Lookups with Yais

Last Saturday, I went for a photowalk with @_yaisyusman_, one of the Singaporean instagrammers who I've been following for a while. I actually met him for the first time during my last trip to Singapore, but we didn't get a chance to shoot together that time. So this time, when he happened to be in Seoul, we decided meet up for a photowalk and visited a couple of spots that he wanted to check out. To be honest, I didn't know if I were going to survive this walk, given Seoul's super hot weather these days and almost all the locations we decided on are outdoors. But I did give it a try anyway, thought it could be fun.

Funny thing tho, we both came from tropical countries—he's from Singapore and I'm from Indonesia—that has similar temperature to Seoul's summer weather. You'd think that we would be used to this weather, but let me tell you, Seoul's current weather is at another level (it reached 38°C at some point). We both agreed on that. And we both can't remembered the last time we sweat that much just by standing still in one spot without moving. In the end, I did survived the walk. So did he. And here are some of the shots from the walk and be sure to check out @_yaisyusman_'s instagram account for his shots.

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Flower Dome

Flower Dome at Gardens By the Bay was the last location we went to for our mini photowalk. The first thing that I felt when walking into the dome was the cool blowing air from the air-con, almost too cold for me I think, especially with the gloomy weather outside. The Flower Dome is the largest greenhouse in the world and is housed by another cool structure, just like the other architecture in the Gardens. We saw different kind of plants and flowers in this place, but to be honest, I'm not a flower kinda person, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of the flowers. The architecture was pretty great tho. Lots of curves, glass, and natural lights. Very interesting structure indeed.

One cool thing that I experienced during our walk in this place was seeing the raindrops falling on the glass above us, as it started raining 10 minutes after we walked in. It almost felt like I'm in the rain without having to get wet :P Such a great experience. Anyway, we ended up sitting down for a while in the dome, watching the rain, and talked for a bit. One of the thing I enjoy the most when meeting other Instagrammers is this, getting to know them outside those pictures they posted on their gallery. We talked about how they first met, their experiences with the Singapore's Instagram community, school life, work life, and a bunch of other things. It still amazes me how much I can relate to and connect with the people who I met through Instagram.

We decided to leave the and headed back to the MRT station after we finished walking around the entire Dome. It's still raining a little bit outside and none of us had a umbrella, so we ended up running back to the MRT trying not to get wet as much as possible. A memorable way to end the meet I should say ;)

ps: Thank you again to Venus & Jessica for such a warm hospitality during our two meets when I was in Singapore. You guys definitely made my Singapore trip more exciting and memorable :)

See part 1 (Supertree Grove) and part 2 (Cloud Forest) of this series if you are interested.

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Kanekin Community Photowalk

This past weekend, I had the chance to join the first photowalk hosted by Kanekin for their Kanekin Community members. The venue of choice was Kota Tua, also known as Old Batavia, a neighborhood where old historic buildings of Jakarta are located at. It's a pretty popular tourist (and photo) spot for tourists as well as the locals. We arrived at the place around 9 AM on a Saturday morning and the square was already packed with people. Families with children, students who are on some kind of group trips, couples who are on their dating outings, and of course all the people who are selling their goods and performing arts were spread all across the complex. We managed to walked around the area, visited the Bank Indonesia Museum and found couple of cool spots for shooting. 

Colorful grungy walls with interesting textures was probably the one thing that attracted my attention the most from this area. I ended up taking mostly portraits on this trip, recruiting help from my friends and some of the new people I met from the meet. So sharing with you some of my favorite shots from the day, here they are.

And if you happen to live in Jakarta, interested in the art & design community and want to join the next photowalk, you can join the Kanekin Community by signing up on their website. Who knows, maybe we can bump into each other on their next meet up! :)

Hope everybody had a great weekend! 

Special thanks to everybody who made these shots happened:
(in order of appearance) @gilbertrhezap @joshuasudihman @ellenwinarta @lydiaoey @luckyaldry @jochristian @cindy.octaviany

p.s: click on vertical images to see full-size/larger version.

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MMCA Seoul • 국립현대미술관

My first two trips to the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art Seoul—also known as MMCA Seoul—were 3 days apart and both were with a couple of friends from Instagram, a couple who I met for the first time—Nico, Robin, and Ian.  This was back in January so I'm guessing the exhibitions are probably different by now. The space is pretty cool, so I thought I share a couple of shots from our visit. 

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WWIM 11 Seoul

World Wide Instameet 11 (#WWIM11) was held last weekend and I once again had the opportunity to joined to the one in Seoul, hosted by Seoul State of Mind. This time, we roamed around the Changdeok Palace (창덕궁) and pretty much stayed there for about 3 hours or so. Since this is my second instameet, I got to see people that I've met from the previous instameet (see WWIM10 post here) as well as new friends, which is always fun :) One thing in common though, is meeting people who are in transit—whether they're here for just a short trip or staying for a couple of years—just like me. It always fascinates me to listen to other people's life stories. I also got the chance to meet a couple of people, who I follow on instagram, in person and get to know them a little bit better. 

To tell you the truth, instagram has connected me to some of the most wonderful people I've met here in Seoul. We bonded through our passion for photography and it has became a window of opportunity to get to know more about the people behind the camera. It has also has given me multiple chances to collaborate with other artists and they were really fun experiences. Through collaborations, you inspire, be inspired, and push each other to be better. And so with that, friendships were born and I'll be forever thankful for instagram for connecting me to these wonderful people. (p.s. this post is totally not sponsored by instagram. just sharing my experience :p)

Anyways, although it wasn't intentional, I ended up shooting a lot of portrait shots this time and got a set of #architectureandpeople series. Can't wait for the next WWIM! :) 

(Special thanks to Ken for hosting WWIM11)

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Photo by: @seoul_stateofmind @inner.pastiche

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Thank you @seoul_stateofmind, @inner.pastiche, @hannahmuhh, @noahskim, @soozee324, @ej_esq, @joankeem, @ian_mckay, @mikekineman for making each shots an interesting one :)