Eighteen-year-old Jiranthanin Thianpatthanapol, AKA Gutjang, is a YouTuber and an award-winning photographer. The young artist also has a Facebook page called "Gutjang’s Life" that boasts over 600K followers. He started out four years ago, documenting his experiences as a student in the US. Just before he left, his father handed him a camera, told him to capture anything around him that caught his eye, and then send it back so that his father could share the experience. His first images were just random moments that were taken to fulfil his father’s wishes, but he started to realise that photography was an engaging skill and an art form and began to take it seriously.

“I would carry my camera with me everywhere and took courses to improve my skills and techniques," he said. "Looking back on the photos I took, they seem to have a special value for me because they all captured certain moments in my life.”

Most recently, Gutjang’s photograph, When Fish Fly, won the Gold Key prize in the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards 2022 in the US. The intriguing image features a shoal of trout “flying” above White Lake in Blain, New Jersey. Gutjang explained, “I submitted photos to the contest the previous year but didn’t win anything, so this year, I thought I had to have an image that would make the judges stop and look at my photo from among the 250,000 entries.”

When Fish Fly was taken on a school photo expedition to White Lake, not far from his school, Blair Academy. He wanted to take a photo that would baffle his teacher. As if on cue, a truckload of trout arrived. Someone then fished the trout from the truck with a net and threw them into the lake. It was the way the local government replenished the stock in preparation for the fishing season. Gutjang chose a different angle from all his friends and he caught the perfect moment of the fish hovering in the air before landing in the lake (see the photo above).

When Fish Fly as well as seven other photographs are now being exhibited under the title Our Moment in Mine at Madi BKK Café and Creator Hub. Among these is another award-winning photo, Metromance, capturing two lovers sharing an intimate moment taken at a subway station in New York.

“Normally the subway stations in New York are bustling," Gutjang explains, "But in that moment everything was still—a truly perfect moment.” 

Our Moment in Mine will be on display until July 14, after which all eight photographs will be auctioned via the Gutjang’s Life Facebook page, with total proceeds going to the Warm Heart Foundation in Chiang Mai that helps local communities overcome issues that affect their lives.