Indonesia.

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Indonesia | Sunday, October 17, 2010 | 5 photos

These photographs below are photos that have been taken at Bandung, Indonesia. They are simple photographs of my surroundings. I have chosen these photographs below not because they are similar in color or in location but because I have formed an emotional tie with the subjects being photographed. For me these photos are not merely esthetically beautiful but also emotionally moving. These photos only reveal half the tale of what it is trying to convey, that is why words are also necessary in explaining these photos below (which can be read in the captions of the photos). When it comes to photography reality is bounded by what we choose to see, the truth may be far from what we have seen and understood.

Although minimal in experience, I always believed that a photographer should always be able to construct an emotional bond with the subject or object being photographed because perhaps only by then can photography, like any form of art, be the agent of change that it is meant to be. I believe that photography has indeed the power to enlighten the lives of those who have seen photos that have brought pain, sadness, tears, joy, happiness and love. It is with these photos that have touched the heart, an individual is able, as the great Dalai Lama has finely said, “to develop its sense of universal responsibility” so that he or she becomes sensitive to all, not only to those that he or she cares. It this firm personal belief in photography that has pushed me to want to use my amateur talent to help transform those who are in need of transformation and this has also become the main reason for me in applying this scholarship.