Excerpts From "War Photographer"

James Nachtwey on unmediated pain in justice and misery:

If everyone could be there to see for themselves the fear and the grieve just one time,
then they'd understand that nothing is worth letting things get to the point where that happens to a single person, let alone thousands.

But everyone cannot be there and that is why photographers go there, to show them to reach out and grab them and make them stop what they're doing and pay attention to whats going on
to create pictures powerful enough to overcome the diluting effects of the mass media,
to shake people out of they're indifference
to protest. and by the strength of that protest, to make others protest.

Photoshop Talk

OK..
before I forgot. Let me elaborate how they make those cool monochrome multicolored images whatevs.
B/W it first, on adjustments.
pick gradient map.
Reverse or not. Whichever suits it.
change the color there as well.

*phew*

hoping the future me would understand this blog note.

for an old weathered photo effect :
overlay a photo with its monochrome image of red to yellow gradient, tweak the opacity/fill number on the layer options. Voila!!

Melupakan Adonis

P bilang "kita terlalu banyak melihat dunia."

Ketika saya tanya kenapa kita mau terlalu banyak di hidup ini.
Terlalu banyak mengenal kota cantik, danau sepi, angin dengan semerbak bau kayu, daun rimbun, buah manis di semua musim, seorang Adonis dengan senyum sipu, yang tidak mau terdengar berkelakar, tapi memang ingin sekali tertawa bahagia di pangkal lehernya karena ia sangat terhibur dengan senyummu.
Dengan rambut coklat keemasan, mata biru ombak yang seperti tembus pandang, tapi bukan kosong.
Karena ia senang sekali menatap wajah dan matamu.
Ia juga senang sekali bermandi matahari yang ia sangat yakin paling indah di kampung halamannya, membuat kulitnya terbakar kecoklatan.
Namun ia tidak khawatir karena ia terlalu sibuk bermain air dan menyelam ke dalamnya biru air Laut Selatan.

About Being Consciously and Subconsciously Out of Gas

I've been out of gas. completely. even now, as I'm typing this down.
This morning I was totally broke that the question 'Aren't you buying petrol?" could only be answered by 'with what?".
The needle was sinking way beyond the bottom line.
Tthe last line that possibly doesn't actually mean 'empty'.
because most car makers wouldn't think its drivers are cheap enough not to buy gas even their car tells them so.
except you're at Timbuktu or making movies with dramatic effects.
That red line on your fuel indicator, is obviously aren't there for show. And the yellow tiny light that blinks isn't being cute.
but the choice was to ignore it and let my desperate 1300cc engine revs up thirsty with whatever gasoline+dirt mixture that's left on my tank.

This might or might not have resulted in the dream I had about getting into a painstaking building to park at.
and having to speed up somewhere, by a group of Italian mechanic on red. [gee..I wonder what car they specialize on!]
They're mouthing/signaling us to get up and go, step on it and accelerate because apparently "we're way behind".. God knows from what pack.
To this I had to stick my head out of the side window saying, "but we can't, NO HAY DINERO!!"
to buy petrol, we meant.
Don't ask me why i try to speak spanish to italians.
it's a friggin dream. They're the fruit of my subconscious, which i have no control of whatsoever. I don't speak them languages, so I don't suppose the subconscious-me did.

As i suspect they're Italian and still clueless of the idea of being out-of-gas.
you can imagine how this haunts me.
a mix up of some bunch of Italians speaking gibberish that i responded with broken Spanish.
my biggest nightmare.
Horrible, horrible nightmare..

Out of gas on a unreasonably priced car with broken fan-belt, rear break light and wobbly car boot, when a pit-full of red clad mechanic crews are supposed to crank you up for speed.

I woke up today drenched in sweat and hogged someone else's car instead.
Which got two lines worth of gas.

that's way loads.

The Time We Had to Abandon the Steps that's gone too far

i'm walking through a leafy canopy of green,

cold and smelling like rain.

Rain has left this dry of cold months ago.

I can only walk with no stop,

i look up and saw some dust-like amber following me like trails

What did i run away from?

I have not remembered for quite some time.

But i know i belong.

two miles away is where the foliage stops.

Then someplace not unlike the journey here, lies.

i promise this land I'd come someday,

with a life tucked in all my small but abundant pockets.

i still have a lifetime of tearful life to go through as yet,

When God forbid, there's a lot for me to beseech..

My steep steps are barely halfway down, there.

Just say your lovely fine cherubic words, dear angels of lifted despair,

i will fly without you even having to lift me here.

only please, never to deny me one thing i have been abiding by,

the little dreams i have about the places i haven't.

Opus 23, 36 and Donald's Woes

Opus 23 is playing again and yet again trying to put my ears and mind to a test of allegiance. Will i ever crack and spill to recurring ennui?

Not right now.
the right amount of solemn desolation, dignified through gentle vibrations of piano keys. The only music that can bring me to prompt tears.

Still and all a pattern of staccato sound is resounding from the bathroom, it helps me think.
plump.
plump.
pllluuump.

"What have you done now?"
"for the love of God, have you not done enough now?"

I never knew it's so painful to know that people you love could really hate you, hate you for allegedly hurting their heart so bad. Scarred as though for life. Tainted as though there's no forgiveness to match its vice.

I Stared Nothing in Particular Afar

I stared nothing in particular afar.
I stared at the leaking ceiling.
It's a pretty ceiling, but there are water leak marks and moth evidences.
Everything pretty is multiplied its magnitude by at least twice the size at my stance right now.
The feeling of hatred and petrifying anger towards things you don't want to leave behind.
People you never want to disappoint, but did nevertheless.

I turned on the light and opt for the lamp with the not-energy-safe bulbs. Its light's subdued, barely lit anything and it both costs and damages earth more.
Yet I refuse to care right now.
Today's decline needs its fair portion of acquisitiveness.
Its own inconsiderate power-gobbling bulbs.

I looked down to the corner in front of my house.
I'm waiting for someone running his car off the kerb and askew straight to this house I'm in. Better still, right at my wait.

I've always fond of imagining and formulating schemes on how I'd someday die.
Who would be around, how much blood would gush out. How would it beautifully trickle down my face. Whether i would be endowed with a major hemorrhaging on my head.
As any cause of death is worth mulling over.

Although a sword stab is by far the most desirable off-the-road death. Like there's an added archaic feel to it.
Though, my number one death-plan is quite undeniably being blown up and/or falling of a south italian cliff in a tuned red Ferrari F40 (1991). Or a F430 Spider. Anything vintage would be too much of a waste. I'd be dead before i cared but, old Ferraris are like children I'll never have.

Yet an F40.
I've always liked that car since i was 10 so it'd be natural to want to die in one.
wouldn't it?