Friday, April 21, 2006

Life in a snap - me and my camera

Since I was small, I have a very close relationship with a camera. Most of the time, I would be the object of the camera.

When I was 3 years old, one of my photos appeared in Ayahbunda. Ayahbunda is one of leading family magazines in my country.

This experience has made me developed a more intimate relationship with a camera. I gave my free time to learn to be a good object for the camera and this resulted to 2 biggest events in my life in my relationship with the camera; first, when I was a teenager, my photo again printed in almost all mass media in my country because I did an ad for a beeper company, then second, in my twenties, one of my portraits which is the same size as my house door, was displayed on a big photographic event at Jakarta Convention Center.

Since then I have stopped making commercial photo shoots. But this doesn’t mean I quit my relationship with my camera. Still I can’t live without one.
When I finally managed to buy a good Olympus camera for myself, slowly I learn not to be the object of the camera anymore. I found my new exciting experience being a photographer.
I snapped here and there. I take a snapshot of everything that looks good for my eyes and for others. I take photo of nature and things that happen around me. I take photo to support me in telling stories of places I have been. My favorite object is all my beloved people, especially my son.

When I met my friend, Cristien ‘Malfoy’ who loves camera as I do, we have become a good partner in photography. We just love to freeze the beauty of New Zealand from many angles.
At the moment, I don’t live with Cristien anymore but I still pursue my relationship with my camera which is now upgraded to a digital camera. With a digital camera, I found it quite easier to produce a high quality photo because I can always preview the photo I have taken and delete it if I don’t like the photo. Besides, I don’t have to always develop the photos and keep the photo in a bulky photo album. I save more money with my digital camera, especially when it is teamed up with my computer and my powerful adobe Photoshop software.

I go crazy over my camera and have tried to make money out of the photos I snapped by sending them to local newspaper to accompany some exciting news, or by using them on Ebay to make my items more appealing to my prospective buyers, or just uploading them on the internet photographic forum for other people to comment on.

After 3 attempts, finally my photo of 2 elephants riding on a lorry has won a prize as the best picture of the day and was published on The Star newspaper. I took that photo because the 2 elephants looked so cute and this was the first time for me witnessing elephants riding on a lorry and I just couldn’t miss the moment.

Thank you my camera! You have made my life so beautiful in your own way by preserving things that are so memorable to me and to others.

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