2016 Pekanbaru, Indonesia
I recently acquired a 6TB NAS system from Synology to replace my decade-old 2 TB system from Buffalo.
The Synology is a cute little white box which I named ‘The Tardis‘ because it is bigger on the inside. That is about as much decision making/ knowledge I have of my new system; post your geek/ setup questions to my French IT consultant because I am clueless when it comes to which wire goes where.
Shiny Things
While it is always exciting to have new and shiny things, it soon turned out to be every photographer’s nightmare having to look through and move 3TB of images (2008 to current) into the new system while creating catalogues in Lightroom for the older files (I used to be on Capture One).
This coupled with multitudes of folders within un-dated/ unnamed folders, images in every sort of formats, the general slowness or even browsing through the Buffalo, the inability to store Lightroom catalogues on a NAS system, the list goes on; I was close to tears at 2010.
I was ready to pay anyone who could do the transfer and organisation for me while I burrito in bed and snack on chocolates to deal with this big stress. Exploitation you say? Nah, they will learn what not to do for their own photosystem and gain fantastic experience! In fact, clever people say that transferring and looking through 3TB of images is very relaxing. Big win for them! #alternativefacts
Early Days
Taking a walk through memory lane was rather traumatising as most of my old works belongs to the trash. I kept on wondering how did my mentor ever managed to teach me to see; to look at things differently and to tell a story at the same time.
I shot so much back then; at least an average of 300 images a week and those are the ones I kept. It was excruciating sitting through my early works but something changed between the 2013-2014 period as my images started to get less painful to look at.
I came to the conclusion that what you see and how you see are influenced by what you know and what you experienced which is why I wouldn’t say that if you get a Leica or -insert super awesome shiny camera-, you will not suck too but rather:
Read, write, listen, travel, fall in love, fall out of love, dance, laugh, cry, sing, reflect and photograph it all!
A good mentor doesn’t hurt either.
The images not only brought back memories, some brought back emotions from the different stages of my life. Overall, this whole transfer thing worked out to be a huge lesson on viewpoints for me as I am forced to look at old bodies of work; with a fresh pair of eyes.
How I am then is not how I am now; people change and I wonder how some of the people I photographed are doing…
Things I Missed
Looking back, there are two things I miss shooting. One being cosplay, the other being my Ball Jointed Dolls.
I pride myself in posing people for portraiture and cosplay was the one that started it all for me.
My friends, Lawliet, Sochii and many others were kind enough to give me a chance to work with them in my early days where I knew next to nothing; I am eternally grateful for that.
2009, Junjou Romantica with Lawliet and Sochii
I love dolls; always have and always will. It is a pity my current equipment setup makes it hard for me to photograph their gorgeous details. I do see myself returning to still life one day; perhaps I will even post some of my older works up.
In the meantime, here is one of my favourite of Juliet from 2009.
2009, Juliet
