The Cost of Indonesia Food Estate Program on The Washington Post, January 2024

Recent photo and video work for The Washington Post on The Cost of Indonesia Food Estate Program

Story Excerpt:
Indonesia has been clearing tens of thousands of acres of densely vegetated peatland for farming, releasing massive amounts of carbon that had been sequestered below for centuries and destroying one of the Earth’s most effective means of storing greenhouse gases.

The country is home to as much as half of the planet’s tropical peatland, a unique ecosystem that scientists say is vital to averting the worst results of climate change. Government leaders have made halting efforts to protect peatlands over the last two decades, but three years ago, when the pandemic disrupted food supply chains, officials launched an ambitious land-clearance operation in a push to expand the cultivation of crops and cut Indonesia’s reliance on expensive imports.

Read the story by Rebecca Tan with additional reporting by Dera Sijabat here

On the President's Trail for Bloomberg News

It came as a suprise when I was given a rare access to follow and photograph Indonesian President, Joko Widodo, to accompany an exclusive interview led by John Micklethwait for Bloomberg News last October. During one full day, I followed him around the city of Surakarta, Central Java (his hometown) and ended with a five minutes portrait session in a makeshift studio that I set at airport's VIP room.

I feel so lucky that I happened to photograph him during two decisive times. The first was five years ago, shortly before he was running for presidency. And this one, shortly ahead of his second inaugration.

Rebel Riders in Silkwinds

Rebel Riders, my project about Indonesian so-called extreme vespa community has just been published in Silkwinds, Silk Air Inflight Magazine, June 2018. It includes some new images that I just shoot and developed recently.

Rebel Riders at Istanbul Photo Awards 2018

Unexpected at best, my on-going project 'Rebel Riders' has been awarded third prize in Story Portrait category of Istanbul Photo Awards 2018. The series was originally started when I was participating in Southeast Asian Photography Masterclass, a program initiated by Obscura Photo Festival in 2016 and supervised by Jorg Bruggemann and Tobias Kruse from the renowned Ostkreuz Photo Agency. Never been happier!

Below are some images from the series.

See the complete list of winners here.

On the Road with Persija's Ultras for 11 Freunde

First post for 2018: publication from an assignment for 11 FREUNDE following Persija's ultras Curva Nord's bus journey from Jakarta to Solo during the Indonesian Derby: Persija vs Persib Bandung. While the match didn't live up to expectation, the trip did, especially after the bus I boarded were attacked on the highway by Persib's fans :D

Below are the 14 pages layout of the published story. Will post the outtakes a bit later.

Client: 11 Freunde
Assigning Editor: Kai Senf
Writer: Andreas Bock

Free e-photobook: Return to Aceh

This week marks the tenth years anniversary of the massive Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. So I did my best by compiling the photographs that I took on two recent trips to Aceh, the region which hit the worst by the tsunami (more than 130,000 recorded death), into an e-photobook. Looking at the scale of the disaster, I feel the urge to tell the story of how everything goes there nowadays. And the good thing about this e-photobook it is free. You can get it by clicking the cover page image below or later if you like, you can download it as PDF as well. 

Dedicated for the people of Aceh.

Amok

Last night, as me and a friend were driving down a crossroad in Padang,  we saw dozens of men gathered at the roadside.  They shouted out loud indicating a trouble. My Indonesian curiosity led me to park my car at a distance. Before long, I was there among them, sneaked in just to find a man, without his shirt, sprawling and begging for his life on the road. "It's an amok" I said to my friend. He nodded.

"The times when we have to deal with our own anger, we often show our most honest but barbaric features."

The word "amok" derived from a remark in Bahasa "amuk", which literally means a state of fury. But more to an uncontrollable form of it. Psychiatrist would be agree to address this state often occured towards a patient with

Schizophrenia

. Some people may find it's quite intriguing of how could an English word (by spelling) absorbed it from Bahasa identically. Most possible that was because they were unable to find a similar context within their society.

Looking back at history, there were enough account from the Dutch colony era, where the imperialist got used to see the native Indonesians doing the amok. If somebody got caught of stealing or involved in social distruption, then he is in a great risk, great danger. Even so, the act of amok actually wasn't only originated in Malay culture. It's no secret this also happened in many part of the worlds including in Europe.

Back to the man who's begging for his life, he was accused of stealing a bird. Indeed, a bird. He ran into trouble when he and his friend failed attempt came into light by the resident of (how unlucky he was) an Indonesian Armies residential complex. This is smelled not like a good place to steal. He fell from his motorcycle and got punches galore by a horde of amok's fans. His friend was lucky enough to escape the crowd.

The times when we have to deal with our own anger, whatever the causes, we often show our most honest but barbaric features. While the unlucky guy laid helpless, some people still manage to kick him hard. I also saw a muscular man stomped him on the face which likely broke his jaw. We did try to stop, but this step often as dilemmatic as we were hushed. There's always risk of those violent behavior would turn towards us in no time.

A sad, tragic, embarassing, but true post for a weekend.

2011: My Year in Review

After more than a month without any posts, this one will be quite long (I'm not so sure whether the content is important or not). It's true that I've been quite busy lately with all the travels, pictures editing, and the writings. But near the end of this year; of our raged year; of our year where we witnessed tsunami in Japan; of our year with disastrous global economic situation which seems leads to nowhere; of our year with massive riot over The Middle East and North Africa; of our years where Ghadaffy and Kim Jong-Il or even Steve Jobs no longer in charge: I feel that I need to reassess myself, what I did and still manage to do this year. So I made a sort of list mixed between my travel, editorial assignment, and any other experiences. Here they are:

1. Moving to Jakarta

As most of you already knew, I based myself in Jakarta since last March. My impression of the city remains the same. It's big, ugly, infested with traffic congestion, which made it extremely boring for staying. However, this is one of the only few better place in Indonesia if I really want to expect more from my photography. So I started commissioned mostly to shoot portraits. As opposed to my earlier thought, this kind of photography is somehow really insightful. It helped me to broaden my view while it also put my communicating skill to the next level. I uploaded some of those works here.

2. Visiting China

I finally visited China, I mean small fraction of it. Being invited by the organizer of Humanity Photo Award, I never thought that I would ever won that Grand Prize. It's also because when I saw the contest's entries, I was looking at some of the best photographs from around the world. So I wasn't expecting much. Basically being in China would be enough. Apart from the ceremonies of the contest, the organizer also arranged the trip for us the winner and nominee. The 4 days trip was somehow frustrating, but now, when I look back, espceally when I'm looking what I am having in my harddrive, it was a relief. There are probably some pictures we couldn't ever made without the help of the organizer.

I then extended my stay to almost a month. I traveled for a while to see if China has something more to offer. My last week in China just got better when my mother finally joined me in Chengdu. We traveled together ever since. One good question crossed my mind: when did the last time you travel with your parents? My answer would be like "ummm, well, I forgot". So the trip with my mother really important to me.  It seems that we're just renewing our bond. One thing that I will be really glad to do over and over again. Sadly my father couldn't join us at that time for a funny reason: he is not yet having a passport. WHAT???!!

3. Glimpse of Europe

2011 is seemed to be my year of travel. Last May I was invited to go to Germany by my friend who were getting married. Who can refuse? Even basically this was planned long time ago. And to be honest I really wasn't sure that I really would ever be in Europe or not until the last few weeks.

The story was after the wedding I extended my stay for three weeks longer. From Wernigerode, where the wedding was held, I traveled to Berlin, passed Warsaw in Poland, and finally boarded the train as far as Kruszyniany, near the Belarus border where I found a old wooden Lipka Tatar mosque. The actual plan was to do a more specific project. But I screwed up my own schedule by the means of screwed up research. The project will remain unfinished until my next visit to Poland. But the travel pieces will be getting published this January.

Moreover, from there, I made my way back to Bialystok where my friend Jedrzej (he's a photojournalist too) made me feel like home in his flat. From there I made my way to Krakow to meet Anna, my friend who also the one who urged me to travel few years back. With her and Olek, her boyfriend, we went to Auschwitz (I posted some photos here). The trip wasn't over yet until I made my stop in Wroclaw where I spent some days with the so kind-hearted Gosia. With some 50GB of photos, this one of my biggest trip. It's fruitful

(Thanks a real lot to Yvonne, Knut, Anna, Gosia, Iga, Halim Shahab, Jedrzej, and Ozgun)

4. Singapore by the Street

For photography, I am a long time admirer of India, or China. But Singapore just never made my finger crossed. Well, I was wrong. Now I have to admit that it has its own charm, just like any other place. Sometimes you just need to be there to take a look at yourself.  At the end of last month, I was assigned to do the coverage about the grand opening of Transformers: The Ride in Universal Studio Singapore. Well, I was never a big fan of these autobots, so better talk no further about that. Then, I was also assigned to do a travel feature about Singapore (will be published early next year). But the topic required me to explore the place deeper since no one will ever want to hear about Orchad Rd again. In this chance, I mostly explore Singapore by walking combining with public transport. This was where I found that the city is so alive with its street scene. Need some good street photos? O.k, I'll look no further.

5. Ignoring a Decent Publication

WTF? I must be crazy. But that's what I did. If you have followed this blog for a while, then you already knew the story. I'm glad that I ignored them. The past few years we are witnessing the declining numbers of good pubcliation for us photographers. The jobs are rare while the amount of us are more abundant. May be they thought because now everyone can get a new camera then everyone can shoot. Buy this body and buy that lens and they can make good photos. I totally have some difficulties to understand why such a decent publication values our work that low.  So that was a big NO. Period.

6. Building a Website

You may say that I am late, and I actually am. I should have built one long ago. For so many reasons photographers need a website, a choice which is not that popular in Indonesia. As far as I know, in other part of the world, like the US and Europe, even a starter in photography have his/her own website to showcase their work. It's an important tool to publicize your works and your vision. I finally made this step last month, at the end of November. I did a quick design, oh sorry, it was modification from a flash portfolio template. I did aired it for two weeks before I decide that I don't like it. The reason is simple: the design. I need a more intuitive and better navigation. Also what's the point of making a website if you are hard to be found. For a starter in WWW world like me, that's absulutely important. Doing the SEO is harder with flash. So, then I made my way back to a more traditional structure without having to sacrifice the look. And it's finished here (you can also click on the picture to get there).

And then there's something that I feel after building a web. It's about quality. When I have my very own website, that's also mean I have to be really careful selecting the photographs. I have to show the best I have. This kind of feeling is totally positive. I bet.

So that's some update for the end of this year. This year might not perfect, but who want to be so perfect anyway. This year was good to me :)

See you again next year and of course HAPPY NEW YEAR 2012!!!