Sometimes some of us must wonder. Does anything we do actually means anything. I believe we are each called to live this life in a significant way, significant and yet transcends time.
Two years ago, a friend of mine, lee lit min, died in his apartment in San Francisco. A geek at heart, he has no girl friend and never bothered him to socialize for that purpose. He worked for Juniper networks and later some car company on software for car dashboards.
Lit min inspired me in my teenage years to do programming, which ultimately became my career of choice. He was my best friend, period. The cause of his death..cardiac failure. All that is left are his photos and images in my mind. Nothing he did, in computing, meant anything. His existence and friendship did.
In 2011, a long lost friend who is an air stewardess suddenly appear and asked for my help to take photos of her. Kiko is a cheeful person and i was surprised that she willingly took every opportunity to get her photos done, despite her working schedule. I was very new back then and pretty much learning as i go. Did a collection of photos of her and her sister Corrine, a wonderful set in Broga hills near Semenyih and various other albums.
I only found out the reason to her determination later on. She had cancer. Late stage breast cancer and wanted the best of her images taken. By the time she allowed me to know this, it was thru her sister cause she has left back to Singapore. I took a plane down to visit her the very next day..saw her last smiling expression, and she left earth the following day.
Three years ago, in 2012, i met Janice, an aspiring model. The Kiko incident reminded me that i should do my best if help is needed. In 2013, we were like the best friend/photog/model combo you can think of. I had her interest in my mind all the time and found it highly motivating to help her, to the best of my limited influence in that community. Few months down the road, our friendship faltered, i didn’t know why, communication was harder and it just went on drips.
I wish her all the best, pretty much have the best interest that she succeed.
Now its 2015. I am shooting film and occasionally digital. I have joined a startup while taking leaves from my own company, leaving it in very capable hands of my other partners.
The world didn’t become better because we embraced iphones and facebooks. Economies of many European countries are still failing. China still churns out the worst humanity news and terrorists like ISIS are still killing innocents in the name of religion.
We flood our attention with movies and feel good marvel stories. Deep down we hope that some avengers or Superman will come and put everything in order, that all these issues will be gone and the good prevails.
* Click. I took some photos of Angela last week using a digital. Spent some emjoyable time editing it and trying to make it filmic. Applied VSCO’s Provia 400. The last lab that could do real color slides processing just announced they no longer offer such service a month ago.
* Click.
A small part of me wished that my images can comfort some soul out there in this world, make someone’s day and life brighter.
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M changing lives with images. 