The Big Buddha and Wat Plai Laem

On Koh Faan, a small island off Samui's north-east coast joined to it by a short causeway, the Big Buddha — a golden figure twelve metres tall — has looked over the sea since 1972. A staircase lined with naga serpents climbs to the platform at its base. A few minutes' drive away, Wat Plai Laem sets a white, eighteen-armed Guanyin and a large white laughing Buddha around a lake, with its ordination hall on an island in the water.

Both are places of worship before they are viewpoints, and a session here is quieter and more reserved than on a beach: shoulders and knees covered, shoes off where the signs say so, voices low. Photograph the images on their own or well behind you rather than posing with them; never stand with your head higher than a Buddha's, never point your feet towards an image or a monk, and a woman does not touch a monk or hand him anything directly. Kisses and lifts belong outside the temple grounds — on the causeway, not on the steps. For an arranged shoot on temple ground, the photographer asks the temple first.

Early morning is the quietest at both, before the heat and the crowds; the driest months are about February to April, and the heaviest rain falls from October to December. The airport is about three kilometres to the south, and drones may not fly within nine kilometres of an airport without approval — this whole corner of the island is out for a visitor's drone.