Home Is Where The Mangos Are!

In my Cirebon family, every family of each child of the grandparents has right over mangos on trees in the frontyard of the main house. Main house is how I call my grandparents house since families stay under its roof every Moslem holiday or for weeks of a mere vacation. The family members are allowed to pick their own mangos using long picking pole that was traditionally designed by my late grandfather.

One Good Afternoon in Bromo

Having some photo sessions, we had our stomach so full with foods, pieces of rainbow cakes, glasses of Thai teas, black rice ice creams, and others that day. No one knew it’s my last day in Jakarta before I flew to Balikpapan, East Borneo, on the next day for the research trip in Mahakam River with a friend from UC San Diego. I didn’t want to tell them because there would be goodbyes and I didn’t like it.

A Day of Colours

I always love everything that screams colours. God bless me with a life in a tropical country that I have to deal with contrasts of people's skins, planted trees, man-made gardens, shaded roads, bright whites, and even blushed, sweaty faces of people who were just done walking 10 meters far everyday. Not meaning to be racist, but I'm a dark-skinned myself. So say yes to colourful things! (and happy, grateful feelings!)

People of Pari

From the moment Dad gave me a half share of his own pocket camera, I knew I was blessed with this kind of very high visual sensibility over something that relates to humanity, especially human acitivities. I thank God for giving me a responsibility to own Trua (my EOS 400D camera) and Nalani (my 50mm lens) and for giving me a chance to earn my own money in 2011 that I could purchased both of them without giving my parents any burden at all.

All feels like I have been given a chance to live my life in a much different way than the common people. For example, when I was bringing my camera with me somewhere, almost every people recognized me as one who was able to capture good pictures eventhough I myself had never ever considered so. That kind of reliance feeling on my integrity and strength from others is what makes me want to seize every minute. It made me want to appreciate their trust they had placed on me. With the camera on my hand, and a mix of curiosity, confidence, and creativitiy, the best thing I could do immediately was taking pictures of them, of those people that gave me the confidence and positive attitude. Already there are travel photographers who know about this kind of principle. The good ones realizes that taking pictures of people who are native to places they visit is more or less like giving your best appreciation to objects you have stolen a moment from. And that's a really good thing.

You are What You Eat, No?

You know you brought the wrong person to a food bazaar/festival if she struggled to choose what she would ate there. The person barely ate what people told her delicious. Instead, she enjoyed taking pictures of the foods more. Even the surroundings allured her too that in the end, she prefered not buying any food at all and abandoned her own empty stomach.

I was grateful my friends didn't 'kill' me because I was such a nuisance. Those people knew they couldn't blame me for not getting interested in the foods or even in spending some of my money to feed myself. They knew I didn't come to Saparua Street, Bandung, on February 26th for delicacies Bandung citizens could offer during the second event of KEUKEN. It's all because they wanted to see the performance of Payung Teduh with its new songs that I knew it's a public event. Having a sense there'd be a lot of opportunities to capture human beings driven by their hunger, as a photography enthusiast I agreed to join them.