note to self

dear b,

please stop procrastinating. you have lots of work to do, a limited time to do it, and even less motivation. please take the time to run the errands you need to run today (that includes dropping off the dvds of images at great world, sending the group picture to be printed and helping hang up the st exhibition at the legends @ fort canning) and finish off your outstanding shoots by the end of next week. you've got a five days off as it is. don't let it go to waste.

regards,
b

ps: don't spend too much time burning out (pun intended) at the office. i think seng might be getting resentful after so many ass whoopings.

point to ponder

why does every crisis the usa face have to have a catchy title, graphic, and it's own theme song?

i so understand

been grappling with this for awhile, but my buddy rich in south carolina hit the nail on the head when he wrote this.

seems like it's something all of us newspaper photographers face at some point or other. just happens that the both of us are going through the same rough patch right about now.

time to find a way out of this rut.

gone astray?

another lenten season, another ash wednesday, another palm (passion) sunday, another maundly thursday, good friday and easter sunday. and sadly enough, it doesn't feel any different to me.

i've never professed to being a good catholic, overly 'christian' friends (you know the bible thumper type) tend to turn me off quicker than an grossly overweight woman in spandex, and yet, i feel a keen sense of regret that religion doesn't seem to matter that much to me anymore.

sunday catechism classes (ok for me they were on saturdays) were a weekly affair from the time i was seven till my confirmation at age 14. participation in church youth groups followed, but to be candidly honest, it was all about the girls at that point. church camps, lenten vigils, weekly group meetings, fund raising at fun fares. yup. all about the women. adolescence in an all boys school is far from fun, so i had god and the church to thank for my social interactions with the female gender

then came my army years, where i managed to kill two birds with one stone; to respect my parents and go to mass with them on sundays, and to catch up on sleep behind black iridium-coated shades after carousing saturday night away at any number of clubs.

my university years in bloomington followed, and i quickly decided to dispense with the weekly sunday ritual of mass, opting instead to catch up on the above mentioned sleep in the comfort of my own bed. strangely enough, going to chuch oaccasionally because i wanted to, instead of going because i was obliged to, made the experience seem far more palpable and meaningful.

fast forward to singapore circa 2002 onwards, and my views on religion seem to have regressed. i am more irritable. the lousy choir, even worse cantors, occasionally ineloquent priests, noisy children... the list goes on, makes me feel like i've started my day on the wrong foot (not always, but at least half of the time.) then there are friends and acquaintances who rave about how much god (or GOD as they call him) has changed their lives, even as they condemn non-christians to the everlasting fires of hell. i'm sorry, but i find it hard to subscribe to a religion that sends genuinely good people to hades by virtue of their not having discovered the 'one, true god".

cell group meetings at fast food joints, coffee places and even the canteen at my office have also begun to frustrate me. i have nothing against cell group meetings, but do you have to force your religion onto everyone within earshot? oh, and i'll never understand why catholics are denounced by most other denominations as the black sheep of the christian world. whatever happened to 'forgiveness', 'love thy neighbour' and 'let he who is without sin cast the first stone?'

remember;
"do not judge, or you too will be judged. for in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. "why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? how can you say to your brother, 'let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? you hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye." (matthew 7:1-5)

at the end of the day, i do believe in the man upstairs, i just think it's going to take me awhile before i settle down and start being serious about it. in the meantime, i try to live my life as best as i can, to be as good a person as i can, and if i go to hell... well at least i'll see a lot of my friends there.

super swine

no i don't mean me, even if it is a fairly apt description. but a super swine, by any other name (oh, say, hogzilla) would probably still smell to high heavens. the things people will do to get their town on the map, fighting with the experts about how big hogzilla really was.

my favorite quote? "have you ever seen a raisin after it was a grape?"

sigh... damn americans :)

i really need to start penning down REAL thoughts...

fusion

finally!! something to unite the technogeek, wannabe biker and cheap (read: poor) sides of me!

not much of a post i know, but hey, random space filling is better than nothing at all...

why do we do it?

been asking that question a lot recently. why do we do what we do? for recognition? fame? popularity? money?

in my little corner of the world, i always thought it was to tell the story, to show what is not normally seen, to let others live vicariously through the pictures that we bring back. maybe i was naive, maybe deluded, but the more i look, the less i seem to see that sort of spirit among the photographers here.

of course that is a bad stereotype, for i can think of quite a few who are still committed to the abovementioned values. and yet, i get this unsettling feeling, that even some in the inner sanctum have lost that idealism, that drive. it almost seems like it's all about who gets published more, in which publications, who has books, exhibitions, big projects, rich clients etc. in short, it's becoming like any other profession, a rat race to the finish, collecting as many prizes, certificates, awards, and additions to the already burgeoning resume along the way.

the idealism seems gone for many, replaced by the harsh realities of elking a subsistance out of this chosen profession of ours, but i am sure there is a way to balance the two.

i just hope i don't succumb and fall to the wayside like so many of my peers. that, i cannot, must not, allow.

rant

you'd think that after dropping oodles of moolah on a computer, you could live in a relative trouble free zone for at least a couple of years.

but no... just got back my powerbook from apple after having to replace the logic board for the SECOND time in a year. imagine that, it's like getting a heart attack twice before your first birthday. to be fair, when it's working right, it's working REALLY well, but these 'little problems' kinda spoil it for me. still get a kick when the keyboard lights up though.

"aren't macs supposed to be trouble free?", i am asked by many friends.

obviously not, but i'm still enough of a sucker to support them. anything beats gates i guess.

ps: kinda funny when you peek into the security room at the apple building and find out that everything there is powered by HP

we went to mersing...

...and all i took was this lousy photo

granted that in the space of one day:

- my bike got stuck in a ditch while trying to convince itself that it was a scrambler instead of a scooter
- got the chills at an abandoned old resort and saw something i'd rather not have seen lurking in the shadows upstairs
- helped master off-roader zaihan get HIS bike out of a ditch (thus making me feel better cause his was a scrambler)
- had two teh ice limaus (ice lemon teas) at kota tinggi town followed by a quick visit to the waterfall
- almost went off the road taking a corner too quickly
- got heavily rained on
- got baked in the sun (resulting in an even more pronounced tri-tone tan)
- pumped gas three times
- ate this fantastic keropok thingy dipped in chilli by the sea on mersing
- rode zai's scrambler again and convinced myself to get on next year
- experienced the famed "crazy-assed-malaysian-riders/drivers" first hand
- saw migrating birds in a V against a stunning sky on they way back to johor
- had dinner at a seafood restaurant that used to be a dirt road and fishing pond but is now all spiffied up to a upper-crust joint
- hit many potholes
- got caught in the jam back across the causeway (i'm sure i'll write a whole blog entry devoted to that sometime soon)
- panicked when i heard strange sounds coming from my bike upon moving off after clearing the causeway

so after all that, i came to the realizaion that i was too busy enjoying myself to take pictures, and that, in itself, is strangly comforting.

ride interrupted

funny how some of your friends can spot you a mile off. ok so maybe in my case it's not that difficult. anyhow, seng saw me whizz by the office while sending the woman home, and dropped me a text message asking me to drop by the office.

so i get there, and spend a good half an hour printing up pictures for the wall, after which we decided to go for a short ride and a quick coffee.

old thomson road seemed like a good candidate on the way to prata point, with trees on either side and the canopy of trees blocking out most of the sky, the mild twists and turns (which we didn't speed through thank you very much) on the wet streets felt like a nice change from the monotonous highways that criss cross singapore. we just get into the swing of things when flashing lights catch our attention, the blue and red hues some cause for consternation. policemen walk up and tell us to go back the way we came.

road blocked due to fallen tree. just our luck.



been pretty lazy about shooting recently, and decided to do something about it. not that the policemen were amused with my getting off the bike and whipping out my little point and shoot, but they relaxed a bit after a touch of friendly banter, even going so far as to suggest some areas for fun riding.

in encounters with the blue and red, it's always nice to emerge without a ticket. amen!

lest we forget

this entry is coming in a little late, for the "lest we forget" exhibition us ST phtographers had has already been removed from it's weekend home at the paragon shopping centre. apart from the one complaint we had (a understandably shaken caucasian lady who lost her husband was pissed about folks scoffing hors d'oeuvres and swilling iced tea in front of pictures of dead bodies), i think the show did the job it was supposed to do.

it opened eyes.

the photos combined with the slideshow and music left many misty eyes among the transient crowd, and even i was surprised to see just now many people were affected by what they saw. that combined with last week's saturday two month anniversary special of the tsunami reminded me just why i am so passionate about what i do. it's not just about taking good pictures. it's about transporting the viewers to where you were and allowing them to relive what you saw.

over the weekend, i saw the magic that is photography manifest itself, and once more, thank the man upstairs for allowing me to find direction in life.

ps: for those of you who are still interested in the exhibition and missed it, it's been moved to the lobby of sph news centre.

one of those days

ever had a day when you weren't really sure what was going on?

you float through it in a daze, and when you suddenly come to, it seems like every seemingly innocent thing you do just transmutates to a fuck up. you have no idea where you went wrong, and nobody seems to want to tell you.

you suddenly start feeling that everything solid and stable in your life has started crumbling down around you. strong walls reveal cracks upon closer inspection, and once familar surroundings suddenly feel like they belong to a different life. priorities change, with badly planned time distribution being a major problem. an embrace, once warm, now cooled somewhat. conversation, strained. comfort, forced.

then you find out that she feels has chosen to feel second best in your priorities, and you are clueless as to why. then you find yourself turning to the powers that be, imploring for a return to happier days.

where did things start backsliding? how did they change? what did i do? what can i do?

all questions to ponder in solitude, on a day such as this.

today's highs and lows

high: managed to sleep in for the first time in weeks
low: didn't feel as well rested i would have liked

high: first job wasn't till 5pm
low: today's three jobs (an A&E department of a local hospital, bill clinton playing night golf with singapore's senior minister, and the closing of glutton's square) gave me little room to breathe

high: downloaded new updates for my mac and ipod (dorky i know)
low: my PDA, for some unfathomable reason, decided to delete all my appointments on my computer (dorky too, i know)

high: found out that one of my best buds audrey is getting married
low: no more audrey to 'marry when we are both single and 33'

high: had jean and hwee young along for company at the golf course to kill the 2 1/2 hours we ended up waiting for clinton
low: we had to kill 2 1/2 hours at the golf course waiting for clinton, this AFTER speeding down thinking i was late

high: almond jelly and longans on ice at glutton's square while waiting for stalls to start packing up (for abovementioned story on glutton's square's closing)
low: bloody stalls not closing till past two and it being almost 3:30am by the time i got done

high: i have the next four days off!
low: i'll need to go into the office tomorrow anyway to file some pictures and complete my claims (need that money back!)

all in all, a pretty well rounded day.