A Freedom Unfathomed

Alone in the dark.

Blind but enlightened.

The contrast stark.

From what is hidden.

Deaf to all.

Cymbals ring out.

A high to call.

A musical cult.

Inner freedom.

Unleashed within me.

As short as a thump.

Too fast to see.

Away its gone.

On my knees I fall.

Just another one.

The night I call.

From the Heart

I spend a lot of my nights sitting in front of my computer, music blaring in my ears, just reading photographers.

I noticed unlike a lot of people, I don't go to photography websites to look at photos, I go to read. I'm also really bad at reading boring technical stuff, like where to place lights and camera settings. I go to read about the experiences of the photographers, to feel what they felt, to learn their emotions, to understand their soul, to know them as people, as individuals in their own right.

Photography, to me, is more than just being able to set up and read lights, its more than being able to tweak settings accordingly, its more than just skill. Its emotion. Its music in your heart. Its that nudge you get that makes you want to smile, laugh, cry. Its capturing and freezing an emotion to mummify it to last throughout the ages.

Photography is from the heart.

SKATE or DIE

A photo taken from our lookbook shoot yesterday for Pestle & Mortar's next collection. Mart's an awesome skater who knows his way around a ramp. 

Singapore 2012

Yeah hopping the border once again to that little Island with an economy stronger than a mule's back was a thrill. Still never as good as going to Bangkok but then again I got to leave the vices of my heavily scheduled life for awhile.

I went down for an old friends wedding and ended up staying 5 days on the island, without making a single trip to the beach. Most of my time there was spent battling a horrid flu and trying to drown it in alcohol.

I shit you not Singapore, like Malaysia, is so hot I actually got sick from spending my first day walking around the city. Scorching! Although, the nights are really nice and breezy seeing as to how its actually an island.

A highlight of the trip. Haji Lane is the coolest little alley with the coolest little boutiques and some pretty rad ass cafes. 

I have NEVER in my life had to get in line to get on the escalator. 

Hugh getting acquainted with the colors of Haji Lane. 

I swear this was the best part of my trip to Singapore. Yeah, going into Universal Studios feeling like I've been transported to a different country. I traveled to travel.

You should see the shit the people working there are required to wear. This dude reminded me of Aladdin's monkey. 

Far, far away. I'm not kidding. The walk made me break sweat. 

They even had this very authentic diner with these bomb ass rides parked out front.

Mmmmmhhhmmm. That right there's an Impala holmes! Ride slow, ride low ese!

Our lovely host, Becky. Amanda's cousin who put us up in her house. She's totally mad fun.

Charlie was very kind to pose for a picture even though he had a whole line of people waiting to take pictures with him. These dudes were totally in character and couldn't be thrown off by anything.

Man I loved this movie as a kid. The special effects on this shit was off the hook with explosions and gun-fire and even fools falling off into the water when they got shot!  

You know whats the worst part of Singapore? That feeling you get when you feel like you're being watched. Because they are.

This drunken semaphore

It's like we just can't help ourselves,

'Cause we don't know how to back down,

We were called out to the streets,

We were called in to the towns...

Called Out in the Dark

So this is my third draft considering I sat here with the intention of writing something brilliant. Unfortunately I've been writing for work so much the past few days I actually don't feel like writing anymore. Yeah, thats saying a lot!

I, for once, have nothing to say.

So i'm just gonna leave you with a picture of the beautiful sunset at Tanah Lot, Bali that I took on my recent trip there.

The Red, White, Blue...and Yellow!

I remember my years as a primary school boy crying in unison with my friends the word “MERDEKA” and writing it in huge letterings across our classroom chalkboard. It was always the right word to use in that situation to express our overwhelming joy.

That is, the joy of having finally completed the week of our final exams. We did this year after year not realizing the real significance of the word and how our lives would’ve been different without it.

It wasn’t until recently when I started working on a project for a Merdeka Edition T-shirt that I started doing research into the little details of that extraordinary day. The day that ultimately gave us all the equal chance to behave like buffoons, nonchalantly throwing around this powerful word without knowing its true substance.

Many of us do not truly grasp the significance of the word Merdeka. It is important as Malaysians to understand that this word doesn’t just signify another public holiday on our calendar or another season of tear-jerking vintage styled ads but is really the memory of the day our nation got past its teenage years of being mothered and made its transition into adulthood.

The word itself means nothing without the memory. It is the waving and swaying of the red, white, blue and yellow, our dear Jalur Gemilang, that will always be the greatest reminder of the day our fathers and our grandfathers, regardless of race, regardless of religion, regardless of social status, stood together chanting this one word seven times with our forefather.

It is with this that I have come to finally understand the cohesion of the word Merdeka, along with these four colors and the vows we made to our country every morning during our school assembly.

“Independence is indeed a milestone, but it is only the threshold to high endeavor”

- Tunku Abdul Rahman