| Travel to Guanghzou, China is like a dream come true. While still studying at elementary school, I ever dreamed that one day I will be abroad on my own efforts. Around 1980, to travel abroad for some Indonesian people can only be done by those who have a lot of money. At that time, for a village boy like me who grew up in eastern Indonesia, aspires to be travel abroad was limited to just a dream. But this time, traveling abroad can be anyones if you want to try and work hard.
What I dreamed when I was a child finally come true, my hard work in photography give me a chance to travel abroad. I was invited to come to Guangzhou, China to attend Human Photography Award (HPA) awarding ceremony organize by The Chinese Folklore Photographic Asociation (CFPA), The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and The Guanghzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee (GAGOC). I won Documentary Award Winners for cultural image series entitled The Ubud Royal Cremation that I made in the year 2008. In September 2009, winners of HPA from around the world come and gather in Guangzhou, in addition to attending HPA awarding ceremony and exhibition opening. The winners are also given the opportunity to get around Guanghzou with transportation and accommodation cost are borne by the organizer.
Before leaving for Guanghzou, my imagination about China only from television and mandarin movies that we often wacth in Indonesia. Kungfu action movies became the favorite one. In these movies, China is described as a country with cultural characteristics and unique society, ranging from the everyday lifestyle, clothing, food, architecture, and others. After I arrived there, the question is: That I find China as I imagined?. See Guanghzou for the first time broke all my imagination of China movies I have ever seen. Guanghzou is one of the industrial city and a highly developed urban areas in China, dense settlements with high building with boxes shape can be found almost throughout the city. However, we were lucky because our five day travel plans in Guanghzou including a chance to see some pockets of rural areas with characteristics of Chinas cultural life besides seeing the rapid development of cities and preparation of Guanghzou as Asian Games host in 2010.
Image - Sing a song.
What I do when I am there is trying to take a picture of reality as well as integrating imagination the memory of China that ever occurred in my mind before. To travel for the first time, made me very enthusiastic about everything. When traveling in Guanghzou actually we spent a lot of time in the bus to move from one district to another district, we just stopped about 1-2 hours to walk around and take a shoot. Despite the limited time I find many interesting things to photograph. In this Guanghzou photos series, I try to share some of my photos that I made for you.
Travel to China is one of the best history of my life. I came there to receive award and met with dozens of photographer friends from around the world. Meet with an experienced world photographers is an inspiration and passion for me to keep continuing share culture in the medium of photography. I would to say thanks to the organizer who have worked hard for the success of the event as well thanks to all my HPA friends. It is very pleased to meet you all and I will not forget that moment.
To see all photos in My eyes on Guanghzou - traveling photos series album, please follow this link: Guanghzou – China. |
My eyes on Guanghzou - traveling photos series 