The Tawur Agung Kesanga Ceremony

Tawur Agung is hindunese sacred ritual to clean up body and soul one day before meditation in Nyepi. Usually is placed on a big square, like in here at Lapangan Puputan Badung. Tawur Agung Kesanga a ritual performed to vanquish the negative elements and create balance with God, Mankind, and Nature. This ritual is believed to be an effective way to purify the island in order to make a harmonious relation between human being and God, human and human, and human and their environments.

The word “tawur” literally means, “pay” in a sense of a payment to the bhuta kala, personification to negative force, in order to restore the harmony of life. And kesanga is the ninth month in Balinese Caka calendar.

The kesanga is considered the worst month by the Balinese, with troublesome rainy season, and when even the earth is said to be sick and feverish (panes). It is believed that the Lord of Hell, Yama, sweeps Hades of devils, which fall on Bali, making it imperative that the whole of the island be purified.

One Morning After The Silent Day

Silent Day, the religious holiday known as Nyepi, is the traditional Hindhu’s celebration that only happen in Bali. It falls every year according to Hindhu ancient calendar. It is a symbolic act for the winning of good (Dharma) over bad energy (Adharma).

All activities are totally stopped. No TV or Radio, no vehichels on the road, no light, no traveling, all activities are stop operated including the airport. The day of silent starts from 6am to the next morning, 6 am. The whole Hindhu are fasting and meditating during the Nyepi day for self purification.

The day before Nyepi which is well-known as Pengrupukan ( I will post later about it) all Balinese do such a small ceremony to dismiss evil spirit around their compound and also the area they live usually at the junctions.

The day after live gets back to normal again. Found this loyal man near my homestay cleaned the temple on the day after Nyepi.

7th Years in Making Photo!!

So, after involved in many mass photo exhibition, finally i have my own Photo Exhition..

It was an honour from The Japan Foundation Indonesia to present my documentation photos and video showcase during my visit to Ishinomaki as voluenteer after the Great Earth Tsunami. 

The Galery

Recently I am still doing my photo exhibition at Bibliotheque Centrale Faculte, Université Catholique de Louvain, Bellgium.

well, fellas..wish me luck they send me free ticket to Brussell ..:D

Light of Lanterns

For the ancient Chinese, the lanterns symbolize prosperity, unity, and blessing. That's why Lanterns always used in many Chinese festivals, such an Imlek (Chinese New Year).

Taken those lanterns pictures during Imlek 2012 at Ketandan, Yogyakarta. Ketandan is kampong which residents mostly are chinese and make a live so the area is known as Chinatown of Jogya.

Sight Seeing Bogor

60km south from Jakarta, Bogor has a nickname "the Rain City" (Kota Hujan) because always rains even during the dry season.

Here just - another sight seeing - capturing while joined the Harris Hotel Photo Hunt for Grand Opening its branch.

Which one of those pictures become 60's Best Photo?
Win a lunch with me..XD !

Let's Play Bokeh

Those who are put a photography as their interest must be familiar with this art aesthetic quality of the blur called “bokeh”. Comes from the Japanese word boke (暈け or ボケ), which means "blur" or "haze".

Bokeh is what happens away from the point of best focus while sharpness is what happens at the point of best focus.
Good bokeh doesn't happen automatically in lens design. Good bokeh is especially important for large-aperture lenses, macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses because they are typically used with a shallow depth of field.

There are two types of Bokeh

> Circular (Hollywood) Style:
( Where the bright highlighted ares become s completely circular in the blurred out background ).
Any lens can deliver Hollywood bokeh, it occurs when the background have bright highlight, it will cause circular bokeh except the subject you are photographing at.

> Creamy Bokeh / Cream Cheese Bokeh
( Where the background of the subject are completely washed and blurred out creating”gradient “effect)

How do we get those bokeh ?
It’s all depend of the distance between your subject and the front element of the lens . The closer you get, more blurry your background gets. Using the highest aperture ( from f/1.4 to f/2.8) will get the better blurry background.

How to See Bokeh In Existing Images ?
If they all blend together nicely, that's nice bokeh. If they are perfect little circles, then that's neutral bokeh. If they are all swimmy and look little little rolled up condoms or donuts, then that's bad bokeh (kenrockwell)

Getting bored with Creamy Style Bokeh? let's play with the Hollywood Style Bokeh using the Xmast light. It's really fun!

7D / (50/f1.4 ; 28/f1.8; 75-300)

The Horse Man - (The DSLR & Mobile Phone Photography)

As Ansel Adam says “ we don’t take a photograps, we make a photograps “, there are two choices we have wheter to 'take' or ‘make’ a ‘photo’. We can simply many things in life look fine with ‘take’ a photo of them (sometimes we’ll even take a great photo). To ‘make’ a photo along with the knowledge, you have to gain from practice, preparation and sometimes take a course. That will ‘making’ eye popping images for everyone to enjoy.

The camera phone has become the new point-and shoot – or snapshot camera – of our time. More people have taken up an interest since it’s easily to access. its simplicity and connectivity make people use this device to record their lives. Mobile phone Photography is really change the cellular and photography world in dramatic ways. There are apps out there that allow for brightness, contrast, WB, etc. It wouldn’t be surprised if that continued to expand. It is only a matter of time before phones did like DSLR. For amateurs is about the snapshot , workflow for professional and for me is about fun :D.

Anyway, the rise of mobile phone photography as an art has inspired me to mix up with the DSLR for fun. The more precise control like aperture, shutter speed are still become the highlight of these pics.

Hmmm..I (still) just want to shoot like my eye is the shutter release …


Bromo, December 2011
Picture taken by DSLR
Editing by lots of apps mobile phone photography