Am working towards moving my lazy ass to create more this year.
This is a snap photo of my first write-up as a writer contributor to a column in Life & Times of our local newspaper NST. And yes … the first time is always the sweetest.
Am putting here as my self-reference, I have the tendency to overcrowd my working table and losing all those paper clips by the end of the year. I need to kill that “I couldn’t be bothered attitude” … grrrr
Hopefully, this will be a good start to my writing experience. I’ll write and publish my own book one day. I dunno yet what type of book that I am gonna have … maybe it’ll be just a fancy coffee book that people would flip through and wonder about life.
Whatever it is … it is just feel good to have a dream, any dream would do … right? It keeps you moving.
Cheerios!
MM
ps – QS AR-Rahman 55: 29-30
“Sekalian makhluk yang ada di langit dan di bumi sentiasa berhajat dan memohon kepadaNya. Tiap-tiap masa Ia di dalam urusan (mencipta dan mentadbirkan makhluk-makhlukNya)!
Maka yang mana satu di antara nikmat-nikmat Tuhan kamu, yang kamu hendak dustakan?”
I could spend hours just wandering and observing my surroundings for something to learn from or just something to look at. Sharing 5 of my favourite portraits that whenever I look at them… I feel like packing my bag and starting wandering on the street again.
I was watering my garden last week … honestly not sure if I should label my 5 potted plants as a garden … I am a self-proclaimed minimalist, having more than 10 plants at my home would disqualify me from my minimalist self-titled hu hu hu … I shall think so (an excuse to remain as lazy as possible).
Okay … back to my story. I was watering my plants last week when I noticed a newly ‘born’ butterfly … she (I prefered to call it she because it was beautiful) just came out from her cocoon. She was drying her wings and strengthen her limbs preparing for her first take-off.
Mesmerizing beauty
I used to shot macro. Quit doing it and focusing more on traveling and flying instead but … I am a moment photographer … I could just revert back to any photography genre just to capture moments, right?
Drying her wings by flapping it slowly
I shoot this with my 105mm Nikkor f2.8 lens. I love that lens … the color and the bokeh that came out from this lens is dreamy. Photos were taken handheld … moments like this could pass by in split seconds and you need to be quick with you camera.
Looking at this little missy makes me wonder about my own life too. When the nest is finally empty … the one who left behind in the nest would either feel delusionally lost or probably decided to move on to the next nest.
Figured that … what makes a beautiful nest, is not the nest itself but the butterfly. Deep … 🙂 and I want to be that butterfly.
Little missy being impatient watching me
And at last after not more than 10 shots … my beautiful model decided to take-off and explore her new world. Leaving me behind … thinking that I should sharpen up my macro skill lol.
Little missy showing off her new wings
Beautiful moments, only if you choose to open your eyes and decide on ‘seeing’ ….alhamdullilah.
Bye for now,
Cheers.
MM
ps- “The journey.” ~ by Rumi
Come, seek,
for seeking is the foundation of fortune:
every success depends upon focusing the heart.
Unconcerned with the business of the world,
keep saying with all your soul, “Ku, ku,” like the dove…
Even though you’re not equipped,
keep searching…
Whoever you see engaged in search,
become her friend and cast your head in front of her,
for choosing to be a neighbor of seekers,
you become one yourself…
Day and night you are a traveler in a ship.
You are under the protection of a life-giving spirit…
Step aboard the ship and set sail,
like the soul going towards the soul’s Beloved.
Without hands or feet, travel toward Timelessness
just as spirits flee from non-existence.
…By God, don’t linger
in any spiritual benefit you have gained,
but yearn for more like one suffering from illness
whose thirst for water is never quenched…
Leave the seat of honor behind:
the Journey is your seat of honor.
“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I will meet you there” ~ Rumi
I am feeling hyper-introvert lately. Spending my precious time with myself is more comforting than being around people … uh uh too much time spent alone either at my studio or behind my mac (doing editing) felt super comfortable. Comfortable is not good. Time to go out and hangout with the extrovert.
I edited my Kuda Kepang image folder during my hyper-introvert mode … thank god. I attended the dance performance last November, which was five (5) months ago … yes, I am mastering the art of “marinate your photos”. I need to wait until the photos are matured enough before I can re-create new emotions for my photos. Wow … now I sounded like a pro when I said that lol.
Kuda Kepang is a traditional dance originated from Indonesia and very famous among the Johor society. Please feel free to ask uncle google about the background story of Kuda Kepang. I was more enchanted by the light, the unpredictable motion and the shadow during the show.
Preparing the spiritual being of the Barongan mask
The air was filled with smoke coming out from the burning ‘kemenyan’ or benzoin resin. The ambience was beautifully set through proper used of lighting and background colors (on walls and floor). The traditional dance was performed by the Kuda Kepang Parit Raja from Batu Pahat, Johor and the show was held at the BlackBox Publika Solaris Dutamas, Kuala Lumpur.
Kuda Kepang dance motion is very mystical. The background music derived from the traditional music instruments: the anklung, gong and gendang were very enchanting. The dancers looked high and disoriented.
The ‘bapak’ or leader of the pack
I am a ‘logical thinker’ kind of person … I was puzzled trying to logically understand the reason why some adults dancing against the music with a ‘man-made cow-skin’ look alike horse could get high and disoriented by just inhaling the smoke while listening to the soft enchanting background music. Hmmmm … and the dancers moved in a trance state.
Unpredictable moves by the dancers
Bapak checking on the dancer. Love the light on his head
Interesting performance … my first time watching Kuda Kepang and my mind went … what the … why.. and 1001 more why-s lol. Curious mind …
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” ~Dorothy Parker
I am in a very productive and ambitious mood this few days ;-P and I am not very sure on how long will it last hu hu hu. I did an extensive housekeeping and re-organisation on all my external HDs … yeay! for me. I edited some of my old and forgotten image folders.
Sharing with y’alls my Wayang Kulit Kelantan aka Traditional Shadow Puppet show images from a few months back. I wanted to explore more on my local culture this year, so I signed up for any cultural performance or any local art gallery around town.
Uncle google has the detail explanation on what is Wayang Kulit Kelantan or Traditional Kelantanese Shadow Puppet show. My late father never failed to remind the ‘rebel’ me that I am a Kelantanese. He would force me to watch and listen to Mak Yong (traditional Kelantanese dance) and wayang kulit. So, watching this group of street Wayang Kulit performers performing the shadow play at Jalan Pudu, Kuala Lumpur recently, did bring back the sweet memories of my childhood.
Back stage preparation before the show begin
The show is accompanied by a group of traditional musician playing gongs, barrel drums, cymbals and flutes.
The puppet master is called Tok Dalang
The story was mostly about an ancient epic story from India called Ramayana
Well … my D800 never failed to impress me. In such a low light … I managed to capture the ambience moment behind the stage. I was telling my photographer friend about the stages that we had been through during our photography journey.
I started with just clicking my camera on auto mode. Then I move up further by capturing high key images on manual and aperture mode. At that time, every image should look bright and clear, as bright as possible. Dark and shadow was a no … no. Then, I was crazy about IR images (infra red) … playing on contra and false/ fantasy colours. And …. now I am all crazy about dark, shadow, chiaroscuro, emotion and all those fine art things … a continuous learning process.
bla … bla … bla … babbling. Gotta run now … I need to edit another old image folder of Kuda Kepang dance that I took last year and some more old folders before my next trip.
MATSUDA MASHIMARU 