Last weekend we got some special guests... Some members of Citishot, a photography community of Citibank employees came into town. Their main objective wasn't to have some photo hunting session though, rather, they were looking for some people that they photographed more than a year ago, to get model releases for a couple of photographs which are going to be in Citibank's 2008 calendar. Quite unexpectedly, the search was a lot faster than expected. It's all finished in just half of day.
In the group was Igor Firdauzi, Evodius Purwoko, Rizal I Sjahid, Jusuf Arief, Tigor Peetosutan, and Denny Feblu. I got invited to come along in the search (or, in the words of Mr. Purwoko, spiritual journey) and... what more can I say, it's a fun journey. Though I didn't make lotsa photos. But still, fun. :)
First day, Saturday. The first destination was Cangkringan, Sleman, up north from the city of Jogja. We were to find an old farmer. After a few stops, we managed to find out his name and where he lived. And when we got there, through a help from a neighbour, the farmer was finally spotted. One down.
The said neighbour. And no I didn't even take a single shot of Mbah Iman, the farmer.
And oh yeah I decided to keep the bigger thumbs... sorry for you guys with the slower connection, hahah. :p I'll cut down the maximum number of post in the front page of the blog to only two posts though, to make it faster.
Anyway, after we're done in Cangkringan we visited the nearby Pakem marketplace for a while and snapped around. I took only 3 frames with the FM2, haven't developed it yet.
Second destination was Madukismo, down south in Bantul regency. Madukismo is known for its old sugar factory. There, we were looking for two kids who were photographed around the factory's railroad yard. Before we got there, during the ride, Rizal (the photographer for the picture) jokingly said that he suspected that the boys could have moved to West Nusa Tenggara, a province in south-central Indonesia. To everyone's amusement, one of the boys actually did move out of the town just about a week earlier. What's even surprising, he did move to West Nusa Tenggara! Out of 33 provinces in this country... with that said... always be careful with what you say, people. :D
We did find the other boy, however. So, two down. And in the railroad yard I actually took more pics than in Cangkringan. Interesting activities, where workers unload sugar canes from coming trucks and move them to train carriages for further transport. They say in a busy day they could unload more than 500 trucks. Didn't have enough time to find out more though.
Workers unloading sugar canes from a truck.
Resting workers.
Last search destination was Kotagede, in the south part of the city of Jogja. The person on search was a regular of Kotagede Mosque, so it was pretty easy to find out who he was and where he lived. The person was out of town at the moment, but nevertheless the business was done. Once again I didn't snap much here.
Random stuff outside the wall of the mosque.
Igor in front of the mosque's gate.
And so, only at around 1 PM, all the business is done. The latter half of the day was spent in Bringharjo market and a brief while around Kraton.
Second day, Sunday. It was more fun since the group's 'burden' of having to find people all over the place was then gone. :D We left for the city of Solo, and snapped around two big marketplaces, Pasar Klewer and Pasar Gede. Most of the shots I took that day were on film though.
Probaby the only frame from digital that I love that day. Quite a few things happening in this frame.
Igor, Rizal, Purwoko, and a random old lady. Oh yes she made this frame.
Next stop was Laweyan, a batik home industry area in Solo. A pretty silent neighborhood, and we could only find one place where there's some young women making batik. And since of course all the group was all over them, I had to find something different.
Found this particular scene to be somewhat creepy...
Get it?
A detail of an old colonial-time building in Laweyan. It was beautiful. Didn't have a wide enough lens to cover the whole facade so I got to settle with details like this.
Also found a modest car repair shop inside a small street. Saw that all of the cars there were Fiats.
Gotta love them old cars. I dunno anything about automotive, but I always thought that old cars' distinctive shapes had more characters in them than modern cars. I mean, most cars these days have gone streamline and stuff in shape, they all start to look the same in a glimpse.
This boy was in a house near the Fiat cars and looking curious as to why a tall guy with a camera would take pictures of broken down cars. Tried to talk to him but he just grinned the whole time. Suits yourself, kiddo. :)
When I wanted to get back to the group, I met this man and greeted him. We had a brief talk and turned out that he was the uncle of the owner of the repair shop, his name was Mr. Broto. He took me for a quick walk around the shop, even showed me this cool looking Fiat van that was unfortunately covered in tarpaulin. I didn't want to bother him opening the cover. After a few minutes exchanging words, we said goodbye. But not before I took this quick portrait of him in front of a pink wall... thought it looked nice with his blue shirt. A really nice man, he was. :)
Back in Jogja at night, we also visited a traditional food kiosk in Pakualaman just so that everyone could shoot wide open with f/one-point-something and 3200ASA... :D I could only sit down and wait since I know I wouldn't get anything with what I brought. :p
In Monday and Tuesday Citishot also went around town for a bit more but I couldn't go since school already started.
Anyway, that's all for now. Hope this finds you all well. Oh yeah, some interesting photography exhibition is coming up in town this November. Two words: Objectif Paris. Go google it up! ;)
So I've been receiving some feedback regarding the image loading speed of the last blog entry and most say that it's become slower than usual. I don't have any problem with it myself, but if it's so much trouble for the other people then I'll revert back to uploading to Blogger. But not in this entry, cause I already uploaded the images in Photobucket.
Anyway here are some Neopan Super Presto 1600... finally finished the roll. Out of excitement I brought the FM2 with 50/1.4 to shoot outside in the night, thinking the high ISO and fast glass were enough to do the job... I felt invincible. But as it turns out... I overestimated my own skill. Still got lotsa practice to do, specially focusing at wide open in lowlight condition. Many frames in this roll are helplessly out of focus. Perhaps I do need new glasses immediately.
Ah, the lovely sis... perhaps this is a very subjective opinion because of the person in the photograph, but I like this frame very much. Especially the way she gazes. We were just finished having dinner, and before we left I asked her for a quick shot. Thought she was gonna do a silly pose like she usually did, but she just smiled and well... basically being the warm and loving sister that I've known for 6 years now. :) Can't wait to do a print of this one.
Naga's TLR... works as weird as the owner, haha. :p Already gave it back to him, in the end I only exposed two rolls with it.
Jeki, lighting up. Dunno if I "made it simple and got the e-motion" here. Full view if you don't get it. ;)
Dad's pet bird, in the garage.
Somewhere in the back of Gadjah Mada University mosque. Was just being attracted to the shadow. One second exposure, handheld. Unfocused and there's a slight shake, but for a one second exposure... I'm not all that disappointed.
Naga, while we hung out in a coffee shop. Very terrific focus, yes. Could have been a pretty nice portrait, but oh well.
At least I got his coffee focused. Err, kind of.
Nice framing?
Some funky local cigarettes brought by Ian from his student community service place.
Security guards on a music event held by SMU 9 Yogyakarta. The only reason I stopped by to see it was because of that light... so I gotta say that strategy worked. Or perhaps I'm just such an easy guy to persuade. Once again amazing focus.
One of the band performing... Forgot what they're called, but they're pretty enjoyable to hear.
Nice flare, eh.
Compact digicam! Can't help myself to take this kind of shot everytime I'm behind someone taking picture with one.
Freesoul had a stand there. Galih setting up the cable for the stand lighting.
A smiling Pepeng to end the roll.
One thing for sure... this film's tone is rad! And nice grain. Gotta be more careful with what I shoot with the second roll.
Switching to digital. A traditional toy exhibition in Bentara Budaya, about a week ago. Lotsa interesting stuff... for kids.
Spotted that nice young man on the right looking at this gamelan toy set and thought it would make a nice frame. But as soon as I crouched to take position, that guy, being a nice young man he was, moved out of the frame to let me take picture of the toy. Well, gee, thanks, but you're supposed to be part of the picture, mister.
Modern day Jack no longer cares about giant castle or golden egg.
On a more recent news... A couple of days ago the issue 11 and 12 of JPG finally arrived at my doorstep... nice. It really took a while, but seeing one of your works being featured on a foreign magazine sure could make you forget things like late delivery. Besides I got them for free anyway (it's part of the 1 year free subscription I got) so I'm not complaining. The check came two days ago... nice. Or so I thought. Yesterday I went to the bank (Mandiri bank) to get some information on how I could cash the check... and while the teller was being really nice to explain the whole things, the information itself wasn't exactly a nice thing to hear. See, since the check was of a US Bank, it takes time *and* money to transfer the $100 that I got to the local bank. And according to Mandiri, the 'transfer fee' (I don't know the banking term for it) is *drumrolls* ...$30. Not only that, but there's also *another* fee of $25 that I have to pay, of which I forgot what for. And to top it off, the whole process will take *at least* one month. So, not only I would only get less than half of what I'm supposed to get, but I also need to wait again. What the fuck. Gee, I wonder why JPG wouldn't use a more convenient method like Western Union or something.
Anyway, enough rant. Hopefully something better will turn out in the future. And there's actually a chance of getting it... in another photo competition. But it involves a *car*. And as of now, I really don't have any idea in mind. But with a D80 kit plus some cash money for the first prize... this sure is tempting.
Oh, and there's going to be a journalistic workshop with 4 photographers from Kompas on October 24th in nearby Atma Jaya campus. I already signed up, and really looking forward to it!
