i love Konata Izumi!!!

admiring handicraft sent from the skies

can I be honest? I used to not care about this thing called "nature", I used to be part of that system that things for granted, and believe that everything runs for itself without us having to pay attention to it.. i was wrong, read on!

I've been spending most of the last 2 weeks at home.. Its a pretty small town called Bengkulu, just on the southern part of the island of Sumatra.. I havent been here in about 4-5 months.. This time this trip meant quite a lot, I am seeing things from a new perspective, I am changing I guess, and one of them is how i see this "hometown" and "nature"..

I've always had a deep admiration towards photography, but I guess that urge to deepen my appreciation towards photography has been widening within the last 3 months, I am intrigued more and more.. What's good about photography is that along with the hunt for that perfect shot, comes the demand to see multiple angles from certain things.. The pictures i attached are pictures taken from a place called "Pantai Panjang" (literal translation; Long Beach), it has never really been a special place for me, i just know it as the "main" beach of Bengkulu..

Why I think this trip is extra meaningful is the fact that I saw things differently now, I talked to a lot of people here and learnt new things; new philosophies in life. But most astoundingly I saw nature differently.. Eversince loving photography and its science, I knew in an instant that capturing nature's best is one of my passions in life, and that made me think; 1) Jeez, God really is the best painter and craftsman ever, and 2) I never knew i could see this beach this way..

I know I am not the only one. I posted this as an album on my facebook, a few people I know who went to the same highschool with me asked; "where is this?" and they cannot believe that this is the beach they've known for years! All right, maybe the photos help, but I think this is astounding, no? I'm thinking more ways to promote this place, because it really is a gem in the roughs..

I agree with the people from Discovery Channel when they said Earth is just an awesome place.. I agree! So how do we make it that way, like, forever? Mars is too hot, Venus is too cold, and anywhere else is simply too far.. We cannot move, can we?

So how do you propose the best way to going green is? Or do you simply not care? And what about your ideas on hometown? good, bad, sour, sweet, bitter memories I bet all exist there.. But I'd like to think; there's no other place like home, eh?

your photo insta-crop fun!

you might have known of this website for quite a while, i know its existed for a long time now, but i decided to play around with it..

it's just simple fun to twist with and it fills up time haha.. here's 10 templates i tried with using one same photo (so you can see the site's ability to self-edit your pics) with me comments on it :)

"the decline of russia"

"notice why its black and white"

"the guy who stalked Victoria"

"she got her tops in the ALL-FOR-UNDER-A-DOLLAR shop"

"the official sound track for ONE NIGHT IN PARIS"

"children this is what you call garbagism in art"

"Giselle the fashion victim"

"Indonesian scientists have found the tool for trade they used 10 million years ago"

"Girl you are clearly a dumb-blonde"

"the value of this car will decline by about 110%"

website is here, have fun guys :D

Shots from the Academy, 2009

Been playing with Fido's Canon prosumer camera while we did that gig in Military Academy and was quite happy with some of the shots i took, so i salvaged it from the camera and did what i call "refugee editing" :D.. Hope you can enjoy them :)

let me know what you think, ok? this is especially due to camera sharing so i cannot have as much airtime as i would ideally have yet, but something IS in the works! :)

camera-playing at night

Very productive article writing night tonite, shows how boring and uneventful my nite is ^^

There's this place in my town called Kali Code, literally translated "the river code" (you read code = cho-day, instead of reading it like it was the title of Dan Brown's book) and me and some pals like to go-a-wandering there, sitting for a few hours (usually midnite) to sip some warm coffee and enjoying the breeze.. its quite a slow nightlife there, just loads of people talking in the outdoors under the starry sky :)

I suddenly remembered last night about a photography trick.. Its partly exploiting the irregularities of the camera at night, its a mix between panning and going bonkers hahaha.. So you put your camera on night mode, if you use an SLR use a slow shutter speed (interestingly you dont need a tripod for steadiness on this one) keep the ISO mid i guess (200-300?), and if you could use a narrowed focus (2.ish) there'e be cooler effects you can get.. In my case i used a stupid handphone camera, so all i can play around with is clicking on the "night mode".. But i found as crappy as this camera is, it apparently could still be played with.. What you do is first you move around your camera (in circles, figure 8s, or whatever, just move it!) then in the middle push the click, and keep it moving (for handphone cameras keep going for 2 seconds, for SLR users as long your shutter speed is).. Make sure you dont point something dark (this only works at nite) if not it'd all be useless --"

then you'd get something like this..




The better your camera is, the better and cooler effects you'll get.. I personally think these are pretty spiffy and entertaining stuff.. So much to play around with when you hold cameras at night.. Start experimenting guys! :)

journalism with context

From monday this week up until very very late last night i worked as an interpreter on this Training of Trainers for the CoPeJoN - Conflict and Peace Journalists Network. This is the 3rd of their series of Peace and Conflict Journalists training, intended to shape some trainers out of some journalists in Indonesia so that the people from Phillipines didnt have to come down to Indonesia everytime they wanna hava a training.

As a person whos life long dream is to be a journalist specializing in conflict zones, this is a step towards my dream, and i get paid to ^^;


A lot of the materials is highly interesting. I learnt that journalism is as exciting as i thought it would be, yet i find that its un-nerving and complicates beyond my expectations. The participants of this trianing are pretty much hotshot journalists of Indonesia; editor of Jakarta Post, a senior aceh journalist who was once take hostage by GAM in Aceh, a journalist who is a multiple award-winner including nominated a few times for the Pulitzer, and a few other TV journalists. I mean, wow! One day I'd like to be the guy sitting in that trainee's seat, putting on the table my experience and my fat tele-lens SLR camera and discuss about the profounding complications of conflict journalism.. Phew! :)


I learnt that there was a deep ordeal in the face of journalism in conflict. There was this trand they call "traditional journalism" which led to journalistic pieces being non-partial and non neutral, only covering one single aspect of an incident, and problem is most of the angles taken are only exploiting the gore, blood, and violence happening. This is problematic as apparently conflict has many sides to its coin; background, stakeholders, context, etc. Unless all these aspects are explored what you have is a media propaganda.

I sat down had a chat with Carlone, a senior Phillipino journalist who once covered the Mindanao conflict, he said that "journalism is not about showing people blood, its not to judge a conflict, its also never meant to advocate peace. what journalism should be is to cover as many angles as possible from an incident, report it fairly, and provide people the choices so that they can judge a certain problem, and thats how we propagate pressure to the government. we can never cut the people in this process, thats the problem with traditional journalism"..


This is wonderful! I never thought of this before. Its so true, yet so profounding that I never really sat down and thought about it. Have a look at for instance a cover on the news about government evicting people, what you see is the riots, the violence. You never really see in-depth analisys of what happened, why did it have to lead to a physical clash, etc. This is what Conflict Sensitive Journalism is about..

I learnt that conflict is complex, violence is complex. In journalism there's also a triangle, which on the top it has democracy, and on the sides human rights and peace.. these aspects incorporated in a piece of journalism produces quality reporting and voicing the voiceless.. what this creates is a choice for people, the choice to do whatnot.. and to pressure world governments to either change or stick with status quo..


I also learnt throughout the training that there's such a thing called the "2 part geometry" where the tendency of labelling within an article could escalate conflict. There's an analysed piece of journalism from a reporter in Ambon that not only reflects partiality and picking sides, but it squeezes in like 3 different news in one article! Fiasco, eh? The framing of the news is designed so that readers identifies there's a conflict among religions although thats not necessarily the case.. very problematic, aiy?

So i guess there's much to learn for conflict journalism in me side.. How about you guys? You think that the profounding ordeals of conflict journalism is problematic? Or is blood and violence your thang?

one-size-fit-all in photography

it's usually vertically correct, but i thought i'd spice things up a little :D

see the picture above? besides the fact that the model is ethically wrong, and the fact that it might make you puke or faint or worse; kill yourself.

 Don't. This is a good example for what i have to say, read on..

In photography, there's many styles of capturing a moment. There's a whole culmination of lighting, apperture, focus, ISO, angle, etc. The model or subject of the piece is also relative upon its beauty, and what people would like to call "photogenic".

This article is true upon the statistics that i believe myself, and please understand this is not a mockery, but a mere result of observation. 80% of profiles in facebook, friendster, myspace, or whatever other "networking" sites available on the web has this; a picture taken like the example above. Pretty much you hold a camera, and you pan it towards yourself, usually a bit lofty in position, and you make a wide smile. This will result in a photo that has an angle that covers a large portion of the upper hemisphere of your head. My statistics also show that in more profiles than not, females have at least 1 picture using this style. And also more often than not, it is a "comparative edge" of their profile, meaning they put it on as their primary picture.

Why you ask? I have several theories;

1. There was one photo with this style decades ago, looked good, everyone suddenly had to have one

2. It actually is a style of photo, and i need to learn so much more about photography (maybe i'd call it "narcisism")

3. Through an impossible sheer of coincidence everyone has photos like this without knowing the fact that other people, actually millions of other people has the same style (unlikely, i know, this one's a bonus answer hahaha)

4. People generally feel this kind of photos focuses a lot on the upper hemisphere therefore can pardon the misfeits of someone's looks

There's many things to analyze this phenomena (i'm sorry i couldn't answer why people do this; human phenomenons are truly inpredictable o.O). But at least we know that photography definitely is a trend, it influences people, it has style, and if its good, like fashion, the next day people will be wearing it. We also know that photography does unite our taste, in a worl of globalization people are throwing themselves to be different, but in this case people actually look all alike (style-wise). I get more fascinated with photography by the day.

"Camera ready, ready, pose, click!!!"

Now, altho there's a universal agreement that photos using this style is "good" and "attractive" and "hot", doesnt always work folks.. have look at my picture, used it to show how it can have devastating implications given the wrong model/subject. Do puke now if you want hahahahaha

I was thinking, if you don't fit the style of this photo, you can try and experiment with the model of "silhouette". Like such :

This works regardless how you look, only that you gotta find the right lighting background. Take it at night, use night shoot (if you use slr, try; ISO 400, apperture 1/30, f 2.8) to get a dark pic of your object and exploit the light source behind it.. hahahaha i'm joking

"Its not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you - Batman/Bruce Wayne"

But still i think people do have rights to self-express and they're all fine by me. It just makes me wonder in awe, because this style is so common it enters into my attention span, and i'm a pretty ignorant person! Cheers, have a good weekend everyone :)

A walk down botany lane

This time i want to talk a little about my walk in the Singaporean Botanical Gardens, end of 2008, with my family on our annual holiday trips. I'll be posting some pictures taken using a cheap-ass camera with macro mode on, and i'll be taking of my usual macho, gung-ho suit off (hahaha) as they are pictures of flowers..Okay, let me give you a little illustration on where this nice gardens are; I've been to Singapore a few times but it doesn't mean i know the streets well, but what i can tell you is this garden is a lot like New York's Central park when it comes to location. It's a few bus stops from Orchard Road, so you can imagine that when you arrive at the bus stop and see the gates of this garden, you can see all around it are city landscaping; shops, sky-scrapers, huge roads, etc. I've been to the botanical gardens we have in our country (Bogor, Western Java, Indonesia -red) and it has been ages since the last time i was there so forgive me if my memories of it is faded, but what i can remember is the gardens that we have is uninteresting, it lacks maintenance, and the infastructure like the buildings, facilities, or simply overall cleanliness is just appalling, there's no way one can really appreciate it. Because my theory is such; nature is all about purity, it's about going back to basic, without traces of human civillization; now how can you enjoy the show of nature in a garden that has garbage here and there?

Singapore is a small state, this i say in terms of land mass. But as a state, it's one of Asia's tigers. The one thing that always fascinates me about Singapore is that on 

a map its right next to my country, just a few clicks north-west of Jakarta. But on the day that you fly from Jakarta and then land in Singapore, it just feels like you're in a whole different continent, it feels like the 1.5 hour trip seems impossible and that you've gone far far away. I'll explain why; since i was a kid i've already started to question; what don't we have that developed states have? Now as complex as this question is as a 10 year-old i came with a simple answer : it's probably because of geography, that our place is warm all the time all people want it just to sit under a tree, enjoy the breeze and fall asleep. Don't get me wrong, at that time i was backed up by a saying; Indonesians sweat when they eat, not when they work (i don't agree totally to this, i don't really discriminate work, i just sweat all the time hahaha). Okay, so i was convinced because it is about location.

The more i aged the more my eyes opened, i had access to information

 i didnt have 10 years ago (okay so i'm a little old, when i was 10 internet access is not like it is today; there's an internet cafe every 10 steps). So when i put my foot on Singapore, i was amazed! Am i right that this country here is right next to ours? the difference is just ridiculous. Public facilities and the effectivity of it is usually my indicator to judge a state, and Singapore's public infastructure is simply stupendous.

Most amazing woman in the world; Mum!

Back to the botanical gardens. It's pretty huge, to circle it takes about 4-5 hours, and you get a whole mixture of nice green views; trees, well-cut grass, there's an orchid house, there's a green house, and right in the middle i think they have this huge lake with some food stalls around them. If you happen to get there, don't purchase the hot dog; it's way to huge and plain unless you put tonnes of sauce, ketchup, and mustard on it.

Another thing that bugs me is that when i see a lot of the plants and living organizms that they have in the garden, i realize that this is not something we don;t have in Indonesia, i'd say 80% if the stuff is available in Indonesia. Why can't we do this? We have lots of orchids, why didnt we think of making hybrid orchids and naming them after hot shot figures of the world? Isnt this a nice strategy to both attract people to see and to seal good diplomatic relations? I found one hybrid named after the later Ibu Tien (Indonesia's second First Lady, wife of the late President Soeharto), and it's just great that they preserved her name forever in the form of a hybrid orchid. The gesture is very splendid. Entering the greenhouse i'm more convinced; it feels like i'm back in Sumatra, this is exactly how it feels in the SUmatran jungles; the plants, the stream, the humidity, etc.

I'm appalled and nonplussed at the same time. I realized then that it doesn't really take a lot for a state to excell. It's really about paying attention to little things, because in a country people are little, so paying more to little things means great things to the people. And a state i think is only as good as it treats its society. It's not really about the potential of a state, it's about the perseverance of the state to prove itself. Singapore in Fukuyama's quadrant of state classification would be in area 2 (or 4 i forgot) where it has both strict legal ruling and a strong enforcement. Their people are hardworkers, creative, and possess a comparative edge despite their small geographical land mass.

Indonesia is no worse actually. We do have what it takes to excell. But the question is do we have what it takes to take the right steps towards health, wealth, and wisdom? We will see. Maybe all hope is not lost after all...

Playing around with photo editing..

As part of my huge curiosity towards photography and post shoot editing, just a few minutes ago i started playing around with Microsoft's photo editing software.. Apparently its fun!

I played with the coloring, level of hue and saturation.. Suddenly had an idea to make the pics i took in black and white so it adds more realism to the actual reference pics in the internet.. The results are nice, i just need to see more parallel pictures so i can adjust the contrast with the saturation of the pictures.. Woohoo more experimenting!

Below is an actual picture of a King Tiger in the P4 Workshop Regiments

Below is a picture i took for editing