Ya know, looking at my recent entries here, it would seem that this blog has developed into yet another here's-my-daily-life kinda blog. Added with photos. What the hell, that's not what I had in mind when I started blogging... I was hoping I could fill this blog with photos that can show my progress in photography learning. Ow hell, whatever, guess I will just have to settle with what I have now.
Ucok lighting his cig. Not sure if Sasha makes a good foreground, but I needed something to direct the gaze to the flame, so there you go. ;p Love the shape of the match's flame on that one.
Ian in his new coffee shop. Nothing fancy for now, but he's been wanting to open it for some time, so I guess he's pretty excited now that it's finally open. Congratulations dude! Wish you success with it. :)
So anyway, I hung out with some friends last Monday in Ambarukmo Plaza. Whoo, shiny place. Don't usually go to shopping malls, except somebody asked me to. Brought both the D50 and FM2 with me, which was actually not a really nifty thing to do... Placed the D50 in the shoulder bag, hung the FM2 on the other shoulder. God I must looked like a total camera geek back then. :O
Anyway.
Mita, in the basement parking lot. Yummy bokeh.
Sasha and Metty on the elevator. Sometimes 18mm is not even wide enough. Shooting this in a full frame camera, though, would have included Mita in the frame... which I think would make it nicer. Sorry Mit. ;)
We went to the plaza to watch movie. Must have been literally years for me since I last saw a movie in cinema, I usually just rent them. The 21 was pretty crowded, and the tickets for that hour soon ran out, while we're still thinking what movie to watch.
After a while it's decided we're gonna watch Deja Vu which was about half a hour later. To spend time we headed to the foodcourt... the girls' favorite. Oh, but not before taking this one:
Round faces, hehe.
I always got indecisive on what to eat in new places, so I asked Sasha for some recommendation, and it's.... Peking chicken!
The bowl's shape is nice, love the design. Nice interior too, I like the yellow-orange color scheme.
Finished eating, but still got some time before the movie started. Shot some more. Shooting with DSLRs isn't really nice though in malls like these. Attracts more attention than I wanted. I suppose some security guards actually saw me shooting and didn't like it, but I could get away since I was with my friends.
The movie itself was... well, I enjoyed it. I'm no moviegoers so I couldn't really make a decent review. A friend told me later on that there's some major plotholes in the movie, but I thought it's still an enjoyable one.
The next day went hunting with ADVY friends to search some objects for an assignment, but rain got in the way. Jogja has finally started raining heavily lately... limiting our chance of finding well-lit places outdoor during the day, though also opening another challenging opportunities if you're sensitive. Got this panning shot that I like that day:
Some people in FN commented how the boy's moment not frozen enough, while pointing the blur on his head. Can't help but smile on those comments. Cause I doubt they ever made a good enough panning of a running person to know the characteristics of human panning... no folks, it's different than panning a, say, car or motorcycle. Way different. ;)
A good photo doesn't always mean it's technically perfect. And even the term "good photo" is very subjective... a photo you love so much you could frame it and hang it on your bedroom wall, can mean trash for another people, vice versa. For example I got some of these technically faulty shots that I like anyway:
It was dark, and the auto-focus just gave up so I didn't have a choice but to manual focus. In those two frames above they're both off-focus, yet for me personally, they're actually better than any other portraits of Sukma and Ucok I've taken up until this day. The mood's so.... them.
That is all. Cheers!
PS. From now on I'm resizing down the photos, hopefully it'll be easier for you guys with shitty connection to view the photos!
So, in the end I decided to join the workshop. I registered on Thursday, after I wrote the last entry in this blog. The 'registration' turned out to be some kind of waiting list, where we write down our names and numbers, and then basically wait till the organizer call us... oh well. So I waited and waited. But the phone didn't ring. Not until half an hour before the workshop began. What the hell. When I came, they were already starting. A young lady from the organizer told me that the workshop was gonna be shorter, from the original 3 days to 2 days. But tell you what, I'm glad I joined. Cause it was good.
Fucking awesome, even.
For starter, Sigit Pamungkas is one badass photojournalist. I mean... The man's the real deal. He's been photographing lots of important events, seen lotsa shit, almost getting himself killed in different assignments (always a plus point, heh), knows other badass photographers in person (You guys seen Nachtwey's War Photographer documentary? When Nachtwey's photographing Kawah Ijen, he asked Sigit for reference... how friggin cool is that?), and basically being a great person to talk to about photojournalism in general. Just hearing him sharing his experiences got me excited.
There was also another photojournalist in the workshop, Antonius Riva Setiawan, who also knows his stuff. He's made features for local and international NGO projects, and also attended a workshop by VII Photo agency in 2004. He's a cool guy, really expressive and straight-forward, and also a nice person to talk to. We talked about street photography during a break, enlightened me with new insights and new ways of looking street photography. What wicked was... he brought a Leica M7, with a Summicron 35/2. Yup, last night was my first time holding a Leica. :D Before that I've only heard and read about that thing. But holding it yourself... it's a whole different experience. Dunno if it's just excitement, but the camera *is* really nice to handle. Gotta love how it focuses on objects.
Anyway, about the workshop itself... it's gonna be long to write down all the details, but to make it simple it deals with creating sharp contents within your photos. To me personally, this workshop really broadened and changed my whole view of photojournalism. In a good way. It made me realize how clueless and dumb I was in the subject. Looking back at my photos I made this far with the knowledge I got from the workshop, they all seem... well, trash. Damn.
One of these days I'm gonna try hanging out to Srengenge office, see if I can meet Riva again (well, he did invite me, and offered to show some books and films about Bresson... cool!) and talk more about the subjects. I still got some questions in mind.
For the time being, here's some trashy pics from a short street session I did several days ago, before the workshop.
Aaand... some composition play with lines:
Sadly I didn't take any photos during the workshop. I was too dumbfounded, I must say. Ciao for now!
I'm wondering if I should join a photostory workshop which will take place... tomorrow. I knew the news since last Monday, but been hesitating until now. Since it's tomorrow, I suppose today's the last day for registration. The workshop will be held for three days, from tomorrow to Sunday. What's holding me back is the entrance fee, which I think is kinda pricey... wonder if it's gonna worth it. But honestly, I want to come. Man, I'm such an indecisive bastard. ;P
The workshop is organized by Srengenge, which I hadn't heard before, but after further checking turned out to be an advertising agency. Kinda weird since the workshop is more about journalistic stuff... Anyway, check out their website here. The workshop will feature Sigit Pamungkas, the Indonesian contributor for Reuters. You can find some of his photos in Lapindo mud reportage in this month's edition of National Geographic Indonesia, though the photos in it are mostly Feri Latief's works, the original photographer assigned for the reportage.
So... what to do, what to do? I may have to decide that on the way to campus today.
Last Saturday night we were having fun in Ichank's place... celebrating what's supposed to be our victory in the last Gala Architecture, the campus' annual sport event between each year's class. The funny thing was... nobody actually recalled that we *did* win. The event was pretty much forgotten when it came to a sudden break after Jogja was hit by that disastrous earthquake last May, and no winner was ever announced. But a few weeks ago suddenly it's decided that our class won, and so we were eligible for the grand prize.... a goat. Just don't ask. Anyway, there was a little trouble regarding what we're gonna do with the goat... it would seem that there was miscommunication and the goat was sold without us knowing. In the end we got the money, organized this little party and invited everyone from the class. No one asked further questions... hey, when you get free meal, it's all good. ;p
The snacks:
The people:
Almost all who know me nowadays are already used to seeing me with camera on my hands, so they don't really find it strange to see me pointing my camera at them. But I guess sometimes I still caught some of them off guard:
Hehe.
The night's getting late and so we went outside to prepare some surprise for everyone: fireworks. It's out of the budget though so we had to collect some fund earlier that day to buy them. Some expensive stuff, considering they would only last for a few minutes... it's okay for once in a while, I guess. It's all fun.
Like how these two were also having their own fun... we're weird like that. ;p
So finally, everyone was outside, and the show began! These shots are each 3 second exposure... *handheld*. So please pardon me if they're all curly and fuzzy.
One thing about those fireworks though... they're fucking LOUD. I mean, you usually see them during big celebrations, in large open public places with crowdy audience. In those places, the sound never seems that loud. But having fireworks in a quiet residential area... I think it's safe to say that we pissed off the whole neighborhood that night. Not our fault, mate. We did ask for permission first. But honestly, we didn't expect it to be THAT loud either. ;)
After all was finished, everyone went home... except, of course, our gang, which stayed around until midnight. Talking about pointless stuff like usual.
These next shots are ISO 1600, f/3.5, 1 second... pretty dark out there.
We're planning to have some fireworks again on the next new year's eve. Probably with a bigger ones. In another unlikely places. ;)
