Tom Vater

I have been interviewed by Marco Ferrarese about my book Sacred Skin on the website of travel writer Rolf Potts.
Read the full interview here.

February 10th, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, book, Hans Kemp, Marco Ferrarese, Monkey Rock World, review, Rolf Potts, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

Sacred Skin, my book on Thailand’s sacred tattoos, for sale at Phnom Penh Airport, Monument Books.
But who’s the dodgy looking guy on the left?

February 9th, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, book, Cambodia, display, Hans Kemp, Phnom Penh, Phom Penh Airport, photography, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, Steve Jobs, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World | Category: Cambodia, Thailand | Leave a comment

Yesterday, Achan Neng Onnut, a Sak Yant tattoo master who supported the research of my new book Sacred Skin, the first English language publication on Thailand’s sacred tattoos, celebrated Wai Khru Day. During the course of the day, hundreds of his devotees visited his home in Bangkok to pay their respects to the master and [...]

January 29th, 2012 | Tags: Achan Neng Onnut, Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, Bangkok, book, Hans Kemp, James Nachtwey, photography, review, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World, Wai Khru, writer | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

A Bangkok Post review of my new book Sacred Skin - Thailand’s Spirit Tattoos, co-authored with photographer Aroon Thaewchatturat, has just been reposted on the Awesome Tattoos blog.
The review includes an interview with Aroon.
Photo taken at Bangkok International Airport.

January 22nd, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, Awesome Tattoos, Bangkok, book, Hans Kemp, photography, review, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World, writer | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

Achan Neng Onnut, one of several tattoo masters featured in my recent book Sacred Skin, the first English language publication on Thailand’s spirit tattoos, Sak Yant, has posted a number of images of the shoot for two documentaries on the book.
Check out the images here.
Director Marc Eberle shot an 8 minute docu on Sacred [...]

January 15th, 2012 | Tags: Achan Neng Onnut, Aroon Thaewchatturat, arte TV, Asia, Bangkok, book, Die Zeit, documentary, Hans Kemp, James Nachtwey, Marc Eberle, Metropolis, photography, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World, writer | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

Lard Yao Peter travels and tattoos. With long steel needles.
Peter learned his trade in Lard Yao Prison, also known as Klong Prem or the Bangkok Hilton, Thailand’s notoriously infamous jail, where he spent some time in the 1990s.
Spiegel TV has produced an interesting documentary on this extraordinary German. Obviously, the film is in German but [...]

January 15th, 2012 | Tags: Achan Neng Onnut, Andreas Nebeling, Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, Bangkok, Bangkok Hilton, book, Die Zeit, Germany, Hans Kemp, heilige Tättowierungen, James Nachtwey, Klong Prem Prison, Lard Yao Peter, Marc Eberle, Meike Fries, photography, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, Spiegel TV, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World | Category: Germany, Thailand | Leave a comment

Regional news round-up publication AsiaViews republishes a great review by Ezra Kyrill Erker, of my new book Sacred Skin, which originally ran in the Bangkok Post in July 2011.

January 14th, 2012 | Tags: 2011, Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, AsiaViews, Bangkok Post, book, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Hans Kemp, photography, review, Sacred Skin, Sacred Tattoos, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

“Sacred Skin Thailands Spirit Tattoos, the new two-hundred page, eight-by-ten-inch guide to sak yant protection tattoos by Tom Vater, with color photography by Aroon Thaewchatturat, is a beautifully organized, visual treat for both tattoo artists and collectors. Divided into easily navigable sections (Sak Yant, Master and Devotees, Sacred Images, [...]

January 12th, 2012 | Tags: Aroon Thaewchatturat, Asia, book, Hans Kemp, Headbanger Tattoos, photography, review, Sacred Skin, Sak Yant, South East Asia, tattoo, Thailand, Tom Vater, Visionary World, writer | Category: Thailand | Leave a comment

On a recent trip to Cambodia, I noticed that my first non fiction book Beyond the Pancake Trench is still being sold as a bootleg photocopy in Siem Reap bookshops.
I was browsing the shelves of a pirate DVD shop in Phnom Penh a couple days ago, when I found, much to my surprise, that The [...]

January 12th, 2012 | Tags: Air America, Alfred McCoy, Amerikas geheimer Krieg in Laos, Apocalypse Now, Asia, Beyond the Pancake Trench, bootleg, Cambodia, CIA, documentary, drugs, Fred Branfman, heroin, Heroin and the CIA, Hmong, Laos, Long Cheng, Marc Eberle, opium, Phnom Penh, pirate, Secret War, South East Asia, The Most Secret Place on Earth, Tom Vater, Tony Poe, USA, Vang Pao, Vietnam, Vietnam War, writer | Category: Cambodia, Laos | Leave a comment