The rest of the pics from Ngasem last Sunday. Some of these shots were taken with black and white mind though I was using a color film (Superia X-tra 400), so they might come out weird. I was tempted to convert some of these, but... naah, to get BW photos when using analogue, you use BW films, period.


That pup kept trying to get out... and the guy selling him kept putting him back in the cage. Kinda sad.


I can't seem to get anything interesting out of the daily needs part of the market. The part with the animals, on the other hand, seem to always have the scenes... dunno.


They almost looked like a boyband... what's with all the different pose. :o

Sometimes you find people with amusing look in this market, though it doesn't really fit what they do. Like this man, for example. He gotta be the most hip-looking cigarette vendor I've ever stumbled into:




That's Dinto going in for a shot. After he left I moved to that spot to see what he was shooting, and couldn't help to take a pic of it as well. ;p


Tomorrow my friends asked me to go fishing.... dunno where, but could be fun. :)

Oh, and my D50 is back too, much faster than I thought it was gonna be. Hmm, guess the guys in Alta aren't that bad.

Got the negscan from Central. From what I've seen, there doesn't seem to be much different between the two lab I've tried. The color reproduction and sharpness of both labs' negscans seem to be okay. Haven't tried to scan my BW in Maestro, but it's much cheaper though (Central doesn't let me use my own CD... sucks), so I guess they're the lab I'm gonna frequent to. ;)

Some example: (Superia X-tra 400)


^ She was staying put for a while that I couldn't help but take a shot... turned out that was meant to be a pose. Heh, never changed a bit, eh Met? ;p


^ They were talking about the rumor of some HIV-infected needles being set up in public seats... dude, thought that was an old hoax.


Aside from the X-tra roll above, also scanned a roll of Lucky SHD 100 and a Neopan SS 100+2. The Lucky scans are... uh, screwed. Awful banding in most frames. I don't know what the trouble is, it doesn't occur in the Neopan scans. Here are the Neopan:


My friend Dinto trying to shoot.... uh, I dunno what he's trying to shoot. :o We were going back home from our shoot-out session in Ngasem, the rain forced us to stop to take shelter.

Later on that day, saw an unusual crowd in a sport center near where I live, so I decided to stop and check out what's happening. It was a swimming competition for some school kids. Dolphin Cup 2007. Didn't ask around, so I didn't get any further information regarding the level of the competition, who held it, the participants... nothing. Way to go for someone who said he's interested in photojournalism. Ugh.

Anyway, photos:


Yeah, that kid still in the start box sure isn't going to reach the finish line first.


Shooting in the tribune sure is nice:


Yep, that's my favorite. Most likely yours too. ;)


Went back down from the tribune, trying to get closer to the people involved.


More photos of this swimming competition can be found here.

Rain poured down again, stopped shooting and went home. Ciao for now!

So... two days ago we got another quake in the morning, and the rain is back too. Jogja's getting interesting again.

This is gonna be a short post as I don't have many photos to share at the moment. Well there's a lot of pics from my last job, waiting to be edited and stuff... but they won't go here. Not most of them anyway. ;) It was basically just a photo session for some high school class who's going to make a yearbook. I was to make their formal group shots, individual portraits of each students, and some conceptual shots of a story they had come up with. Of the three tasks, we were only able to cover the first two... the third had to be canceled due to the bad weather. I could even barely finished the portraits because of the heavy rain. :
Some example of last Saturday's session, these ones are already post-processed. Canon EOS 30D, with Canon 28-105/f3.5-5.6, borrowed from my school friend.


Yeah, they wore costumes. Quite determined to make their class stand out among the other classes, I suppose. :o


Enough with that, and moving on to another topic. So, this next one's gonna make me look unbelievably stupid, but I'm too excited about it that I just don't care with that. :D I just got some info about a lab that can scan negs for some cheap price, and luckily, it's not that far from where I live. The last time I asked for negscans' price in Artha, the numbers shocked me too much that I didn't ask around to the other place... I thought that it was pretty much the same cost anywhere else. But this place I've tried... it's far cheaper than Artha's, and it's surprisingly good too! This time they scanned a roll of Superia X-tra 400 I've shot since last week in 72 dpi, but they say that they could make it higher if I requested. Sounds cool. And what's great is I could bring my own CD to burn, so it could be even cheaper.

The quality? Well, have a look yourself. Please click for a bigger size, the thumbnail simply doesn't do it justice. I make it bigger than usual for easier viewing.


Check out the crisp details in Sasha's eyes! Yeah there's also grains visible, but still... that's way a lot better than my crappy flatbed scanner can ever produce. My self scanned negs look like utter shit now. :)) Can't wait till I scan my BW... I am now trying the same service at Central, the lab where I usually go to. Yeah, I just found out that they can scan negs too. Me and my ignorance. They charge a slightly higher price, but still reasonable. I expect good news from them. For the mean time, here's some other shots from the roll... now with a better quality! :D No more cutting frame sheets! No more hard times scanning the negs!


^ Was originally going to shoot Galih, but I spotted Mita doing a more interesting activity in the background. ;p

And here's a little sneak peek of my shoot-out session in Ngasem with my friend Dinto last Sunday. Gonna show more later on, got a little problem with the CD...

Ngasem's so crowded in Sunday, made me sometimes feel cramped with 50mm...


These two are my favorites from that roll. Hope you like them as much as I do. ;)

Some negscans and printscans from my one day trip to Solo with school friends last week.

Used a roll of TMAX 100, Neopan SS 100, and about half a roll of Lucky SHD 100, all pushed to IE 400. Haven't developed the Lucky yet.

The trip itself was... uh, how to say this, so-so. I thought we were going to a specific place in Solo, but in reality we were only brought to the city square and just basically walking around the area. Not that it wasn't a good place to do some shoot-out though, just didn't like the fact that I couldn't take my time there. :D

Anyway, the photos. Starting with some TMAX 100+2, still in Tugu. Some trainstation workers checking the freights that morning.


We went to Solo using Prambanan Ekspress, more commonly called Prameks, the most used public means of transportation for people commuting between Jogja-Solo. My first experience using the service too. :p The cars are pretty nice and clean for Indonesian standard, or perhaps because it's a relatively recent modification of a Belgian made Jabotabek MRT. If you wanna find out more, Wikipedia Indonesia has an entry about Prameks here. More details can also be found in this blog entry, make sure to read the comments too, some train buffs added some interesting notes there. :)

Some photos aboard the train:


Arrived in Solo Balapan, continued the trip with becak to Pasar Klewer then walked a bit to the city square. Random things along the way.


Notice the milk bottle in the last frame. :)

The trip continued with Neopan, still in around the square. Some dry humor to start the roll:


Needless to say, I didn't feel like drinking nor urinating. :o

Walked around some more, found this group going back from their practice.


Also visited a small museum for a little while, met this young man who was painting a wayang doll for souvenir. The sole reason I took pictures of him was the radio... now that's oldschool stuff. :D


Still in the same museum, only in the outer side of building, this man is tuning the gamelan. He'd hit the correctly tuned gamelan and try to produce the same tune with the ones he's working on by hitting them from the inside, I'm not sure how that worked but it's pretty interesting to see (and hear).


Quite a lot of works. :o

Again we walked... it was a hot day. 9:30 AM felt like a midday.


Very very Indonesian, yes:


This next one is a shot I like. I was fascinated in the geometric shapes and lines that the wall and the street made... I just needed something as an accent, and my friend Sendy who walked ahead of me nicely fit the role. The composition is out of ordinary, not sure if this worked but I love how it turned out.


The next stop was Kraton Solo. We didn't get in, but somehow just took a rest around the gate.


Those are about the only 'normal' shots I took, the rest were pretty much odd shots like I usually did.


The last two frames are best viewed side by side. :D

Oh, also got this frame when I borrowed my friend's D70s and a Sigma 70-300:


Hehe.

Finally, time to go back home to Jogja... went back to Solo Balapan station. I swear, that place was one of the least crowded major trainstation I've ever gone to. Felt like a darn rural station.


And that's it for today's entry. The ride back home frames are in the undeveloped Lucky roll...

Oh, and my D50 had a shutter error about two days after the trip.... When I pressed the shutter release, the mirror would flap but the shutter itself didn't budge... and that annoying "Err" sign would flash in the display status... fuck. Of course, still got the tough FM2 with me, but still... bummer. Digital is rather useful when you wanna save money... like, in my case, now. :( I quickly returned the D50 to the store I bought it from since the warranty was still valid. They're gonna send it to Jakarta and I'm supposed to wait for about one month. Seeing that this is Indonesia though, I wouldn't be surprised if the actual time is twice the said period. Heh.

And I got some small job to do too in Saturday... gonna try to borrow my friend's camera.

So... hope this finds you all well!