Finally, I tried it at home and experimented on my old toys. I used 1 studio lamp with a transparent umbrella, 2 reflectors (1 styrofoam board and 1 mirror) and a dirty plain white background.

Here are the results.

Not bad, are they??

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 5,600 times in 2010. That’s about 13 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 22 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 313 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 151mb. That’s about 6 pictures per week.

The busiest day of the year was November 15th with 94 views. The most popular post that day was Poor Old Chap.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, twitter.com, megabagus.com, visitsemarang.com, and jorfijeckiphotography.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for tawangmangu, purezento, candi gedong songo temple, javanese, and creepy black and white photos.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Poor Old Chap November 2010
11 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Photoshoot with The Loftus Family April 2010
16 comments

Photoshoot with Ibra and Belle May 2010
5 comments

Weekend in Tawangmangu part 1 January 2010
8 comments

Gedong Songo June 2010
10 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,

Everything here is done traditionally. No fancy boats and high-tech machines. It’s just them and the nature. You can see how the fish are dried in pictures below.

The people here live along the seashore near the market. Their front yard is their parking lot and public toilets. Not quite a view though.

There’s a job division by genders. The men usually (but not always) catch the fish and the women sell them in the market.

Located in northern Semarang, this area has some issues need to be addressed. The main problems are flood and the poor sanitation.

I really hope that the government will come up with something to solve these problems.

This is the story.

Last week, I went out with a friend of mine looking for an old creepy empty building for a photoshoot. My sister told me that there was one somewhere near the Dutch Grave in Gajah Mungkur, Semarang. So we went. And she was right.

This house looks like it was built from 1940s or something. And there are boards saying it’s for sale. “Contact Budi …. ” it says. I can give you his number if you’re interested. Anyway, this house is surrounded by 5-6 feet tall fence. We had an idea to trespass it by jumping over the fence. But we didn’t. We didn’t jump over it. We found an unlocked gate and got in.

As we walked through the front yard, we saw smoke coming out the veranda. Someone was cooking. That poor old chap was cooking breakfast for himself.

Not wanting to be accused for trespassing, I asked him for a permission to look around and inside the house. But that didn’t come easy. I had to listen to him complaining about his life. He told me that he lived there by himself. The owner of the building employed him to guard the house from thieves and things like that for less than Rp. 300,000.00/ $ 30 for a month. And the worst thing for me is that the owner didn’t even give him the key to get inside. So he had to live in a small room at the front side of the house. And of course, we couldn’t get inside the house.

You know what crossed my mind after that? I thought that this old chap just wanted me to give him some money. “His intention is clear..” I remember i said that to my friend. It was okay for me. So I asked him if I could take some pictures of him cooking and eating. Because, I was going to give him money anyway.

After taking some pictures of him cooking, I asked him if I could take pictures of him eating. And after 2 spoons of rice and sambal, a chili based condiment, he said “I’m full”. And I asked him “Aren’t you going to finish the whole plate?”. He replied, “I’m saving it for lunch.”. He also had this chicken cage with maybe 5 chickens in it. I asked him if he ate these chickens. He said ” No, i don’t eat them. They are my saving. I’ll sell them if I get sick or need money for something.”. I was struck. Couldn’t think of anything.

I felt so terrible about what I thought. I’m not really sure now if he wanted me to give him money. Maybe he was only telling me not to treat anybody the way his boss treated him. I’m so sorry Mbah. I learned a lot. And I hope I can still see you again.

The idea of the shoot actually came from her. She came and showed me these photos from the magazines and told me “hey this looks great”. So we tried to imitate the lighting set and she got her own wardrobe and we failed. The photos don’t look like the things she showed me. But they look great. I like ‘em.

The shoot was fun. She got acquainted with my camera pretty quickly. So I got no problems at all. I was just messing around with my lighting set.

Comments are welcome!! Have a great day..

And now I’m back after doing a photoshoot with a really best friend of mine, Landhes and a very talented model named Dolina who turned out to be my high school junior.

In this photoshoot, we had a really good fun experimenting with the costumes, accessories, and the airsoft rifle and pistol. Assassin style. We did all the photos at Tinjomoyo and Landhes’s home studio. Enjoy the photos.

Well that’s about it. See you in my next posts. Comments are welcome.

Gedong Songo is a Hindu Temple and was built during the Sanjaya Dynasty around 8^th and 9^th century. There are 5 structures in the site. Some argued that there were never 9 structures in the site. The number 9 only has special meaning to the Javanese Culture. But if you come to the site, you will find ruins that look like ruined shrines.

Other than the shrines, the site has beautiful views that will take your breath away. It is exactly the perfect getaway place from the crowded city. If the views aren’t enough, you can go to the sulfur springs. It’s good for your skin. Oh, and 1 advice, if you want to there around 10 am to 3 pm, don’t forget to use your sun block cream. It’s pinching hot there.

I highly recommend this to everyone who seeks place to get away from the city or those photojournalists looking for great place to do landscapes. Thank you Paraic and Anin for the great day. I’m looking forward to having fun with you guys again.

See you again in my next posts.

The first one to do the photoshoot was Ibra. I only told him, “Ibra, if you were Ben 10, what would you do?”. And then, he started to give me the Ben 10 poses. So I was like, “Ok, do whatever you want.” And these are the results.

Cool aren’t they?? Ibra SHOULD be in Ben 10 The Movie…hahaha

Now we move on to Belle. She was last one to do the photoshoot was Belle. She was shy and a bit of a challenge for me at first. These are her first photos.

She was very shy and not feeling comfortable about the camera in front of her. But after a few minutes, with a little incentive, bubbles as a matter of facts, she was having fun with herself and not realizing there was a camera in front of her. Cool!!

And after the bubble session was over. She found a toy gun and a snail doll and gave me an inspiration. Check them out!!

And guess what.. she got addicted to it. She had her Trophy and asked me to take photographs of her.

Well, that’s about it Guys. Thanks to Paraic, Ibra, and Belle for the fun. I really hope you all like it. See you again in my next posts. Live well.

I really hope you well, that you can be what you want to be, and be the pride of your parents and family.

See you again Amelie.

We failed didnt we??