My name is Gerald Hewko but I use the pseudonym Gerry Yaum for all my photography. I do this to remain more anonymous, and to focus all attention on the people in my photographs instead of myself.
I am from Edmonton, Canada, am 61 years old and have been doing photography and darkroom work since I was 14. My occupation for 30 years (now retired) was as a security guard. (Yaum= means security guard in Thai).

As part of my creative process, I learned to speak Thai so I could better communicate and understand the lives of the people I photograph.
THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE UNDER THE FREEWAY, is a series of social documentary
photography and food donation work that started in 2010, the project is ongoing.
The photographs document and interpret the lives of the Thai people living in a small area under a freeway in Khlong Toei slum, Bangkok, Thailand. All money raised through the photography, donations, print sales, exhibition fees, talk fees, magazine payments, is used to directly help the people in the photographs, through gifts of food, from my hand to theirs.

My daily routine while making the pictures is to make photographs, hand out food, make
more photographs before handing out more food. We buy sticky rice, chicken, fish,
vegetables, fruits, Som Tum (papaya salad) and other foods, then directly hand the food out to the people in need.
The final exhibition prints for the project are Salt or Platinum-Palladium and Gelatin Silver, in sizes 4x5 to 20x24 inches. I make handmade wooden frames for all the work. I feel that the presentation-framing is an important part of the creative process.

If requested I can also do an artist talk on the project, that includes videos about the lives of
my friends in the slum and the stories behind the individual pictures. In the talk I include
some technique information of the making of the final images in Platinum-Palladium, Salt
and Gelatin Silver.

Gerry.