Wetlook World Forum

Message # 78933.1.1.1.1.1.2.1

Subject: Re:What about Portugal?

Date: Sun 10/11/19 13:04:09 GMT

Name: MiguelWarsaw

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By MK - wamtec@comcast.net Thu 07/11/19 17:53:52 GMT

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Thailand in dead easy because the water festival event happen for 10 days in 3 major places....Bangkok, Chiang Mail and Pattaya. The Pattaya events take place one week later than the Chiang Mai and Bangkok events. That means it is easy for one cameraman to spend a week in Chiang Mai or Bankgok, and then take a trip to Pattaya for week 2.....very nice and convenient.

Paris and Moscow are also easy, because those 2 cities each have over 2 dozen major fountains and water plazas....and most are within easy walking distance of each other....so one cameraman can wander around to 10-15 fountains very easily on the same day.

Places like Poland, Hungary, Sovenua and Croatia have interesting wetlook festivals, but none of them are centralized to one major area, and all their events are entirely "local" and dispersed in dozens of small towns around those countries....making if impossible for anybody to predict where is the best place to visit.

Predicting where and when some wetlook scenes will happen is as impossible as predicting when and where it will rain.....i.e. there are some very nice wetlook parades on Youtube where people get soaked in the rain....I would loved to have been there....but who can predict when and where it will rain. Sam of Liquid Ladies had was going to an NFL game and suggested buying expensive tickets in the Cheerleaders zone at an NFL Game a couple of years ago, and he emailed me to say that the weather forecasters were forecasting torrential rain, and did I want him to grab some very hight priced tickets so he could get wet cheerleaders footage in the cheerleaders zone. I said....sure.....take a gamble that the weather forecast was correct....so we bought the tickets....and Sam went to the game....and there was only very light drizzle and no torrential rains at all. That is the way it goes. Wetlook events are often a crap shoots and you get nothing.

So far, I have never found any candid wetlook fans from Portugal who want to film their public wetlook events....Portuguese-based candid wetlook fans don't exist....but there are plenty of wetlook fans in Russia..

MK

By leonmoomin - leon@mostwam.com Mon 04/11/19 14:58:35 GMT

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There's the Queima Das Fitas things in May and Praxes things in September.

Due to the outfits, would that not be a great place to send radiographers?

I know there used to be lots on Youtube, but nothing much over the last couple of years.

leonmoomin

By MK - wamtec@comcast.net Sun 03/11/19 23:04:34 GMT

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TOURIST vs a LOCAL CAMERMAN:  The Songkran festival in Thailand is very easy for a tourist attend, and myself and Ytsen travel there ourselves and it is easy to see wetlook because all the wetlook happens in a 10 day period every April. All you have to do is take a vacation to Thailand in April and in 10 days you can easily shoot 20 hours of wetlook events during those 10 days. Moscow is a totally different ballgame, because in order to collect the wetlook fountains events you need to be there for 100 days (from mid May until end of August). Over the last 10 years since I have hired Sergey and his friends they have managed to gather an average of 30 hours of wetlook scenes per season, so that is 30 hours gathered in 100 days etc, which is approx 18 mins of scenes per day. If you go to Thailand for 2 weeks you can easily get 20 hours of scenes while on a cheap airticket and hotel, so it makes sense to go to Thailand for a 2 week vacation. If you went on a 2 week vacation to Moscow, you will  have to pay considerably higher airfares from the USA and much higher hotel cost -- the visa application to Moscow was $300 the last time I checked. After 2 weeks in Moscow you are not likely to get more than 4hrs of footage, and that is if you are lucky and it does not rain. Often it is bad weather in Moscow and the weather is lousy for long periods. So the bottom line is ....for a $2000 vacation to Thailand you will have a great time and gather more then 20 hours of footage. I priced what it would cost for a trip for me to visit Moscow, including $300 for a Visa...and the total costs would exceed $5000 and then if I am lucky with the weather I will only get 4 hours of wetlook events, and if the weather is not good....I may get nothing at all. It is MUCH much better to hire a local cameraman who lives in Moscow and can travel there during the entire 100 day shooting season, and then I get 30+ hrs of footage from Sergey and his friends. I already get some complaints from people who say that the price of the clips is too high, which is because I have to factor the labor costs for hiring Sergey and his friends for 100 days etc. If I were to travel there myself or fly in tourists from other countries, then the clip prices would double or triple to add in all these extra travel costs.

I have repeatedly tried to hire wetlook fans to visit Moscow, and offered to pay for their travel expenses and also I purchased several camcorders for past people....and this has not worked out well at all (after sending money to some people to buy a camera and travel expenses, 2 of these persons just took the money and disappeared and I never heard from again, so I was scammed). These days I will only send travel funds and cameras to trusted people I have known for several years.

I have placed many ads on my website and on the Russian Wetlook Forum, to try and find new cameraman, but so far I do not get any responses. The reality is....candid wetlook fans prefer to be armchair quarterbacks and to enjoy the media without having to endure the risks associated...e.g. irate boyfriends attacking the cameraman and smashing their cameras (which has happened a few times), security police hassling you...which is mostly a shakedown because all they want is for their palms to be greased, and then they will leave you alone. Which leads me to the next topic you raised below....i.e. it has nothing to do "shyness"....but has everything to do with "safety"....read ,my answer below....

By MiguelWarsaw - Sun 03/11/19 19:45:33 GMT

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So while local photographers are the best, for events (like last bell) you can use foreign ones, and I guess you did, as it seems your Russian guys covered it. Just now use guys from the European Union. Might be more pricey, as salaries are higher, but the rock bottom LCC plane tickets could even that out - tickets from Moscow to Kiev were never that cheap actually. The problem might be westerners not speaking Russian. Russian knowledge is rare in the Western EU and rare among anyone younger than 50 in the Eastern EU, but not knowing Russian (or Ukrainian) may actually work in the photographers favor. Some ex USSR cops will not hassle foreigners from the west, especially those who do not know the language, as well, the cops themselves don't know English, so it's hard to hassle ;)

By MK - wamtec@comcast.net Sun 03/11/19 15:16:24 GMT

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Thankfully Moscow has plenty of other fountains. Moscow and Paris have more fountains than any other cities in the world.

We will re-assess the situation in 2020 and change some of the locations again next year, as well as visit other cities in Russia as well.

Sadly, the best city for wetlook fountains, remains off limits...i.e. Kiev in the Ukraine is a no go zone with travel restrictions for Russians since it was annexed in 2014.

By Kerry Tiller - Sun 03/11/19 14:46:43 GMT

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By MK - wamtec@comcast.net Sun 03/11/19 01:04:08 GMT

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Also, a new wetlook competition added, that does not require wetlook knowledge, merely observation skills.

Sample pics and competition @ https://twitter.com/WamtecTV

Full galleries @ http://megastore.wamtec.com

MK