Thai Yaksha

While strolling through the museum exhibits I stumbled across a Yaksha, the devilish giant that once stood guard outside a Thai Buddhist temple. He was one of the demon soldiers of the army of Ravana, serving the king of Lanka in the Ramayana. In spite of his confident and fierce appearance, he looked very lonely and out of place, far away from his familiar monkey warrior comrades and nowhere near the familiar chedi or stupa that honored the Buddha in his distant homeland.

This photo was taken by a Kowa Super 66 medium format film camera with a KOWA 1:3.5/55 lens and Kowa L39•3C(UV) ø67 filter using Ilford Delta 3200 film, the negative scanned by an Epson Perfection V600 and digitally rendered with Photoshop.