After a couple of weeks of toying around with film.. I must say, I can't help but feel disappointed.

Maybe it's too soon to say so, or maybe I'm just not familiar enough with film. But its main benefits - much better highlights and larger print size - just do not justify its clumsiness, its higher risk factor for accidentally ruined shots, and development costs.

It takes a trained eye to see the difference between film and digital. It looks slightly different.. but we're getting more and more used to seeing the smooth, fresh colors of digital that I think very soon film will be restricted to just the area of fine art.

But.. oh well, maybe I just haven't experimented enough yet.

But the costs of experimenting with film is scary. It goes in chucks of $20.. for film, and developing.

I'm starting to develop a phobia of it.

Taken with Mamiya 645.

Should I get the RB67 SB Pro? Oooh man.

Whew. What a long day. Feel so bad for disrupting everyone's life at home.. but damn, I just love today's shots.



























I'm loving it!

Mandopop.

There's just something about it that grates on my nerves.

The whole cheesy sentimentality about it. The whole Taiwanese soap opera quality that drives me up the wall. The whole squeaky clean image and its strange, hidden, homoerotic undertones.

What the f*ck's up with this?

I wish it was something that I could shake a stick at. Then bang on it repeatedly on the head with the aforementioned stick.

Urgh, I wanna scream. I wanna shout.

I'm a fractured bastard product of a pragmatic system of education. Chinese, yet not. What's with the bickering Taiwanese politicians on TV??

F*CK.

I certainly think so.. judging from the rushed test shots. I can already tell some of the best angles to shoot from.



Hope everything works out.

I'm supposed to be catching some sleep, but my mind is on work. Too many things had been going wrong.

In hindsight, I haven't handled some issues maturely. But what do you expect? I'm 25. Not in my 40s, like Calvin. And in any case I feel that Calvin couldn't have done much better, either. But I guess at least he wouldn't have taken on this rebel without a cause stance.

Pfft. I exaggerate.

Have I been doing a good job so far? I don't know. Nothing major has screwed up yet. The company is still making money. Maybe I could try to improve the photo quality somewhat, but seriously.. it's not like I'm so good. I don't even have experience outside of the studio, in bridal or whatever.

Meh.

Gotta mess around with some stuff tommorow.

Just caught some fragments of The Talented Mr. Ripley, and it got me thinking a bit.

I'd wondered how I ever got interested in shooting fashion. I'd grown up a pure geek, obsessed with computers, video games and movies ever since I could remember. In fact, photography - especially fashion photography - is relatively new to me, and yet now I can't imagine myself doing anything else.

Patricia Highsmith was probably the first to offer me a glimpse into this world.

I can't help but sit back and realized how much I'd changed in the past year.

I wonder what would Jan think if she saw me now. Maybe she already has a kid by now. Maybe by chance, she'd drop by the studio to do some family shots.

It's pretty amazing how a person can influence you, especially if it occurred at an age when one is young and impressionable.

I remember almost everything.

And isn't it just that slightly bit frightening?

Or at least, I want to try and learn. I realized I'd never learned to play any sort of music before (the recorder in sec sch doesn't count). And since I enjoy music so much.. I'd might as well learn to play a little.

No harm. But it sure looks tough.

It's quite abrupt the way I'd started to stop thinking about TY. I guess it's because I'd not really known her in the first place. It's just such a shocker. In hindsight, watching all the clues fit in is a surprise.

I even wish that she'd given me a more direct negative signal. But no, there was nothing, except for periods of unanswered messages and calls. But even for these, she claimed her phone was faulty. Why not just say something direct and simple like.. I'm not interested in you, please stop contacting me?

Sigh.

Thankfully, I'm hardly feeling any resentment. Hmm, I wish I could still hear her side of the story. It seemed like she's not in the least interested in 'defending' herself, which is not surprising, being the tough cookie she is.. but unfortunately she doesn't seem to be interested in talking at all, either.

In many ways, she now reminds me of Reen.

That image of her back is still frozen in my head. That night, when she's about to deliver the bad news - in all its finality - that she had decided to go back to Art.

Her, standing with her back to me whilst I was sitting in the dark behind her, her outline illuminated by the orange floodlights in the multistorey carpark. The wind tossing her long, long hair around. She was wearing her tank top, and jeans. And I thought.. she's perfect.

All the time we shared. All the long, long talks deep into the night.

Even though I did not have a camera to capture that moment, it is deeply and permanently etched in my mind. I don't think I'd ever forget it.

How cruel.. it seems. But utterly compulsory.

Urgh. I can't get to sleep. Again.

The events that occured over the last weekend has caught me entirely by surprise. It changes everything.

Sigh.

I'm gonna do the usual thing and move on. It's getting easier with experience.

Refocus, and back to work.