Thailand

Scope and content :

The slides from her first series as a freelance photographer filled 17 albums on Thailand, organized alphabetically from A – Z. As mentioned from the mid-1980s to early 2000s, she had pictures and articles published in many magazines including: Newsweek, The Far Eastern Economic Review, Asian Wall Street Journal, Regent Magazine, Mandarin Oriental Magazine, Discovery (Cathay Pacific Airlines), Asian Advertising & Marketing, Far East Business, Asia Magazine, Sojourn Magazine (Sheraton Hotels), The Peninsula Group Magazine, Sawasdee (Thai Airlines), Billion, Inn Asia (Holiday Inn Asia-Pacific) and The Pacific Traveler.

Here are some notes about this slide collection. First, it is very eclectic covering many topics, including architecture, artists, beaches, crafts, factories, festivals, spirit houses, temples and traffic. Second, the caption information is necessarily brief. But occasionally, there are references to Guelden’s published articles and books for more information. In other cases, the captions are very general because more specific information has been lost over time. Third, the collection has numerous duplicates because slide film photography requires precise exposure. Any picture that was too light or dark or out of focus would not be accepted by the magazines. Therefore many similar pictures were shot. In addition, it was the practice of professional photographers to create more than one ‘original’ in camera of the same subject to be used for different purposes.

As a practice whenever possible, Guelden took portable light softboxes on stands on location for better quality photographs without strong shadows from a bare flash. She recalls taking softboxes to Wat Suthat Thepwararam to photograph a significant blessing of new Buddha statues. Local Thai news reporters covered the event because of the important political figures who attended. One reporter was surprised to see Guelden lugging in the equipment and complimented her for “being just like a man.”

The Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre had the slides converted to a digital format by a professional company in Bangkok so that the public could research them by computer. The albums are being released in alphabetical order as captions are added with Album #1: Agriculture – Architecture (new) being posted in January 2026. The value of this slide collection is that it captures a certain time in Thai history more than 25 years ago and covers a variety of topics that might appeal to the public.