Recent work for The Wall Street Journal on First Travel scam, one of the biggest frauds in Indonesia’s history: $63 millions from nearly 60,000 victims.
Asmana, the streetside noodle seller portrayed on the cover, saved her earnings to pay a trip to Mecca. The agency took her money without booking her trip.
Portrait of Asmanah and her husband in their rented boarding house.
Written by Anita Rachman.
Read the full story and see more photographs here.
After three years in the making (since 2014) my collaborative documentary project with Fatris MF, The Banda Journal, is finally done. During the course of the project, some of the photographs has been published and exhibited in several places. But we're yet to exhibit the finished project. So it's a really nice coincidence that since early this October a month-long festival called Pesta Rakyat Banda 2017 is currently being held in Banda Islands. Without too much thinking, we decided to bring back the project into its birthplace. Since there's no real gallery or whatsoever on the islands, we pasted the images on various walls around the town of Banda Naira. All in all, we're amazed by the feedbacks from the islanders.
Below are some documentation of the exhibition.
The Banda Journal Exhibtion online poster
Banda Eli special section in P. Schelling house.
Pasting the photographs.
Pasted images.
Me and Lukman pose for photo after pasting an image in PT. Pala Banda.
Pasting the image where it was taken in the first place.
A short interview by Rahung Nasution.
One image at the market.
The exhibition will still be up until the end of the festival (11 November). But honestly, the images will still be there until the rain washed them away. And then....our next job will be publishing the book.
Special thanks to Pesta Rakyat Banda, I Was Here network, Lukman Ang, Adis, Arul, Anca, and everyone who lend helps during the installation of the photographs.
P.S: If anyone is interested to do this kind of exhibition (wheatpaste), please do not hesitate asking. I'd be happy to share my recipe. Otherwise, I'd probably write about my method in a separate post.
Last spring, I finally got my chance visiting Azerbaijan during a travel assignment for DestinAsian Indonesia. Although the work revolved around the capital of Baku, I managed to venture out a bit to Xinaliq, one of the highest village in the Caucasus. It's great that after three years, I kickstarted myself to write again. The feature, which was published last month, can be read here (in Indonesian only). Below are some photos from the trip:
Some random images from the recent two-weeks trip around Central Europe for DestinAsian Indonesia.
Photographs from my detour around Croatia and Serbia to cover the European refugee crisis in the Balkans are published by Marie Claire Indonesia, January 2016 edition. With an insightful write-ups by Nina Hidayat.
This week marks the tenth years anniversary of the massive Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. So I did my best by compiling the photographs that I took on two recent trips to Aceh, the region which hit the worst by the tsunami (more than 130,000 recorded death), into an e-photobook. Looking at the scale of the disaster, I feel the urge to tell the story of how everything goes there nowadays. And the good thing about this e-photobook it is free. You can get it by clicking the cover page image below or later if you like, you can download it as PDF as well.
Dedicated for the people of Aceh.
Cameras are just like musical instruments, different devices produce distinct imageries. Here are my few takes on the toylike Russian made Horizon S3 panoramic camera. While operating this camera requires some degree of patience and the control also got some real quirks (but yet also very simple), I might find some real use of it in the future.
Onboard inter-island ferry from Sabang to Banda Aceh.
Tsunami relic in Aceh's western coast.
Bogor railway station, West Java.
Rough sea north of the island of Wetar.
Chinatown, Padang, West Sumatra.
Port of Sunda Kelapa, Jakarta.
Sometimes, you just have to arrive back in a place to see what you're missing. Last June, I visited Taichung, the third largest city in Taiwan, assigned by Destinasian Indonesia. I have been to Taiwan two years ago exploring the area around Taipei for a different magazine. But I had no interest (and time) to go beyond that. And then Taichung came as a pleasant surprise.
Let's make it really short, here are some photographs from the trip.
An eccentric biker in Taichung.
Taichung's food feast.
Lanshu Chen, the Asia's Best Female Chef 2014.
Taichung city view from a skyscraper.
Taichung's youth.
Xaio long bao served in a roadside restaurant.
Liz Silva enjoying beef satay.
This is how the publication turned out in Destinasian Indonesia September-October 2014 Issue.
