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Bleeding the Ozone

As the evening set in, the colors of my bedroom took on a doomsday glow. I stepped out onto the balcony, sucked in a breath of the balmy, acidic stuff they call air, and glanced westward. The sky was in pain. It was as if hell had punctured the earth right here in Jakarta. In all my life, I’ve never seen a sky as burning red and intensely saturated. Pollution breeds art.Read more
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Anguish and Poverty

I’ve decided to post this image in color. At first I thought it would be more powerful in black and white, but the truth is I lost the meaning once the colors were taken away. I initially saw this young girl sitting alone in front of her mother’s store. As I looked more closely, I saw that she was surrounded by the masks and artifacts that I typically find beautiful. For a few moments they lost their beauty entirely. SomethingRead more
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What Lies Beyond?

This image was taken on a magical compound near Mendut Temple – near Borobudur, Central Java. I’ll write about it further detail later. If anyone has ever heard of Studio Mendut or Sutanto – the composer, this is part of his home. The compound consists of a studio, performing arts arena, antique collection, and glass painting gallery. Towards the back of the compound, I found this door – if one were to open and enter, it would lead to aRead more
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Magelang

Chicken soup for the skeptic’s soul. The days spent in this small town were some of the most humbling and thought-provoking experiences I’ve ever had. While living in Indonesia these past years, I’ve been witness to an incredible variety of life, yet somehow these travels were, in many ways more moving. This was not a tourist town or a widely traveled path for white guys – evident each time eyes were met with mine. People were brimming with warmth –Read more
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Yogyakarta

In many ways, it is the way Jakarta should be. When I say I went to Yogya, I was actually only in the city for about 4 days. The other 4 were spent in and around the city of Magelang, north of Yogya about 45 minutes. I suppose the best way to speak of my time there would be to break it down into separate posts based upon what I was doing. This first will encompass only the city itself.Read more