Photography is one of my favorite ways to see the world.

Check out my beloved camera collection, read about my workflow or my artistic vision, or buy my zine (coming soon).

    • The Best Camera is the One You Have

      Published on Invalid DateTime

      I have been an avid enthusiast of phone photography and videos even before iPhones arrived in the world. To that end, I still chuckle when I think about how in the mid 00s, I not only took cool photos that I still love today, using a Nokia N73, one of them even went on the front page of Flickr for a while!

      a color photo of a cow standing on a pile of limestone rocks. Blue skies in the background

      A photograph of a cow on a pile of limestone. Cherrapunjee, India.

      a color photo of a kiln in a limestone mining area in India

      A photograph of a limestone kiln in Cherrapunjee, India.

      a color photo of a sign that reads, Cherrapunjee, wettest place in the world

      A sign that greets you as you enter Cherrapunjee.

      a screenshot of a browser showing the cow photo on flickr.com's front page in the early 2000s

      I had to take a screenshot.

      This was the first photography and writing assignment I ever went on. I met a photojournalist in a bar in Mumbai, and ended up collaborating with him across India and Bangladesh. He took the cool pictures (I thought, at the time, as I was less confident in my photography skills and equipment); I wrote many of the stories (which were published by various magazines). We were there to document climate change in the world's wettest place at the time. Not bad for a still-in-college kid (me, then), to have had the opportunity to do things like that.

    • My First Time in Myanmar

      Published on February 16, 2023
      a color photograph of a person taking a photo for a local couple in a Burmese bus station

      Photo taken on Sony Nex-5 in 2012.

      Around a decade ago the world was a vastly different place. Aung San Suu Kyi had been released and was poised to run her country, finally. The country, so close to mine yet so far apart in so many ways, was opening up. I set out to try to see it before it became another Southeast Asian tourist hotspot with breathless growth and development. I think I was concerned about ecological destruction then, but boy, there was that and so much more to have been worried about.

      This was maybe the second last time I traveled anywhere that had no Internet connectivity whatsoever (the last place was Cuba, 2016). 6 months from the time this photograph was taken, you could get data on sim cards at the airport for five bucks; at this point, I still had one of the infamous three thousand dollars (yes, green bucks) per Burmese sim card arrangements, that I got through work. It also had no data on it, in spite of the cost. (For a long time, the market in issuing Burmese sim cards was very much like the used car market in an oligarchy. The elite officials ran the whole thing.)

      Friends with Burmese connections helped me plan this trip. You couldn't buy a domestic travel ticket for bus or plane outside of Myanmar, because that was closed, but you could do it in Peninsula Plaza, Singapore, the hub of one of the largest Burmese diaspora in the world. You couldn't use an ATM there, but you could send money to someone in Singapore, whose uncle would then meet you at your hotel to give you a bag of cash.

      I was trying to get to Bagan. "Go to this place, wait there, and someone will come and help you sort out everything."

      It was a whole thing. I waited here for a long time, so I had plenty of time to take photographs. Sometimes, I wonder what happened to the people in the photographs I took a decade ago. But it's hard to think about it.

      Later, I went on to spend much more time in Yangon and Mandalay. I was there on a project with a company for almost a year. It's one of the countries I love so much, and so terribly, and I stand with the brave Burmese people who rise up, decade after decade, against crushing military rule.

    • Hari Gawai, some years ago

      Published on February 14, 2023

      One of the things I love about my home region is how it's home to so many unique cultures. Even in countries that I know well, like Malaysia, I never run out of things to do, people to meet or things to learn. In 2007 or so I went to Sarawak, one of the two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, and lived with a local Indigenous family. June 1 of each year is usually the day of Gawai itself, which concludes the harvest season, but as many people return home from the city or even from other villages, it's also a time for merrymaking and reconnecting with family and friends. Festivities can go on for a month or more.

      Read more here. It can be difficult to arrange without an 'in' to the community. Some people go to the traditional tattoo artists in Kuching and ask if they can get a tattoo, AND be invited to their family celebrations (with adequate payment, of course).

      We were lucky to have been invited. Way too much local alcohol was made and consumed, and while my liver can't make this type of journey anymore (since I no longer drink), I have many fond memories of the longhouse we stayed in, and the families we met.

      a color photograph of a young woman dressed in traditional Iban dress for the harvest festival

      A young woman dressed in traditional Iban dress for Hari Gawai.

      a color photograph of a child looking on smiling as his cousins run by

      A child looks on as his cousins play, in a long house. We slept with everyone, with a mattress pulled out, on one side of the long house.

      a color photograph of a person rowing a longtail boat

      Getting there required expert navigation of the Skrang river. We were in good hands with the penghulu himself, and his sons, carrying us up the river from a small town a few hour away.

      All photos taken on Canon 50D.

    • Silhouettes

      Published on Invalid DateTime

      Most people love the Golden Hour. I also love the moment just before the sun sets where the light changes so quickly you don't know what you're going to get.

      a photo of Angkor wat temples, silhouettes

      A photo of temples at Angkor Wat, some time in 2005. Nikon F-601, not sure which film stock.

      a photo of people riding camels in the dunes in India

      A photo of camels in Jaisalmer, India. 2006. Canon 350D.

    • My month so far

      Published on February 12, 2023

      A series of unprecedented storms swept us in San Francisco in January and February. Dark clouds and gloomy skies are not your typical fare here. I felt just as gloomy, but also thankful for the rain's impact on California's drought situation.

      a color photograph of Chinatown San Francisco with TransAmerica building in the background. Also with dark skies

      Soon, the sky started becoming bluer and bluer. Sometimes pink too.

      A color photograph of a large mural which reads Tenderloin People's Garden on a building. Blue and pink sky in the background

      And now we're back to blue, and I'm happy again.

      a color photograph of pigeons sitting on a building roof. Blue skies in background. Building has colorful murals on it.

      Chinatown photo taken with Olympus XA2. The rest with Nikon L35TWAD. All on Fuji Superia 400. All developed and scanned by Underdog Film Lab, Oakland.

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