Heartfelt | December 27

December 27th 1975, where I was born into this world, there is so much story I want to share here but first I want to apologize to all my friends, especially o all my photographers friends who invite me for photo outing, in fact I’ve three invitation for photo outing today on my birthday, among the most happening one is “Pulau Ketam Fotowalk” organize by Eshazli, friend of mine where more than hundreds and fifty photographers are confirm to be there. To all photographers who are hoping to meet me there please accept my sincere apologize.

The truth is, I just want to spent my time with my family, there is no birthday party for me, there is no birthday cake for me, this is just like normal day for me. I’m coming  from not so rich family, as long as I can remember, until this day, there were none  birthday party for me, there were none birthday cake for me that was given from my parent, actually I really don’t mind about that, I know at that time we could not afford that, for my family, a birthday cake or birthday party is a waste of a money, simply because we could not afford that and as long as I can remember I’ve never receive any birthday present from my family until this day and I really don’t mind about that either and I would like to keep it that way for the rest of my life, no celebration for my birthday.

I would like my family to know that, and today there is nothing special, just like any other day, I just spent my time here at home with my family and as usual busy spending my time on the net. Looking back I think my son was very lucky, during my childhood, I’ve never taste a KFC or McDonalds, my parent have never take me to those place as far as I can remember and my son was very lucky, almost every week we will bring him to the KFC restaurant or any fast food outlet, I’ve never have that kind of experience during my childhood, life was hard, very hard in those days. My father don’t have a car or even a motorcycle, my father only have a bicycle where he goes to work with, nowadays even school children have a motorcycle and a lot of University students drive a car to the University or College.

Life was very good now, still I’m not rich but life has been very kind to me, in those days during my childhood, I’ve never imagine that I will be traveling with airplane, for me during those days it was near impossible for our family to be on the plane and I still can remember that my father have once take me to Subang International Airport to watch the plane, I don’t really remember whether we are waiting for someone or not but all I can remember is my father did show me the airplane and I just look in awe  and I still can recall that I like to draw an airplane in those days.

Looking back, I was very lucky today, traveling with an airplane is just like hopping from another bus to another bus, from one country to another country that I’ve never imagine I would visit, from Kuala Lumpur to London, from London  to Milan and from Milan to Santiago, from Santiago to Montevideo and from Montevideo to Buenos Aires, from there to Cape Town and then to Johannesburg and straight away to Kuala Lumpur and recently I’ve an assignment in Istanbul Turkey. I was very lucky this year, Syukur Alhamdulillah, thank you Allah.

As a working full time photographer I do travel a lot, sometimes I’ve to leave my family for a week and sometimes more and honestly speaking I really miss them a lot, to be a thousands of a miles from your family really can make you feel alone, longing for home, felt emptiness, but today thanks to modern technology like the internet and cellphone, I can keep in touch with my family wherever there is good connection, be it internet or telephone connection (Roaming), and I try to Skype with my family whenever I’ve free time from my assignment and the joy of looking your family through the web really comforting even though you are thousands of miles away.

To all the photographers who join any photo outing, the most important thing is to enjoy yourself, make new friends, learn from the most experience one, sharing ideas and thought, photography can be fun and it should be fun, most of the times when I’m involve with any photography outing with a large group of a people, it’s not so much about the shooting that matters, but more about meeting friends and have a great times. To all new photographers out there, please don’t be shy to ask question to the photographers that have more experience than you, use the opportunity wisely and all I can say is most of the experience photographers are quite helpful to those who are interested enough.