Tag Archives: face

May 2, 2017

Obsess with Faces

By Matsuda Mashimaru

Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the mirror, or the painter? ~ Pablo Picasso

I am always puzzled when people ask me on what sort of photographer am I? And, before I could even finish answering that question … they’ll start pushing me into another question … do you shoot weddings? I guess everybody with a camera shoot wedding these days.

Not that I don’t shoot weddings. I do. I shoot weddings too if the price worth my effort. It seemed that everybody wanted a piece of a photographer. They expect diamond but paying peanuts.  Charging as low as RM500 to cover for a wedding is crazy. With the amount of effort, time and gears used to shoot the lovely groom and bride for a few hours … I think it is just cruelty and an insult to even consider offering that to a photographer.

Me … I tried my best not to negotiate with my potential customer, pay me on how much my work worth to you but bear in mind that I know how much I am worth.

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Pose 1: A sadhu that we met at Pashupatinath Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal

Okay! back to my story for today. As at now … I am still obsessed with photographing human face. This is a series of photos that I took of a Sadhu in Kathmandu, Nepal.

He has a very long hair that he can even wear it as a turban. He has an amazing personality, charming and smiled politely during an hour of our photo session. Fyi, as you walk through the back lane of the temple you will stumble into a few sadhus that gather freely around the area. We spotted him and wanted to take his picture. And yes … it was not free.

Sharing some of his poses here.

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Pose 2: Capturing him in frames within frames

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Pose 3: Trying different angles that show his crown aka hairs

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Pose 4: He is a bit relax here with a hint of smile hidden under his mustache. Maybe he is amused by my antics

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Pose 5: Rapunzel … Rapunzel … let down your hair

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Pose 6: Namaste! My favorite pose of all

I love the earthy tone if his skin, his hair and his emotion shown on each poses. These pictures are a keeper moment for me. Gorgeous face …

Bye for now.

 

Cheers

MM

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3 Comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in Places, Uncategorized

January 20, 2017

The first The sweetest

By Matsuda Mashimaru

Scanned Documents

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?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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December 1, 2016

Same Old Same Old

By Matsuda Mashimaru

 

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Class 6 of Sri Pintar Subang Jaya for the year of 2016

I always reserved a day of my time in October and a day in November each year for a group of children from Sri Pintar Subang Jaya school’s class photo and their convocation day.

It was a nice feeling of seeing the same group of children growing a year older each year.

The ‘same old same old’ moment with a reality that life moves on regardless of how sweet or bitter the ‘same old same old moment’ was at that particular time.

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Children of SRIP Subang Jaya 

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Children of SRIP Subang Jaya 

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A little angel sitting beside me during the event

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Another little angel trying to steal my attention

The idea of death being interlinked with photography caught my attention too. Most of us viewed photography as a method of freezing or capturing a moment in life but few of us regarded photography as the death of a moment.

The death of a moment captured and instilled into a photograph.

I am now … recuperating from hmmm whatever that bothering my life, here at my mom’s home. Sleeping … eating and enjoying the rain before going back to my nest again soon.

Bye

Cheers

MM

 

 

 

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October 26, 2016

Wandering Soul

By Matsuda Mashimaru
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Sulaiman: Danau Tarusan Kamang, Agam, Sumatera, Indonesia

New places always excite me.

I could spend hours just wandering and observing my surrounding for something to learn from or just something to look at. Sharing 5 of my favorite portraits that whenever I look at it … I felt like packing my bag and start wandering on the street again.

Pic above: Sulaiman, our local talent posing for me with his fish cages. Danau Tarusan Kamang is a natural pond that seemed to have a mind of its own mind. It dried up and swelled up with water according to God knows whatever rules … I think it has something to do with its underground geographical structure.

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Mr Freedom: Bukit Tinggi, Sumatera, Indonesia

Pic above: Mr Freedom showing off his ‘freedom’ … tattooed hard on his chest. What a coincident since freedom is my all time favorite words lol.

Meeting strangers from all part of life while wandering around is an eye opening. I learned to listen well too. Stories about their day-to-day life which is most of the time would be an opposite story from mine.

Engaging a simple and sincere chat with strangers on the street came naturally to me too… I like it. And, I think that it would be rude for you to just showed up from nowhere and suddenly just click on your camera on somebody’s face.

Have some respect … kot.

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A woman from Karo Tribe: Omo Valley, Ethiopia

Pic above: My lady from Karo tribe of Omo Valley, Ethiopia posed with my colorful shawl. We were curious about each other lol.

I smiled whenever I saw this photo. She probably has never seen a shawl as colorful as mine in her life (Malaysian women wear colorful clothing at every chance that we have and we have a whole bundle of choices to choose from hu hu hu).  And, I envied her beads collection.

So, she wanted my colorful shawl for an exchange with her photos and I ended up having a series of her photos looking satisfied with our deal ;-P .

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Omak/ Mother: Bukit Tinggi, Sumatera, Indonesia

And, I personally think that it would be more satisfying to have some sort of connection with your subject. Especially when I am taking portraiture or faces on the street, I want to have meaning to a face that I would probably keep for a very long time in my external HDD.

Pic above: A loving mother that I met while wandering at one of the morning markets at Bukit Tinggi, Sumatera, Indonesia. We had a loving chat together … talking about her children and how lucky she was to be surrounded by her loved ones.

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Chacha: Northern Pakistan

And lastly, the chacha (uncle) that we met at one of our stops on our way to Skardu, Northern Pakistan. Strangers in this part of the world are rare. I never expected that we would be treated warmly.  it is true then … “There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met”. (pls ignore the salt bottle on the table … lol)

I am feeling grateful … for the soul that decided to leave me, the soul that wander together hand-in-hand with me and the newly discovered soul that decided to stay … the best word to express my gratitude is alhamdullilah.

Bye for now.

Cheers,

MM

 

 

 

 

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January 27, 2016

Perfectionist vs Rightist

By Matsuda Mashimaru
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Tools vs Photographer

“People call me a perfectionist, but I’m not. I’m a rightist. I do something until it’s right, and then I move on to the next thing” ~ James Cameron

I kinda like this quote … and yes, I am a rightist for sure 🙂 .  An attempt to explain my super slow reaction on each job that require my thinking hat. Yeah … and I am blunt if I didn’t have my thinking hat on.

Alamak! (oh my!) … and I have not posted any new entry since November 2015, which was last year. Last year sounds like a long months ago. Happy New Year 2016 to all my readers and to my followers (small group of followers coz I am too shy to market myself lol), thank you for putting that extra effort to follow my writing aka babbling. I feel honored … thank you.

I fulfilled at least 1/3 of my last year 2015 New Year resolution (… I shall think so 🙂 ). And … I don’t have any new additional resolution for 2016. Thinking of not having any new year resolution this year … maybe I will let my options stay open and just follow my heart.

What was I doing in the past few months that kept me locked up in my own cave? I wonder too or must be that laziness syndrome again … I need to write often as the more I write … the more I read.

I settled down (not so peacefully) in my new home in mid November, traveled to Nepal in early December, flew around Cyberjaya and Kundang air space with my paramotor buddies during my free weekends, traveled to Krabi, Thailand via train/ van in early this month and now I am packing up my gears again for my next weekend gateway to Pedu Lake, Kedah, Malaysia.

My Nepal trip was very different and interesting at the same time. Giving me the urges to keep on coming back to Nepal. I will share more about my Nepal trip once I am properly settled with my new office and my new studio. Yes … I am having my own creative space now … uhh and am super nervous and excited about this too.

Sharing with y’all my moment with my new friend Nima that I met on my way back from Pokhara to Kathmandu, Nepal. Saw him at one of the street side coffee shop on our tea break and I decided to approach him for a quick street shoot. His beautiful “sad look” caught my eyes … and he had a cultural shocked too (I bet!), seeing a daring blunt woman wanting to photograph him lol.

The thing that I love about street photography is … meeting up with beautiful strangers on the street. Beauty is very subjective though. Beauty in my eyes will not necessarily a joy to your eyes.

I am so hooked up with faces now a days. Maybe this is just a phase …

Bye now

Cheers

MM

p/s:  …. blank

 

 

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