The Muddy Confluence

last year i made a list of things i wanted to accomplish before 2015 made its appearance. a rather significant reason i created the list was so that i could finally finish those last few rolls of 120 film. in hopes of exposing those rolls of film, i conjured up a photowalk that would've involved me visiting all the tourist spots i've yet to visit around Kuala Lumpur. alas, the photowalk never quite materialized - focusing to carry out my photowalks mostly in Putrajaya ultimately left me uninspired to make that trek to the muddy confluence.

fast forward half a year later post-Tokyo, i was engulfed in a strong itch to pound the pavements of some city. any city. one that possibly has some form of mass rapid transit. the leftover wanderlust was killing me, hence i made my way to the heart of Kuala Lumpur one fine evening in the midst of the Eid Mubarak celebrations. i didn't exactly ply the mass rapid transit as i planned to - this is, after all, a rather spontaneous photowalk (like most of my photowalks lately, really).

to be frank, Kuala Lumpur is no Tokyo. the climate isn't exactly conducive for a random photowalk. the streets were poorly lit and weren't pedestrian friendly. plus the backalleys are filthy and incredibly dodgy. all these factors didn't inspire any form of safety for yours truly. and in a rather surreal manner, the people on the streets mostly consisted of non-Malaysians! had i mistakenly teleported myself into the Middle East?

regardless, i made my way to Dataran Merdeka - a great spot for one to leisurely lounge about while getting baked by the relentless heat of tropical Malaysia. to no surprise, the Dataran was nearly devoid of Malaysians - substituted by the presence of blue collared foreign workers enjoying their day off on the first day of Eid Mubarak, and tourists taking selfies with their selfie sticks. unlike the squeaky clean parks of Tokyo, Dataran Merdeka isn't without its share of litterbugs, which certainly detracts from the experience of standing in a historic locale. admittedly, this is the very first time i've ever set foot on Dataran Merdeka - a somewhat historic feat for yours truly, and perhaps a catalyst to finally start discovering the streets of the muddy confluence. i've always believed that to know a city is to walk the streets and to take the mass rapid transportations. in this case, i feel that i'm completely unable to recognize Kuala Lumpur anymore. maybe i never knew her in the first place.

like i said, Kuala Lumpur is no Tokyo, nor is it Seoul, Taipei, or Singapore for that matter. it's time to get to know this muddy confluence a little bit better. maybe i'll find something to appreciate about her.

Tokyo On Film

the last time i used the Contax T2 was at the end of 2012 when i made a trip down to Singapore. two and a half years later right before i left to catch my flight to Tokyo, i pondered for a good five minutes on whether i ought to bring the T2 with me. past experiences certainly have taught me that one shouldn't carry too many cameras with them, for fear of losing focus when deciding which camera to wield. past experiences (undocumented here, for some reason!) have also yielded that my T2 isn't up to it any more, especially when it came to focusing in the night time. the odd focal plane is fine and dandy if i were more into the spontaneity and oddity of slightly malfunctioning cameras, but most of the time i'd rather have my camera functioning as it is intended to. hence the good five minutes of second-guessing the T2's worth in this trip.

yet i couldn't help myself, because this T2 came in a packet straight from Tokyo - a film camera i had been pining for ever since i first read Tokyo Camera Style, coincidentally the tumblr blog that changed my view towards photography as a medium. a film camera that i boldly bid at the maximum amount i was willing to pay and woke up the next morning to find out i had won the bid. for a lack of solid rationality, nostalgia had won this round, hence i stuffed the camera into my camera bag. the T2 was consciously designated the secondary camera, and it shows because pieces of the whole are missing, yet it complements the overall picture, somewhat.

i'm not incredibly happy that i didn't use the T2 to its full potential, maybe because of my preoccupation with the DSLR and by the general fact that I WAS IN TOKYO. nevertheless, the T2 made a return visit to its homeland, took some pictures that turned out rather okay, and somehow still managed to achieve certain expectations. one of them being that the focus is absolutely fucked.

Contax T2

Fuji Pro 400H

Tomorrowland

walking around the Minato Mirai 21 district, i recall echoes of a field recording off of a Godspeed You Black Emperor! track. the voice recalls the halcyon days of Coney Island, and how people don't sleep on the beaches any more. Yokohama harbour evokes the atmosphere of a long forgotten theme park teeming with nostalgists looking for lost memories they wish they had. bizarre architecture, the looming Yokohama Landmark Tower, the Cosmo Clock 21, the Osanbashi pier, the Yokohama skyline in the twilight, China Town - Yokohama is a curious mix of the past, contemporary, and the future. the kind of mixture where you don't mind lying on the beach (or in Yokohama's case, the Osanbashi pier) all night admiring the beautiful city lights. it is a city where the future is contemporary, and the past still etches its mark on the pavements. in Yokohama, it is always tomorrow.