photography to create powerful political and cultural statements about their future.
Do you have any plans for a sequel or companion book, or have you said everything you need to?
First there was the stage show, then the book, and in the last month I’ve curated an exhibition of the photographs - both originals and reproductions - that’s currently hanging at the FCC Angkor Gallery in Siem Reap. Later in the year it will travel to Phnom Penh, Battambang and Kampot.
And yes Simon, a sequel is on the cards that will include all those one thousand regrets I mentioned earlier. Finally, I would like to replicate this successful model and publish a book on photography in Laos.
These two Indochinese countries have had a surprisingly similar colonial and postcolonial trajectory, but their individual ‘grunt’ is so different. It would be a perfect companion to Photography in Cambodia.