18th Moon Station

Gading Night Carnival 2012

It’s already been a year since the previous night carnival isn’t it ? Just like before, the developer in Kelapa Gading held a festival for fashion and something that hold the key to our heart (according to Yogi Bear), food.

There’s also wine and cheese showing, probably there’s also tasting time but at least I came on the wrong time.

As usual, the first day has a parade of costume and decorated cars across the boulevard, blocking traffic and re-routing cars through residential area’s streets where they will bring noise to the locals as well as still causing long traffic jam everywhere around.

It’s this event that attracted most of the visitors toting camera, which speaking of peoples nowadays, a lot of them.

Jakarta Batik Carnival

When I first heard there will be a batik festival in Jakarta, in a place they call Batik village, my first impression is a place with significant number of batik textile artists gathering together. That seems like an ideal setup and the place itself can become an in-the-city tourist destination for peoples who want to see how it's done, and yet still produce thing in a home industry scale output.

Of course it’s a vain dream, because thinking of it again cold headedly, would it be possible to make such place in Jakarta when the government’s main interest is quick money (e.g: construction and commercial projects) instead of the slower (e.g: iconic public space, non-shopping tourism development).

Anyway, this year’s annual Jakarta Batik Festival is in fact the second and is located in the neighbourhood of Pal Batu neighbourhood in Jakarta.

The zoo in Jakarta

My first impression of the Jakarta’s zoo, Ragunan, is… big. Second impression is how the place looks like it’s built in a forest instead of cages in spaces open to the sun.

Banana land

Tried an exploration to Kebayoran Lama marketplace yesterday in curiosity about a recommended film processing lab there.

Seems like it’s true, they only sell film and process it (C-41 only) and not selling any vintage camera collection, or maybe just to strangers.

After that, without buying anything, I went to take a walk into the marketplace area to and take a look of the marketplace itself.

The most interesting part must be this block that’s dominated by banana stalls.

I didn’t spend much time talking to them about the place though, had to chase the train coming.

Anyway, a fresh new experience here. Too bad I didn’t took out my film camera too for the experience. But at least here’s some of the digitals.

End of a ruin

Last year, I found an old abandoned building in central Jakarta. The construction is stopped and the place is untouched for more than a decade. It’s a very unique and beautiful place remembering the location in a premium zone.

It’s a location not well known, contributing to the attraction even more, because it’s not a postcard background like the old town or the roundabout always flocked by photographers.

Muara Angke port

Muara Angke is a fishermen port in northern Jakarta. It houses two fish auction site and markets.

I want to had another go at photo hunting with Ciel (my camera) so I tried this location. It’s filled with activity but not exactly crowded, so a quite balanced density of peoples to move around and take pictures without disturbing their mobility or getting someone blocking the view.

Frankly, I don’t know what’s wrong yet but the colours are all screwed up. Not to mention the blown out highlights which I’m not sure if it’s my fault or the minilab’s fault.

Weekend activities: Support a war

In effort to gather support for the Palestinian, groups rally supports in countries, especially those with large Muslim population like Indonesia.

A bit like Jobs without the glasses, but it's not him.

In this event, the honoured guest is a Palestine soldier recently released in exchange with an Israel troop. The comparison made me remember a joke once when Indonesia did prisoner exchange with Australian.

One Australian prisoner in Indonesia with a dozen (don’t know the number) Indonesian prisoner in Australia. If we call it equal trade, it kind of implying about their worth isn’t it ?

Something close from home

When close to my home, on weekend, there’s interesting objects to take picture of.

We have lotus flower planted near the security post. There’s also a little flowers and other plants, nothing exotic at all. Some are vegetables planted by the security staffs in their free time.

I ran a test on my Fujica SLR, so I took a walk outside. It’s no good. Teach me a lesson about buying things without proper knowledge. The film feed system seems to be broken for sure.

But anyway, there’s the lotus and bees, so I take out my digicam and take another try with macro.

The tools, Lumix G 45-200mm and a cheap no name close up filter (I think I bring either +3 or +4 dioptre).

It’s cheap, so quality is also not the best. There’s softness in the picture and on full tele length (200mm) the picture had horrible aberration.

Out of my elements

For a batch of updates now. I hasn’t have the time to write down stories from the last few weeks. Today, since I’m down with (hopefully just) a cold, lets track it all back.

This is from three weeks ago, an event called the Brightspot Market. It’s a market event for young designers to directly present their design in physical form to their target audience, the young and hip community.

Personally, I’m coming just for the pictures. Being in this kind of place really made me feel like out of my element and I don’t have good prejudice on them either.

Well, in my eyes at least, the target are peoples with high self-consciousness and doesn’t take self-identity lightly. It’s as important as part of pride.

Young, fresh, rebellious, out of the box, all of it like promise of a bright future up ahead compared to the shithole of petty workers who just live and wait for death to come.

Being part of the movement that “care” and “make changes” to the world, not the powerless losers who has given up on the world. A hero to the world.

Frankly it’s still something I find hard to understand, as much as the “American Dream” kind of thing.

Jatinegara, the teak land

My photo walk last Saturday is to the Jatinegara area. This is also one of the hub train station in Jakarta (next time I’ll try Senen market) and surrounded by an old marketplace selling various things.

The place is lively and despite being in the afternoon, there's a lot of peoples on the street having activities outside shopping malls. Then again, this is East Jakarta, which I think had some similarity in entertainment availability as Eastern Indonesia.