The International Fruit Day!

Today is the international fruit day. I say it’s a very weird choice for a celebration, no? What is the meaning of a fruit day? I mean literally, what do we celebrate? A day of antitoxic and juicy vitamin C? But the word fruit could mean so much in English, like it also could in Bahasa.

There’s a quote about fruit that stroke me deep when I first read it. The quote was of Oscar Wilde. He’s a well-known poet, and like all populars, he suffered time of trial harder than common people.

He was accused of homosexual activity. In that time, it was considered a crime. He was then convicted of gross indecency and was sentenced to hard labor for two years. He was already a successful writer and scholar at the time, having already written novels and play scripts such as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Lady Windermere’s Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest. So you could imagine the changes he experienced from his days of fame and his days of labor and post-labor.

In the days of hard labor, he wrote 50,000 letters to his Douglas, the guy he was accused of having a relationship with, letters that were never sent. In one of his letters, he wrote the quote I’ve been trying to tell you about.

“… I wanted to eat of the fruit of all the trees in the garden of the world… And so, indeed, I went out, and so I lived. My only mistake was that I confined myself so exclusively to the trees of what seemed to me the sun-lit side of the garden, and shunned the other side for its shadow and its gloom.”

Well, I guess it’s a common thing when someone says, “I want to try everything the world can offer,” pretty much Wilde’s first sentence. But then again, we only want to try how it feels to be as rich as multinational company owners, as famous as Hollywood superstars, as powerful as US Presidents, as wild as rock stars, or as whatever as whoever that indeed was the sun-lit side of the garden. And yes, it’s human to not want to know the miserables, let me not elaborate further who they are.

But I guess Wilde’s words are deeper than that. That whatever we experienced, the good or the bad, it is the fruit of the garden of the world. Fruit here means the sweet fleshy food reserves one plant makes. Fruit here means our sweet reserves for the future. However hard it may seem, however shadowy and gloomy, we’ll taste the sweetness of our experiences later, if we want to learn something out of them.

It may not be what Wilde meant, but hey, I have every right to read it as I want it. Happy international fruit day people!

How can you refuse a calling?

Most parents control the future of their children by making decisions for them, sometimes without the child's consent. They tell their kids to be lawyers, accountants, doctors, anything that they thought as the best for the kids. But my mother boasts about how she liberates her kids to choose whatever they want to be. Sounds like I've got the good one?

Well, things are not always like it sounds. My mom is not exactly the democratic kind of mother. When she says I could be whatever I want, I still got to fill her check list of ideals, including economic ideals.

The thing is I fell in love with journalism. Mommy approved it, since it's not a negative thing. Not till she knew how much an Indonesian journalist make.

She supported me when I went to college for a degree in journalism. She wasn't so happy when I had to go all around Jakarta for reports when I worked as a freelance photographer, but she didn't complain -- because she thought I was just enjoying my free time, making little money for snacks. Then I applied to one of the biggest media corporate in Indonesia and got accepted as a freelanced reporter for their newspaper (it's actually a part I have to undergo before working there full time).

And then she asked me, how much did I ask for my wage. I answered her with the number AJI advocates as the adequate income for Jakarta-based journalists. She frowned and said, "But I can make that much just by sitting in SOS Clinic for one to two hours." I forgot to mention, Mommy is a radiologist.

I was like, what is it with you? When I first say I want to be a journalist, I signed a contract that I will not be extravagantly rich and I thought you backed me up. I would probably just make enough for food on my table, but I would be happy. I mean, what more could you be asking for? I suppose she was asking me for a trip to Europe or at least somewhere around other parts of Asia.

Well I replied her, "Ma, you yourself said that in life, we will always always have enough money, no matter how little we make. Where did that go?"

"Yeah, but look at your sister. Her living expense is like, what, 10 million a month?"

"I can live with lesser bills."

"No you can't."

"Yes. People don't have to spend that much money in life, Ma."

"No. Your sister buys everything in traditional market and doesn't go shopping anymore. It's how much you make ends meet right now. You can not live with less than that."

"Yes I can. When I said to you I wanna be a journalist, I've already anticipate the low income. I just want you to back me up."

She was on my door by that time. As she opened it, about to go out of my room, she said, "You should make more, since you got a good education and stuffs." Then she went out.

Then I went furious.

For God sake, off course I will be wealthier if I choose to be a doctor like Mom or like my brother. But this journalism love is a calling. How can you refuse a calling? And it's not like I make so little I couldn't live with it. I could. The number is not that extremely low.

I want to do what I want to do, where I feel my heart is, where my passion is. I may choose the wrong path. One day in the future, I will probably regret the fact that I don't really care how much I make, but I will never know if I never try. I just wish my mother would show more appreciation. If not by coming to my photo exhibition, or by congratulating me on my first media appearance (she didn't do all that!), at least I don't want her to complain about my being accepted in this newspaper. Please, Ma..

Fashion photos attempt with so so results..

I tried to do fashion photography once or twice in my life. Never been happy with the results. But I have to share this one. Because the model is my junior in college. I payed her none but lunch and dropped her home. And since then, I haven't thanked her enough for participating in my so called photo shooting activity.

There's a stupid story behind this photo shooting by the way. I lost the battery seal of my flash. And because I didn't have flash trigger, I couldn't use any studio lamps. I took the photos anyway with the built in flash. The results were far from what I imagined them to be.

This is far from good. I just want to share this as a gratitude to the model, Carla Valencia. Thank you so muchos, Carla..







By the way, I have my own reason not liking fashion photos. It's because I don't know what I want when I take them. I don't know when a picture is good enough. Plus I'm not good with photo editing. And off course, I don't have the extra lighting set you need to have in order to get dramatic pictures. So I'll just stick to my routine, the street documentary. :D

I failed!

As some of you readers may already know, currently, my photos about Jakmania is displayed in an exhibition called Enormousight in Galeri Foto Jurnalistik Antara. Seeing those pictures on the wall, thinking of what I've been through to get them, and feeling the importance of telling the Jakmania's story through means I could provide, of course I am happy. Not just happy, I am very much honored, for GFJA is a widely known photojournalism gallery. But deep down inside, I can not help feel disappointed with myself.

I knew from the first time I reviewed my own pictures, that I hadn't got the picture that speaks itself. Even when Oscar Motuloh did the curation, he himself said he liked my story, but my pictures were not as powerful as my text. Back then, I didn't know what to do. I couldn't get more picture because I had very limited time. So I just redid what I could. And so, those 7 photos were the best I could get.

But most of all, why I am this disappointed, is not because I couldn't get myself the best pictures, but because I failed to tell the world about the Jak. I wanted everybody to feel what I feel, know what I know, that when I said they're living their lives like Jakmania is their religion, I'm not making metaphors, that it is real. Turns out I have to learn the art of story telling (with or without pictures) better, so that more people would be interested in what I say.

Well, I still feel like I have to tell their story And so I will. If I've failed in this photo exhibition, I will find other places, other means, other medias. They have trusted me to tell the world about them, even when I am not a part of them. For that honor, I will be their Hermes. :D

I will post the photos (complete version) and the complete story here after the exhibition's over. Look out for it. :)

Introducing, ME!

Yes, I have at least 4 other blogs you could check out in my multiply, friendster, facebook, and tumblr, not to mention my micro blogging activity in twitter. But I have my reason for another blog. First, I don't have any in English. Second of all, the last time I updated my multiply was like 2 years ago.

So, this is me and enjoy the blog..