Facing Life

While messing around with fd's flickr toys' ego surf, I happened to find this shot I took some years back, and its sort of recently featured in Presscue's top 10 political graffiti heh.

If I remember correctly, this was shot while we were in Bethlehem, at a street right beside the massive concrete barriers set up by Israel to prevent insurgents from sneaking through. It was taken with my first digital camera borrowed from my parents, a little Creative silverbox that's probably about as good as most phone cameras today.

I guess the trip down to Israel was one that really did expose me to a whole other side of the world, and probably a little spark that did get me pretty much interested into photography, sort of a mini-revival of the photojournalist dreams I had when I was a kid. Its such experiences that makes you grow alot. We were on ground zero during an escalation, the tension hung like a thick blanket in the air. It was pretty much commonplace to hear rockets and jets flying over, and meeting armed men all around the city.

I utterly do detest those who have a whole lot of opinions and comments on the situation, but have never seen a single shot fired in anger, or faced a loaded rifle.
Just to think about all the general paper essays being written and school debates simply makes one sick. Kids playing politicians, having intellectual debates over issues where their only knowledge comes from wikipedia and the mass media.

Being in the face of such reality, it only felt right that such images of daily life be brought to the world.

If I had a choice, I'd gladly return back there, and just wander around at street level. I'd have no qualms about heading down into the heart and heat of things in Iraq either.

Smother

Despite Urban renewal, development, or growth, however you'd want to phrase it, its still nice to see that certain things are left untouched by the hands of men...

Growth. Naturally, artificially.

Spotted this amidst Capitaland's development of ion downa in orchard, scotts, and well, thought that the cranes and construction work would juxtapose nicely with the tree amidst all the grays and harsh lines.

De Opresso Liber!

Sketch ! I've always loved drawing as a kid, and its always kinda fun working with monochrome, even in photography =)

Off the cuff inspiration, well, it pretty much sums up the much-forgotten reformation that flipped the light switches on to a world of darkness...

De Opresso Liber!

Thai Cookout

Saturday morning cookouts in college...

Been joining the Thai-Lahu guys...

Lahu-styled (I think!) Chicken curry, stir fried onions, parsley (yum)

And as a side dish, there's this eclectic Asian mix of barbecued ladyfingers, charred onions and garlic, mashed with dried, pounded chilli, and of course parsley!

The workings of 2 Authentic Thai-Lahus, 1 Aussie, and 1 culturally confused Singaporean...
It has a 3 fireballs rating =) Heeheex.

Perfect Love

Homework =)

Declining/Parsing 1 John 1:1-2:6,

This is from 2:5, where the little phrase reads "the love of God has been perfected" literally...

Refers to the condition where if a man keeps the Word of God, he would be counted complete, and that is a completeness in the Love of God, where his life shows forth God's Love, the agape, sacrificial, unconditional love =)

It's been a rainy day, but well, I'm kind of too lethargic to head out and look for water droplets to shoot, so its back to macro at the desk, and indoors...

Breaking Fast

If there's one thing that I'll never grow tired of munching on, its cereal-

I'm inclined towards the "basic" varieties, Kellogg's Special K has always been a favourite, along with Marks & Spencer's and Post's.
There's nothing more fun than working with basic cereal and low-fat milk, and mixing in condiments and little bits of whatever I can find, from chocolate chips, cubed wafers, diced fruits, to shredded coconut...

and as you might have guessed, Irish Cream blends in surprisingly well =))

Anticipation

This semester's studies have proven to be far tougher than expected...

Well, I've been shooting very little as of late, I'm trying hard not to complain, but Singapore has this certain environment where it takes a fair bit of creativity and effort to bring art out of the land...

Thank God for an upgrade to a 30D, which I've hardly got a chance to fiddle around with to get used to...
I'm looking forward to the year end, where the 2 weeks in Thailand will grant me some time to do more extensive walkabouts, which has always been a brilliant time to relax a little, and work on the brighter side of the gray matter within this tiny skull...

I think since I'm confined largely to my studies and room... I'll try my utmost to bring up little bits of my daily life...


Library Cards!

I've been swotting away, and that requires frequent visits to the college library, and all night marathon stayovers in them...
I think these library cards are interesting, one would hardly have these around in today's age of barcode scanners and plastic gizmos...
We still work on a system of library cards, where all our books have little "borrower" cards in them to record the dates... Its kind of archaic and old-world... but well, in a library where books and works average back to the 1800s... what's new? =)

I'll try to shoot at least one piece every other day or so... =)

I've been writing more these days, on the journal proper...
deivorytower.livejournal.com