Photographs & Words by Kurniadi Widodo

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!