Thoughts
Thoughts
All pictures here taken by Nico Iskandar
"Morning Sunrise", Digital Provia, Dynamic Range Recovery. Digital Warming Filter.
On a hindsight, once again, all the pictures in this post are not shot by me, they are taken by a very good friend - Nico. Looking back now I guess that I would not be so interested in photography if I did not have someone who already had a great deal of interest in it to add a little fuel to the initial spark that was my interest about 11 or so months ago. Since the day I picked up my Nikon, more or less he has been the one who has given me quite a good amount of creativity as well as ideas into gaining a "vision". Attempting to impart some form of "seeing" to me. Although I have lacked miserably in this aspect for as long as I can remember.
Just as a simple update to my life. I so wanted to write down my purported goals for 2005 just before the year ran out last year. Yet I confess and admit that besides a couple of vague personal ideas that I'd like to see come to past "after I ORD", the thing is that - I simply just can't put pen to paper. This is made even more difficult by the uncertainties of my life as it comes right now. A few weeks ago, things were nice and smooth sailing with sunny skies and all. However, in the run up after Christmas, New Year and so on. Things have just not seen so rosy anymore. Dark clouds and thunderstorms and bone-chilling winds and poor visibility has settled like a thick cloud upon the path of my life. I'm not sure how the future will turn as far as I can think or that I know of. Right now, I'm pretty discouraged in life. Perhaps even paranoid about the future. Sometimes, I wish I could just ignore my current world, run away. Regress my mind to a time happier - all traits of succumbing to depression once again I guess. Its been tough, pretty hard. And generally, my mood hasn't been good lately.
"Soaring to the Sky", Digital Black and White. High Constrast Curve.
Yet with all the pleasure of good friends to cheer me up once in a while. The best thing to do after a pay day is to sit in Wala-Wala before the crowd comes at 8p.m and only to leave after The Unexpected Band finishes its last set at 2a.m in the morning. To actually splurge money on some terribly overpriced alcoholic or not drinks knowing that I'm doing a good deed since "all of it goes to charity anyway". To walk in Holland Village at 3 in the morning and realise that it is an ideal time for the photographic theme of "closing time". Then again. I'm cheered up by the fact that my very good photographic buddy and I can spend a whole afternoon together looking for a camera hospital. Only to realise that the joker has another two 6 by 6 medium format cameras sitting in his home. With even better lenses to spare!
Its a great pleasure to visit all the camera shops in the downtown area. Since they are practically within 100 meters of each other. To point out that "this is my dream camera" and that "this lens is really solid" only to gawk at the prices of a used Hasselblad kit starting price at 4850. And a so called cheaper alternative, a Mamiya 67 retailing for 2280 nicely with just the "box" of the camera. No lens, no film back. Nothing else. Anyone ever realise how expensive the "old man's camera" of the Leica system is? I mean, 7 thousand odd for just one body and one lens? This is really nonsense man. Well, its good to see all the stuff being "so near and yet so far" and just wondering to myself when I will be able to just walk in and buy everything I want knowing at the back of my head I have more than enough money to pay for everything and more. I know, I know, I ramble too much about all these camera equipment nonsense and all. The thing is that, it helps to take my mind off the circumstances that I now face in life. Distraction is good sometimes, yet I do not subscribe to "drowning my sorrows". As it stands right now, my future might go normally as "planned". Or might just take a sharp downward drop once again. Sigh...
"Parrallel Universe", FujiChrome Digital Velvia. Contrast Masking
Just right now, I don't see much purpose in life. Its strange that as a person, I'm blessed with many things that most people work very hard to achieve to to gain in life. Even to my current hobby. I'm blessed with a photographic buddy whose relatives are all serious amateurs and they even own their own camera shop! Yet, I'm not even satisfied. Not that I'm fussy or setting my expectations too high. But its something like desiring to just have 10 dollars worth of food from a hawker center on my table, rather than a 12 dollar bowl of french soup as an appetizer on it "for the start". Generally, given my peaceful/phlegmatic nature. I'm very easy going about so many things that most of the time, I don't even bother to make my mind up about where to eat, what to do or the like. I'm like the kind of person that goes "anything also can lah". And I find it easy to adapt to the plans, ideas as well as thoughts of others. Pardon me if I do not write as coherently as I normally would or that I personally desire. The thing is that, there is just too many distracting things on my mind right now for me to focus on any one particular area as all sectors now clammor for my undivided attention.
"Floatsam". Digital Provia. Increased Saturation.
Has anyone realised that people have this in built instinct or sense as in they know when they are being stared at? Its like, a person stares at someone for a few seconds. And within that frame of time, that person who is being stared at somehow shifts his or her eyes back to the person looking? I don't know how to explain it. Except that its like a guy looks at a girl in a pub. Admires her beauty/clothes/whatever and after a few short moments, she lifts her eyes and looks straight at the guy and their eyes meet? I don't know. Yet I know that all those experienced in the world of pubbing and clubbing might be able to peel my eyes open upon this matter. Its just a random thought that surfed in on me while I type this. Argh. I can't focus, can't think of putting my thoughts along a straight line. I'm jus drifting from one thought frame to another and I don't exactly like it.
"Sunrise Boulevard". Digital Velvia. Dynamic Range Increase.
I do admire people who can write really well, with brevity as a benchmark. Like they can transmit volumes without the need for fanciful words, long sentences or complex manners of speech. In the meantime, I don't really know what purpose I have in life (still!). Its like, I just don't really know which direction to go. Yet I have a weird feeling that I've been walking down the wrong path all my life all along. And to turn back and to restart the journey will just be too difficult to do. If not, close to impossible. At times, when I look back in my life. There are many many things that I regret that I did, or did not do. And I often wonder what things would have been like in circumstances did not turn out the way they should. Its hard to convert such thoughts to words, much more type them down. I don't know... Sometimes, I don't feel like opening the Slanted Times. Simply because world news is just bad news. Hardly anything happy going on. Its almost always some dispute or other, some blast going off somewhere in the world or some violence of some sort and the list just goes on. I don't know. Makes the desire of spending 3 or 4 months at a beach resort all that more enticing as well as alluring, doesn't it? To just shut oneself away from all this bad reportage and to embrace the facet of "life is beautiful".
"Condo Construction". Digital Black and White. Contrast Masking.
I would have to say that in life. While money makes things easier. Gives one a better life as well as provides for opportunities that normally would not be possible or accessible to someone less personally-well-funded. I just find that material things and money might bring us happiness for some time. For a short period of time. But it doesn't satisfy any persons human need for joy as well as happiness and hope. I wonder what to make of surveys that rank nations like nigeria and somalia being much happier than us. On one hand, a person most likely needs to enter the rat race and the dog eat dog world spiked with lethal loads of depression and unhealthiness only to win us the barter trade equivalent of services that promise to give it back to us later on when we can "possibly" withdraw from the corporate world. Does one's life and promise just lie in money as well as the indulgencies of personal hobbies and vested interests? I'm sure there is more to life than to just enjoying ourselves and to having "a good time". Right now, I can't say for sure because I'm pretty disilluioned with the way things are right now wherever I see it. Maybe we as humans, seek things to complicate for our own detriment and laud all those that gainfully lap it up from the trodden floor.
"Clifford Pier Pillars", Digital Black and White. Highlight and Shadows Cropped. High Contrast Masking Curve.
I wonder how this year will past me by. Already, it promisingly looks like a bad year for many people in the region. And I don't know about myself. I have to accept the fact that the difficulties and struggles that I go through right now are nothing compared to the people struggling to scratch out an existence in Aceh or East Timor or somewhere along the coastlines of Sri Lanka. Yet I wonder how everything will really end and whether or not things might look wonderful someday. I often envision as well as dream about a happiness that I can probably never have. Yet strangely, I feel no bitterness towards life or existence itself. Even God. And I'm thankful that while its difficult. Perhaps seemingly foolhardly to walk to the Gate in the darkness of this world. It'll be all comforting to put your hand into the Hand of God. Indeed, "Better than Light, and safer than a known way". Its probably going to be a tremendous struggle, my life from now on. Yet I look forward to having better attitudes and character shaped within my heart. Probably not seen by others for as long as I'll live. At the very least, recognised by my Father.
"Lines of Abstraction", Digital Black and White. Medium Contrast Curve.
How frail our humanity really is! And how quickly the circumstances of life can change in a short moment. While till then, whatever happens. I'll have to just pray that things go His Way. No matter how difficult it will be. And for the record. I still feel like a half baked of a potato of a Christian. So its certainly not going to be easy at all...I've rambled long enough once again. So I'll end here. God Speed.
All pictures here taken by Nico Iskandar
"Morning Sunrise", Digital Provia, Dynamic Range Recovery. Digital Warming Filter.
On a hindsight, once again, all the pictures in this post are not shot by me, they are taken by a very good friend - Nico. Looking back now I guess that I would not be so interested in photography if I did not have someone who already had a great deal of interest in it to add a little fuel to the initial spark that was my interest about 11 or so months ago. Since the day I picked up my Nikon, more or less he has been the one who has given me quite a good amount of creativity as well as ideas into gaining a "vision". Attempting to impart some form of "seeing" to me. Although I have lacked miserably in this aspect for as long as I can remember.
Just as a simple update to my life. I so wanted to write down my purported goals for 2005 just before the year ran out last year. Yet I confess and admit that besides a couple of vague personal ideas that I'd like to see come to past "after I ORD", the thing is that - I simply just can't put pen to paper. This is made even more difficult by the uncertainties of my life as it comes right now. A few weeks ago, things were nice and smooth sailing with sunny skies and all. However, in the run up after Christmas, New Year and so on. Things have just not seen so rosy anymore. Dark clouds and thunderstorms and bone-chilling winds and poor visibility has settled like a thick cloud upon the path of my life. I'm not sure how the future will turn as far as I can think or that I know of. Right now, I'm pretty discouraged in life. Perhaps even paranoid about the future. Sometimes, I wish I could just ignore my current world, run away. Regress my mind to a time happier - all traits of succumbing to depression once again I guess. Its been tough, pretty hard. And generally, my mood hasn't been good lately.
"Soaring to the Sky", Digital Black and White. High Constrast Curve.
Yet with all the pleasure of good friends to cheer me up once in a while. The best thing to do after a pay day is to sit in Wala-Wala before the crowd comes at 8p.m and only to leave after The Unexpected Band finishes its last set at 2a.m in the morning. To actually splurge money on some terribly overpriced alcoholic or not drinks knowing that I'm doing a good deed since "all of it goes to charity anyway". To walk in Holland Village at 3 in the morning and realise that it is an ideal time for the photographic theme of "closing time". Then again. I'm cheered up by the fact that my very good photographic buddy and I can spend a whole afternoon together looking for a camera hospital. Only to realise that the joker has another two 6 by 6 medium format cameras sitting in his home. With even better lenses to spare!
Its a great pleasure to visit all the camera shops in the downtown area. Since they are practically within 100 meters of each other. To point out that "this is my dream camera" and that "this lens is really solid" only to gawk at the prices of a used Hasselblad kit starting price at 4850. And a so called cheaper alternative, a Mamiya 67 retailing for 2280 nicely with just the "box" of the camera. No lens, no film back. Nothing else. Anyone ever realise how expensive the "old man's camera" of the Leica system is? I mean, 7 thousand odd for just one body and one lens? This is really nonsense man. Well, its good to see all the stuff being "so near and yet so far" and just wondering to myself when I will be able to just walk in and buy everything I want knowing at the back of my head I have more than enough money to pay for everything and more. I know, I know, I ramble too much about all these camera equipment nonsense and all. The thing is that, it helps to take my mind off the circumstances that I now face in life. Distraction is good sometimes, yet I do not subscribe to "drowning my sorrows". As it stands right now, my future might go normally as "planned". Or might just take a sharp downward drop once again. Sigh...
"Parrallel Universe", FujiChrome Digital Velvia. Contrast Masking
Just right now, I don't see much purpose in life. Its strange that as a person, I'm blessed with many things that most people work very hard to achieve to to gain in life. Even to my current hobby. I'm blessed with a photographic buddy whose relatives are all serious amateurs and they even own their own camera shop! Yet, I'm not even satisfied. Not that I'm fussy or setting my expectations too high. But its something like desiring to just have 10 dollars worth of food from a hawker center on my table, rather than a 12 dollar bowl of french soup as an appetizer on it "for the start". Generally, given my peaceful/phlegmatic nature. I'm very easy going about so many things that most of the time, I don't even bother to make my mind up about where to eat, what to do or the like. I'm like the kind of person that goes "anything also can lah". And I find it easy to adapt to the plans, ideas as well as thoughts of others. Pardon me if I do not write as coherently as I normally would or that I personally desire. The thing is that, there is just too many distracting things on my mind right now for me to focus on any one particular area as all sectors now clammor for my undivided attention.
"Floatsam". Digital Provia. Increased Saturation.
Has anyone realised that people have this in built instinct or sense as in they know when they are being stared at? Its like, a person stares at someone for a few seconds. And within that frame of time, that person who is being stared at somehow shifts his or her eyes back to the person looking? I don't know how to explain it. Except that its like a guy looks at a girl in a pub. Admires her beauty/clothes/whatever and after a few short moments, she lifts her eyes and looks straight at the guy and their eyes meet? I don't know. Yet I know that all those experienced in the world of pubbing and clubbing might be able to peel my eyes open upon this matter. Its just a random thought that surfed in on me while I type this. Argh. I can't focus, can't think of putting my thoughts along a straight line. I'm jus drifting from one thought frame to another and I don't exactly like it.
"Sunrise Boulevard". Digital Velvia. Dynamic Range Increase.
I do admire people who can write really well, with brevity as a benchmark. Like they can transmit volumes without the need for fanciful words, long sentences or complex manners of speech. In the meantime, I don't really know what purpose I have in life (still!). Its like, I just don't really know which direction to go. Yet I have a weird feeling that I've been walking down the wrong path all my life all along. And to turn back and to restart the journey will just be too difficult to do. If not, close to impossible. At times, when I look back in my life. There are many many things that I regret that I did, or did not do. And I often wonder what things would have been like in circumstances did not turn out the way they should. Its hard to convert such thoughts to words, much more type them down. I don't know... Sometimes, I don't feel like opening the Slanted Times. Simply because world news is just bad news. Hardly anything happy going on. Its almost always some dispute or other, some blast going off somewhere in the world or some violence of some sort and the list just goes on. I don't know. Makes the desire of spending 3 or 4 months at a beach resort all that more enticing as well as alluring, doesn't it? To just shut oneself away from all this bad reportage and to embrace the facet of "life is beautiful".
"Condo Construction". Digital Black and White. Contrast Masking.
I would have to say that in life. While money makes things easier. Gives one a better life as well as provides for opportunities that normally would not be possible or accessible to someone less personally-well-funded. I just find that material things and money might bring us happiness for some time. For a short period of time. But it doesn't satisfy any persons human need for joy as well as happiness and hope. I wonder what to make of surveys that rank nations like nigeria and somalia being much happier than us. On one hand, a person most likely needs to enter the rat race and the dog eat dog world spiked with lethal loads of depression and unhealthiness only to win us the barter trade equivalent of services that promise to give it back to us later on when we can "possibly" withdraw from the corporate world. Does one's life and promise just lie in money as well as the indulgencies of personal hobbies and vested interests? I'm sure there is more to life than to just enjoying ourselves and to having "a good time". Right now, I can't say for sure because I'm pretty disilluioned with the way things are right now wherever I see it. Maybe we as humans, seek things to complicate for our own detriment and laud all those that gainfully lap it up from the trodden floor.
"Clifford Pier Pillars", Digital Black and White. Highlight and Shadows Cropped. High Contrast Masking Curve.
I wonder how this year will past me by. Already, it promisingly looks like a bad year for many people in the region. And I don't know about myself. I have to accept the fact that the difficulties and struggles that I go through right now are nothing compared to the people struggling to scratch out an existence in Aceh or East Timor or somewhere along the coastlines of Sri Lanka. Yet I wonder how everything will really end and whether or not things might look wonderful someday. I often envision as well as dream about a happiness that I can probably never have. Yet strangely, I feel no bitterness towards life or existence itself. Even God. And I'm thankful that while its difficult. Perhaps seemingly foolhardly to walk to the Gate in the darkness of this world. It'll be all comforting to put your hand into the Hand of God. Indeed, "Better than Light, and safer than a known way". Its probably going to be a tremendous struggle, my life from now on. Yet I look forward to having better attitudes and character shaped within my heart. Probably not seen by others for as long as I'll live. At the very least, recognised by my Father.
"Lines of Abstraction", Digital Black and White. Medium Contrast Curve.
How frail our humanity really is! And how quickly the circumstances of life can change in a short moment. While till then, whatever happens. I'll have to just pray that things go His Way. No matter how difficult it will be. And for the record. I still feel like a half baked of a potato of a Christian. So its certainly not going to be easy at all...I've rambled long enough once again. So I'll end here. God Speed.
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