Many great photographers I had met had one thing in common; they add value to other people's lives.
Bonjour! I just want to share a good news which is I was selected to be one of the participant in the 2011 Angkor Photo Workshop held at Siem Reap, Cambodia this year November. To be frank, I applied for it for many years and thankfully I made the cut this year. And it was definitely worth the wait as I had the most awesome experience and on top of that I’m proud to be the only Malaysian among other Asia countries participants. And of course I would say that I was totally blessed for having really good tutors; the amazing and talented Justin Mott and Carolyn O’Neill. As tutors they helped and guide me to capture that perfect shots and give me the kick to move upwards and expending my skills, thinking, and awareness to ensure that I will have great pieces of images that’s not only impactful but most importantly it project a story.
My story is about an Imam; Haji Ismail (The word imam is an Arabic word that means “leader.” Thus Imam is an Islamic leadership position, often the worship leader of a mosque and the Muslim community.) I was grateful to meet Haji Ismail who is a community leader, husband, father and also a teacher to the villager children at his community. For this story I was able to experience their life by living in their village and staying with Haji Ismail’s family on floating village of Tonle Sap, Siem Reap. I stayed for couple of nights to observe and understand their way of life and at the same time to create a better relationship with him, his family and also the community. I have to say that it’s not easy to tap on people’s life and to make them trust you, its would normally takes years however after days of spending time with Haji Ismail and explain to him my intention of the story, he slowly started to understand and open up to the idea of being photographed.
He later on invited me to stay at his house and I didn’t pause to say Yes. I packed my back right away and ready to hit the floating house!
And here is some of my checklist items ; canon 5d + 35mm + 20-35 + 85mm, my charger and laptop since my old battery cant stand longer than few hours and I only have 1 2gb and 1 4gb cf card and by shooting raw i don’t think it is enough for me. My loyal hp with a prepaid from Bee line, my green traveller wallet, VitaminC ( I've been feeling under the weather since I arrived), my favorite Quake bar (Just enough to fill my empty stomach) , 2 headlights (1 belong to Sofian Hamid, thanks man!), mp3 player (earphoneless as now it belong to his son :)) Angkor Photo Festival leaflet (tips: it’s a great tool to explain to the people), mineral water(it’s so humid there) and moleskine notepad a gift from my lovely gf.
This is a view from the mosque and too bad his house is not in the picture hehe… but most of the muslim family living in this area.
i have to say this kinda kuih Popiah is really delicious. Made by his lovely wife. I finished it all by myself haha..p.s- special thanks to my nadia who is helping me out with this posting.
0 comments:
Post a Comment