I Want To Take Picture by Bill Burke
Published by Twin Palms, 2007.
Hardcover, 60pg. Color and B&W
12" x 18"
A reprint of Bill Burke’s seminal book of the same title, first published by Nexus Press in 1987, I Want to Take Picture features black-and-white images which Burke shot during several trips through Southeast Asia in the early 1980s, particularly focusing on the after-effects of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia.
In 1982, years after Viet Nam, I decided to give myself my own Southeast Asia experience. I wanted to make pictures in a place where I didn’t know the rules, where I’d be off balance. Friends who had been there recommended Thailand; nice people, easy transportation, good food. Another friend told me that as long as I was going to Thailand I should go see the refugees coming out of Cambodia. He set me up with the International Rescue Committee, which was working at the Thai-Cambodian border. — Bill Burke