This photo essay collects unplanned street moments where timing, color and gesture align by chance.
On streets I know well, I look for visual connections between people and their surroundings: someone walking or pausing in front of a mural or poster, a passer-by echoing an image on a wall, or a person whose movement suddenly fits the background.
I am drawn to scenes that make me laugh, pause, or stop and wonder, “Did that really happen?” The photographs invite a second look at ordinary places and how coincidences can change the way we see the street.
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Kantaya New is a Thai–Singaporean street and conceptual photographer based in Singapore. Her street work focuses on playful visual coincidences in public space.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received recognition in competitions such as Sony Alpha: MX Street Photo Contest (1st Prize, 2025), Women Street Photographers Artist Residency (Shortlisted, 2025), Fujifilm Moment Street Photo Awards (2nd Prize, 2024), LensCulture Critics’ Choice (Winner, 2023) and Sony World Photography Awards (Shortlist, 2022 – Open Competition and Alpha Female Awards).
One of the first things a tourist learns in Thailand are the words ‘Sawadee’ combined with the wai gesture. It originated over 2,000 years ago in Hinduism with the Añjali Mudrā gesture, which accompanies ‘namaste’ and was adopted by Buddhism.
It was a yogic posture, the equal meeting of the palms symbolising that the other party is treated as an equal human being. As well as greetings it’s also used for farewells, thanking, apologising, asking for mercy and expressing various forms of politeness and respect.
Thais have strict hierarchies and the wai is central in how this is acted out everyday. Greeting an equal sees your palms meet at your chest, waiing someone older or in a position of authority like your teacher or boss, sees your hands at chin height. Waiing a monk, buddha image or royalty puts your hands at your forehead with a bow of the head. Older people don’t have to return the wai of younger people and customers don’t have to return the wai of shop workers. How someone wais you has huge symbolism to how they see you, and who is in the dominant role in the relationship.
I became interested in how widespread this gesture is depicted, in religious contexts, muay Thai, Khon dance, massage, but also in commercial mascots, public notices, stickers and clip art. Despite its fading popularity with the younger generation, I want to show how this gesture has become a symbol of Thai identity on so many levels.
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Barry Macdonald (b. 1984) is a freelance photographer from London, England. He started off shooting musicians and found out about the enjoyment of travelling from going on tour with bands around Europe and the USA. His work has evolved into a hybrid of street and documentary. He is interested in sociology and tries to look at culture and human nature through his photography. He has lived in Bangkok, Thailand since 2022.
If you were to pick one object that best represents who you are, what would it be? Your everyday glasses? A favorite book? Perhaps the pocket inhaler you never leave home without? Each choice offers a fun yet revealing challenge, balancing personal reflection with creative expression. But what if that object were your bag? How might it speak for you?
art4d x FREITAG come join forces for a special photography campaign titled ‘FREITAG and My Identity,’ inviting people from all walks of life to express who they are through their trusted FREITAG companion.
Among the many submissions, one stood out for its quiet strength and emotional resonance: Carrying Everything, Everywhere by Malinee Mendonca, a #FULLTIMEMOTHER whose photograph beautifully captures not only an aesthetic sensibility but also the profound, everyday poetry of motherhood.
Other participants, too, revealed striking interpretations of identity, from #ARCHITECT and #SHOPKEEPER to #INTERIORARCHITECT and #VETERINARIAN. Some brought together animals, people, and objects in delightfully unexpected ways, creating scenes that both charm and disarm.
In the end, no award or recognition can define or diminish one’s individuality— because being yourself is the most precious gift in every moment of life. To be yourself is to love yourself, and through that self-love, to share that love with others.
“If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?” – RuPaul
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Malinee Mendonca
Occupation: Full-time Mother
Title of the Photo: Carrying Everything, Everywhere
No matter how near or far, this FREITAG bag is my go-to companion — tough, durable, and easy to carry, whether over the shoulder or as a backpack.
Teechalit Chularat
Occupation: Architect
Title of the Photo: Art Play Work
Beyond being functional and eco-conscious, FREITAG celebrates the art of composition through pattern and color. Its playfulness inspires me every time I use it. This photo reflects my true self; someone who loves art, photography, and carrying tools that make creative work easy, just like FREITAG’s own philosophy.
Phachara Lertphadungtham
Occupation: Interior Architect, Branding, and AI Experience Strategist
Title of the Photo: Title of the Photo: Layers in 3D
FREITAG, one of my life’s (p)layers (not just layers), still takes center stage.
Thanaphat Kongwongwilai
Occupation: Footwear Seller
Title of the Photo: Be Yourself
Whatever the color, it never clashes, as long as it’s your own.
Grish Chengsuebsant
Occupation: Entrepreneur
Title of the Photo: The Business Man
“I came here to drop some money, droppin’ all my money 💴”
Nimitporn Tanwan
Occupation: Business Owner
Title of the Photo: All in One
The idea came from my F302 ROY, a large, beloved FREITAG bag that fits everything I need. Wherever I travel, one bag is all it takes.
Rattapong Angkasith
Occupation: Architect / Lecturer
Title of the Photo: Stillness in Transit
Amid the sounds, smells, and movements of the busy market, I stand still for a brief moment. The world keeps moving, yet I feel calm inside. This moment captures a quiet pause, a stillness within the everyday chaos.
Methawin Sawaikoetsiri
Occupation: Veterinarian
Title of the Photo: FAI-THAK / FREITAG
Whether you read it as FAI-THAK, a playful twist on kwai (buffalo), or as FREITAG, what matters is sharing the same love for recycling and a more livable world.
Phongsakorn Langkakad
Occupation: Photographer
Title of the Photo: Art in 360
Since art exists everywhere, I wanted to bring out as much of it as possible. Starting from my black-and-white F40, which already carried its own artistic character, I wanted the clothes I wore to harmonize with the bag slung at my side.
And that’s where the idea began. I sprayed black paint onto a white shirt, used paper cutouts in oval shapes to mask certain areas, and created an image that connects visually with the bag. Then I flicked small drops of color onto the surface and considered extending the design onto the back strap to complete the composition, turning it into a new kind of wearable artwork that wraps around the body in a full 360 degrees.
Each piece is unique: one bag to one shirt. When worn, the whole artwork comes together and can be carried anywhere you go.
Rang Ainpan
Occupation: Architect
Title of the Photo: The Architect’s Canvas
An architect and FREITAG is a perfect union of endurance and sustainable creativity. Amid the battlefield of architectural life, where blueprints scatter across the floor alongside tools and instruments of the trade, my recycled tarp FREITAG bag rests on my shoulder as a steadfast companion. It is more than just a bag. It embodies resilience, individuality, and sustainability. This image reflects who I am and how I work: creating things that endure, that stand against challenges, and that merge seamlessly with FREITAG’s spirit of thoughtful, lasting design.
At the Heart of Faith: A Portrait of Bangkok’s Indian Community
The idea for At the Heart of Faith began shortly after the exhibition Connect at Bangkok Design Week 2025, which explored how art can bridge cultures through shared space and emotion. Following that event, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) invited me to develop a new cultural project, an outdoor photographic exhibition to coincide with the city’s Diwali Festival. The goal was to highlight the long-established Indian community of Phahurat, known as Bangkok’s Little India, and its enduring place within the capital’s diverse urban fabric.
The vision was clear, to portray the vibrant yet often overlooked life of a community where faith, trade, and tradition coexist within a modern metropolis. The BMA sought to celebrate cultural diversity; I sought to explore the human thread that connects Indian communities across borders, from India to Thailand, through the shared language of belief and belonging.
The project combines two visual worlds, photographs made in India and a new body of work created in Phahurat. Together, they form a dialogue between communities that share the same spiritual rhythm. At its center stands the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha, Bangkok’s principal Sikh temple, whose golden dome rises above the neighborhood as a symbol of faith and continuity.
Around the temple, life moves at its own pace, tailors at their sewing machines, vendors selling fabrics and spices, elders gathered in quiet conversation. These are the daily gestures that sustain a community shaped by work, worship, and resilience.
Here, faith is not only observed in ritual but expressed through everyday acts of care, perseverance, and connection, an enduring testament to the living spirit of Bangkok’s Little India.
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Samatcha Apaisuwan is a Bangkok-based photographer and creative director with over 30 years of experience in visual arts and design. His work explores the connection between culture, faith, and everyday life through a documentary approach. He has collaborated widely across art and cultural institutions as well as leading news and media networks, including the Bangkok Post, Thai PBS World, and the Financial Times.
An attempt to piece together fragments of memory through the city’s elements, seen from the perspective of an outsider. A landscape constructed as a stage for leisure, designed to bring joy, provide comfort, and soothe the mind with entertainment for both its residents and visitors. This reflection draws partly on Delirious New York (1978) by Rem Koolhaas, the architect and theorist whose work has profoundly shaped contemporary architecture. In that book, Koolhaas dissected and laid bare the very making of New York City, particularly the island of Manhattan.
The series of photographs seeks to connect certain truths in Delirious New York with America in Passing (1991), the photobook by Henri Cartier-Bresson, which captured the ordinariness and realities of American life during the 1940s to 1960s.
American life in 2025, scattered and fragmented, emerges in spaces and objects devoted to leisure throughout Manhattan. Yet together these fragments continue to render the metropolis as a vast screen, a colossal television screen, endlessly projecting images of life, of dreams, and of death. On repeat, without end.
Dear Rem, I am very frustrated.
Dear Henri,
I feel so disconnected.
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Bhumibhat Promboot, architect and lecturer, is drawn to buildings, trees, spirits, and animals.
Fireworks festivals in Japan, or Hanabi Taikai, are more than a spectacle of colours across the night sky. They are gatherings where people sit together beneath the stars, waiting for beauty that exists only for a fleeting moment. Each firework blooms like a flower—radiant, resplendent, and vanishing swiftly. It is precisely this transience that leaves its mark upon the heart.
For me, attending the Nagaoka Fireworks Festival was a dream I had carried since childhood. In Japanese comics, I once saw crowds look up at skies ablaze with sparks, and I longed to witness that vision for myself. When at last I stood among the summer throngs, my camera did not merely capture bursts of light; it preserved the feelings and memories that tied me back to those childhood images—once confined to paper, now alive before my eyes.
What made that night unforgettable was not only the fireworks but the atmosphere around me. Families spread picnic mats, shared food, and waited together. When the first explosion echoed, the sky bloomed in colour; elders gazed with serene eyes while children’s laughter rang across the park. It was a scene of warmth that bound countless strangers into one. And when the final spark faded, the sky returned to darkness. Yet what vanished above still glowed within: a reminder that beauty is not meant to last forever, but to teach us the value of each fleeting moment shared beneath the same sky.
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Richard Saesong is a 3D Modeling & Visualizer. Speaking may not be his most natural form of expression, so he turns to photography as a language of its own—one that reflects who he is and how he sees the world. Through tones, lines, subtle movements, and quiet atmospheres, his images remain simple and accessible, yet they preserve the depth and nuances of emotion in their entirety.
This series began at home: my husband was with me, but always on his phone. I felt the screen had taken my place. That feeling began A Modern Day Affair.
The work looks at how phones reshape relationships. Many images are self-portraits; others focus on small details—a cracked screen protector on a cake or notes on a door. Some moments are real; others are imagined but remain emotionally true.
In a clean, staged style, the photographs mix humor and sadness to show how people drift apart even when sitting side by side. I am not blaming phones; rather, I am asking how often we choose screens over connection without noticing.
Lighting, color, and composition add a surreal touch. The series is ongoing. Rooted in personal experience, it remains relatable. It is a reminder to look up and attend to one another.
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Kantaya New is a Thai Singaporean photo artist working across conceptual and street photography. Her street practice finds overlooked, serendipitous moments in daily life, while her conceptual work uses staged scenes and objects to invite reflection—often on how technology shapes relationships. Based in Singapore, she is finalizing A Modern Day Affair and developing new work.
Her work has been exhibited internationally and has received recognition in several renowned competitions such as LensCulture Critics’ Choice, Fujifilm Moment Street Photo Awards and Sony World Photography Awards.
“Whenever I walk past small corners of the city, I often see cats leaping with natural ease. Without preparation, without ritual, these brief moments capture a sense of simple living. Such glimpses become like quiet notes, reminding us that certain beauty is always hidden in the little things around us.”
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Puttipong Nipatutit (Amp) A passionate photographer and owner of a small digital print studio.
“These Surreal Optical Illusions Will Change the Way You See Everyday Life”
This series of street photographs captures moments of coincidence, unique perspectives, and perfectly timed compositions to create images that feel ‘unreal’ — yet everything was captured exactly as it happened, with no staging or manipulation. Each image invites the viewer to pause, question, and see the ordinary world with new eyes. Whether through overlapping elements, deceptive shadows, or strange alignments, these illusions are not tricks of the camera — they are fragments of reality shaped by the lens of curiosity and intuition.
This is the charm of street photography that I love: Not just documenting what is, but revealing what could be seen when we pay attention — the surreal within the everyday.
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Phatsakorn Bundasak currently working as a graphic designer at an advertising agency. Street photography has been his creative outlet since 2019. During his free time, he walk the city streets searching for those unexpected moments where reality twists — even slightly — into something surreal. He’s particularly drawn to illusions and optical confusion, when everyday scenes accidentally transform into dreamlike visuals through timing, shadow, and perspective. These are fleeting moments — sometimes funny, sometimes strange — but always honest. And they remind me that even the real world can surprise us, if we know how to look.
Buildings, temples, parks, and other structures are created by humans for a reason. Temples used to serve as the community center, not only for ceremonies but also to celebrate festivals such as Songkran, auspicious occasions or even New Year’s Day. The temple of each commune took on the role of the key organizer who brought these ceremonies and celebrations to life.
Over time, the number of people in the community has grown. A lot of people move into the city, often in search for good business opportunities . The big, tall buildings started to overshadow the trees on the ground. There will no longer be one business building but there will soon be more neighboring buildings that will have the same function too, along with train stations and shopping malls. Then, all of a sudden you’re surrounded by tall buildings.
Another change in many buildings nowadays are the design function and the way facilities are used. The buildings need to be designed to stand out or maybe have hybrid functions. While the aged buildings stand still, keeping the neighborhood’s old sense.
What you will see around you might be a shopping mall building along with a business building with office spaces. The British Council Building (1980) is an example of this – it has been transformed into a fashion warehouse and is now surrounded by new buildings. The Temple is now nestled between a bustling city and the park is also surrounded by high-rise buildings.
Look around and see for yourself. There are many things that are often unnoticed. Every little detail is next to you, hidden in plain sight.
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Santawat Chienpradit is an emerging photographer with an interest in architectural and still life photography.
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