tides.

10/52 "guide me home" on flickr

"I felt a tremendous distance between myself and everything real."
-Hunter S. Thompson

this one is not on flickr but you can see another portrait of Socks and i from a series here. :)

Untitled on flickr

this photo was actually from a failed concept and i initially didn't feel confident posting this up but somebody made me change my mind. it was just as well because i hate spending hours on a photo but end up not wanting to share it with everyone. it's not my best but i hope you'd  all like it anyway :)

catoptric tristesse on flickr

just a back to basics, honest monochrome self-portrait, something that i've not done in so long.

catoptric tristesse
n. the sadness that you’ll never really know what other people think of you, whether good, bad or if at all—that although we reflect on each other with the sharpness of a mirror, the true picture of how we’re coming off somehow reaches us softened and distorted, as if each mirror was preoccupied with twisting around, desperately trying to look itself in the eye.
(from here)

11/52 "fate's design" on flickr

"Flower gleam and glow,
Let your power shine,
Make the clock reverse,
Bring back what once was mine.

Heal what has been hurt,
Change the fate's design,
Save what has been lost,
Bring back what once was mine."

i watched Tangled last night and i've always particularly loved the Healing Song :)
this photo is also inspired by Kiara Rose's work.



hi everyone! a little late but here are the photos from last week and also this week's 52 weeks project photo :)

the reason for this post being late is because i was simply too lazy to create any images last week after i had done the "guide me home" photo last monday. i felt a little out of my element and did not at all like feeling so lazy and making excuses to myself for not getting out and photographing. on friday, i finally pushed myself to go out to take some simple portraits of Socks and i.

then, i had an epiphany and finally understood fully this quote that i've written down in every one of my notebooks before;

"Inspiration exists but it has to find you working."
-Pablo Picasso

like tides, it comes and goes but is always there.

happy.

"these wandering eyes, they only close to sweet lovers' lullabies" on flickr

9/52 "silence in between" on flickr

N°2 on flickr

this image and "silence in between" are part of an ongoing series, "a longing to be completed" inspired by the film "Stoker". :) check out the Flickr set here.

these are the images from this week that i've created! :) i'm particularly fond of the third one despite its flaws.

since i've started going in a different direction in photography, i've been spending more time on a single image instead of just a few minutes on dozens of images like how i used to. this change in my creating process somewhat surprises me and in a good way too, i feel a deeper sense of contentment in everything i've created this year so far. i'm not quite sure how to categorize my recent images but i'll go with fine art/conceptual, it can take as little time as 2 hours to as much as a few days for me to come up with a final image of what i had in mind. these photographs stem from an idea, a thought or a concept that has a significance to me and i want so badly to be able to create the image exactly or as close to as what i see in my mind. everytime that i finally get an image that i'm happiest with,  i am filled with happiness and warmth (and fuzziness) inside.

i think these images make me feel most satisfied, proud and happy than i've ever been able to feel with my photography. i feel more in tune with my emotions and it encourages me to create to how i feel and also helps ease my cluttered mind a little. i hope that all of you would love, enjoy and appreciate my work now more than ever before because i think that these images of mine are some of the most meaningful and sincere than anything i've ever done before. for all of this, i have endless inspiration from photographers and Flickr that have kept me going.

i'm at a very good place with photography right now (knock on wood) and i am so in love with learning and gaining a better, deeper understanding of conceptual photography.

strangers we meet ep. 1

this is a project that my friend, April, and i have been working on and we are so glad and excited to be able to share it already! we hope that this fills you with unimaginable and unexplainable inspiration like it did us and that it may cheer you up and make you smile, even if just for awhile. :)

"Strangers We Meet is a series of short films that features people I have never met before, who are unknown to me, some whose names I don't even know, all asked to answer the same question. These scenes were filmed undirected, unplanned, unscripted and are arbitrary answers. These are real people, expressing real thoughts and feelings."

(photos by me, video + editing by the very talented April.)

"what is love?"

"wait, let me phrase this properly before my wife finds out about this one."

"love really is about understanding. it's about understanding one another, and accepting faults and flaws and seeing the bigger picture and working towards it as a team (for a common goal)."

(left) "well personally, i believe love is unconditional and that encompasses a lot of areas. and i mean unconditional, it means giving love where love isn't deserved and i think that speaks for itself."

(right) "love for me is being part of something bigger, like if you love someone then you're part of one as a whole.. or if you love something, it's your passion then you belong to a group and you're being part of it as a whole."

"my parents, my late parents."

"and girls." (laughs) 

"your biggest purpose of life."

"love is love, something that you don't actually say but you feel it."

"my definition of love; you don't say it all the time but somehow the other person can feel it."

"well it's a feeling, obviously. i think it's very subjective, depends on each individual, they have a different meaning on what love is."

"some would relate it to - most would relate it to people, some maybe to things, to animals, stuff like that, but yeah i mean it's a feeling, it's an intense feeling, but it's subjective."

"art... my love and passion mostly revolves around art."

"(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JErVP6xLZwg)... i think that i'm a person who has a lot of love inside."

"love is friendship, love is relationships that you create between humans."

"hip-hop. i love hip-hop, hip-hop. hip-hop is my life."

"if i have love towards someone, i would appreciate that person and i would..." (gets distracted, hahaha. this guy cracked us up the most because he was just all over the map! :D)

this week.

hello lovelies! :) i'm glad to be back blogging again. these are images from this week, i've been feeling quite inspired!

 

 "without the sun, i'm only shadows" on flickr

 

"He filled my heart, I did my best.
But without the sun, I'm only shadows in a dress.
'Cause if the full moon comes, our love is done,
So forever, towards dawn, we run."
-"Werewolf Heart" by Dead Man's Bones

 

 8/52 "to be happy" on flickr

 

"Please don't tell anyone this, but I want to be happy."
this image was inspired by the quote above said by Lena Dunham on Girls. i don't know why i felt so deeply moved by it but i did. perhaps it's such raw, honest and simple truth and emotion or perhaps i felt such a closeness to that scene when she said it. the fading/fast-paced butterflies represent how nothing is ever constant, life is fleeting. (but we will be happy again, we will. it's quintessential to remember that.)

"all in white" on flickr

 

(something lighter!) with my littlest baby, Busby. this is also part of an ongoing photo project that i'm doing involving all four of my pets :) view the project so far here.

 

"alone" on flickr

 

this was taken this evening! i had this image by Oliver Charles stuck in my mind for a few days now and i was listening to "Reconsider" by The xx which had these lines;

 

"Did you lie awake like I did?
I stayed up till the stars didn't recognise me."

 

which i thought fit the concept well. :)

 

 

also..

recently, i've not been feeling very confident about the images i've been creating, especially since i'm just only trying my hand at conceptual/fine art photography. the worry about what others would think of my work is always there at the back of my mind, nagging me. but i'm slowly beginning to realize that art and creating is all about how i feel about it. it all comes down to me believing in myself, what i do and the image that i'm creating, the inspiration behind it. i really hope to feel more confident about my work in the future and maybe even completely let go of this cloud of worry that's always hovering in my mind. it's always scary trying something new, never knowing what to expect. but i accept this as a way of transitioning to a different style of photography than what i'm used to, but one that i'm incredibly fascinated with and through which i hope i would grow more than ever both as an artist and as a person.

 

i hope that you are all well and happy, wherever you are in the world. i'm sending all you my love and happy thoughts because you all deserve it! xxx