Ao Nang in the province of Krabi in Thailand is a crazy place to work “After Sugimoto”, or rather his “Seascapes” with water and sea in equal measure without any disturbing details, since the peculiarity, speciality and beauty of the landscape here consists of the karst islands rising up from the sea in the most weird formations. Moreover, the local long tail boats are dotting the sea. To look for an open and even, undisturbed horizon here seems rather funny. But that, too, is possible of course, since there is plenty of Andaman Sea to enjoy. I do not have my zoom lens with me, so it is not that easy to find a place with open horizon between the islands. What makes it even more difficult is the strong sunlight; it is hard to distinguish what is there, in reality, in the image, and what remains outside the frame. And although I walked to the more secluded, or let us say less popular beach, called Nopparat Thara Beach, there are still plenty of people around. I waited patiently for one couple to get up from the water, and put my tripod next to the waterline. Funny enough a local woman, or a semi local tourist, perhaps chinese or japanese, came to take a photo with her phone next to my tripod, as if trying to understand what I was recording. Her ‘thank you’ is audible at the end of the second take.
 

 
I walked along the beach until the gate to the national park at the end, and marvelled at the change of the landscape at low tide. There were plenty of warning signs declaring ‘NO ENTRY’ or ‘CONSTRUCTION’ and then also some information about the low tide, when you could easily walk to the small islands near the shore and also advice what to do if attacked by poisonous jellyfish.
 

 
I was warned, and walked over along the ridge of sand, no short cuts through the mud. The rocks looked like strange houseplants rising directly from the sand. It was nice looking at the rocks at close distance, but there was nothing really interesting. On the way back, walking along the beach under the trees, trying to find some shade I stopped at a small pavilion and decided to document the view with all the hazy islands rising on the horizon, when a bulldozer suddenly appeared in my image, like some prehistoric monster.
 

 
Besides doing my “After Sugimoto” images I tried to write “God Jul” or “Hyvää Joulua” in the wet sand. It did not look that good, really, partly because of my boring handwriting, partly because of the greyish sand. And I realized it might be a better idea to write Happy New Year, anyway! Why not. I thought I could try to write the text with the small sea shells lying on the beach, since I saw a love note written with them on the other beach yesterday, and it looked quite beautiful. I was too tired and sweaty after my walk to try any serious work, and chose to return home as soon as possible. But the next day I finally returned to write my Seasons Greetings. So here they come: