Lampang,
Thailand
FAHTHAI
17
BIGGERPICTURE
film noir
On two trips to an elephant hospital in Thailand
in 1997 and 1999, Taiwanese photographer
Chien-Chi Chang joined a team of about 30
veterinarians in the forested hills of northern
Thailand. These medical experts spent three hours
operating on the injured leg of Motala, a three-
tonne pachyderm that had stepped on a landmine
near the Thai-Myanmar border. Here, at a training
centre, one of the creatures takes a bath. Most
images we see of landscapes and animals are rich
in colour, yet each detailed crease and hair on the
elephant’s leathery body is made all that much
sharper in this black-and-white photograph. It’s a
moody image, one in which the contrast has been
rendered more acute. Chang joined the Magnum
stable of photographers in 1995. Much of his
work is shot in monochrome and focuses on the
ties between family and culture, particularly in
Taiwan and China.
TEXT: CLAIRE KNOX
