Bleak Days

Cilacap, earlier this month.












111408

I'm gonna admit, I'm not a sport person. I suck at pretty much any kind of sports out there. Used to be quite good at swimming, but that was around 9 years ago or so. Now, I don't think I'd last 10 minutes in the pool without getting a leg cramp.

But that fact doesn't deter me from coming along with friends whenever they wanna do some sport. And just like many other youth in Jogja these days, futsal is the popular choice. The game itself has been played for long, but it wasn't until around mid 2007 (if I remember correctly) that futsal places began popping out in the city like mushrooms sprouting in monsoon. Even until now, when roaming the streets I still often find new signs pointing to a recently built futsal places.

This particular one they rent was a small one, consisting of only one field and it wasn't really properly lit either, but if you're just playing for fun it's always sufficient.






Waiting for their turns to play. By the end of the game Choi's team got completely slaughtered, haha. The score was... well, actually we stopped counting when his opponent team was in the lead by (at least) 5 goals. And the score gap kept getting further afterwards. ;)







(Waited for the ball to drop somewhere on the upper part of the frame. Didn't happen.)
From November 4th. Taken around the time when a big change was supposed to be happening. In contrast nothing much was happening in this part of the world, and while I'm somewhat glad to see the result, to be honest I don't really see how the whole thing's gonna affect this country that much either. Perhaps these guys do.








"Follow the star". Indeed.

Facelift

The blog of course, not me. Me, I got chickenpox... at this age, yes. I'm recovering though.

So, in a nifty mood swing I decided it's time to give this blog a new layout. One that I've been thinking about for a while, based on this big idea. That is... whether I can call my pictures "art" if I show them in bigger size. Make them look more important and stuff. I mean, art galleries do it so why can't we?

But seriously, it's about efficiency. Beside here I post my pictures on some other places and it's been a pain to edit pictures to different sizes for each site I submit to. This way I'll only have to resize once for all of them. So here they are, now a whopping 900 pixels wide (yeah, you better watch out, Big Picture!) Photo thefts be damned. I mean, who's gonna steal some pictures by some unknown guy of some random scenes on the street or some people you don't know right? RIGHT?

Anyway, pictures. From about two weeks ago, mom suddenly felt like going to beach so we did. These are not important but as I said, let's just pretend they are because they're big.










....Man, I miss going to the beach with my friends. :(

Dusting Off the FM2

Boy I haven't used that camera for a long while. So when Andi dropped by in town last September to shoot around I decided to take it out for a walk. Still feels as reliable as ever, though the viewfinder is a bit muddy... I'll have to get it cleaned later.

Didn't use up the whole roll on that occasion (I'm real slow when using film), luckily Ana also visited Jogja about last week so I got another chance to expose the remaining half. Didn't know what film was inside at that time, turned out to be my last roll of Trix.

So here you go, nothing really interesting actually, it's basically just me getting used to the camera all over again.







Something for geometry lovers. Thanks to Andi for completing the frame by providing his head. :D






This turned out crap, heh. Perhaps with some cleaner tank and simpler background it could work.





Ah, those frames which don't have any real content and were taken simply because "the light was nice".













Abstract a.k.a. "I don't know what else I should point my camera at" frame.



Cropping limbs are fun.







Perhaps if I do at least a hundred more of this I could justify it as "typology study"?






Reminds me of Charlotte's project which will be in November 4th, except instead of sometime in the morning it'll be at 11PM here (challenge!). I already have some alternatives for the place I'm gonna shoot, just need to make sure to check all of them before the actual project date to see if there's anything interesting going on in those places during that time.



Aaand some stylish pedicab man to end this post. Kinda surprised to see this one turned out okay actually, since I was hipshooting and my hipshots are usually badly tilted.

Hope you're all fine! Jogja has (finally) started to get some rain lately, and looking at Brian's post kinda make me wanna shoot in the rain too (hell, he's got typhoons there and still shooting!)... if I don't catch a cold first, that is.

Hello Again

Hey, 'sup everyone? Been a while. First of all, it might be a week late, but nevertheless happy Eid al-Fitr for those of you who celebrate it. :) Even if you don't, as is the custom here, please pardon all the wrongdoings I've done, unintended or otherwise.

Haven't been shooting much lately (perhaps I catch Billitone's creativity block?), but here are some frames from last week, mostly taken inside my grandpa's house. It's a relatively small yet cozy place which always gets packed every year during the Eid as the whole family will be there to celebrate together.

My father's death last month reminded me of how seldom I photograph my own family, a circle which is supposed to be my closest (at least according to our own tradition) yet seems forgotten. Or it's not really forgotten, but more like it's me who is reluctant to connect with them for many reasons... Frankly, I am not someone you would call a family person. Not that I don't care about them, but you could say I just can't understand yet why I should be close to them just because we're blood related. I guess these pictures can be seen as my early attempt to better understand them, just like how I love to photograph the daily life in the street to try to somehow 'make sense' of everything, through those little instances that catch my interest. Looking at them, I think these pictures don't depict the actual feel of the place and the moment though, and still tend to talk about how *I* feel about those things. Hope they're still somewhat informative enough.


































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On another note, I'm planning to help Charlotte doing her photo project, the details of which can be read there on her blog. So far she has gathered quite a lot of participants, but she could use some more people especially from outside Europe/US. The date of the project has yet to be set, but if you're interested do let her know! The idea is nothing new I suppose (even I have thought of it myself albeit in a smaller scale), but it still sounds fun enough to make me wanna jump in. I'm already wondering what everyone else's photo would be.