On a Thursday night, I suddenly remembered Thaipusam was just round the corner and it sure was. I decided that this year, I would make an effort to put up more multimedia slide shows. Adding sound to pictures always give your story and photos an added dimension.
I've also always enjoyed how BBC used to have those really cool sound stories, which allowed me to almost "be there" in the reporting scene.
For almost 8 years, i've covered this Thaipusam hindu festival but started to feel all stagnated when it came to the subject recently. The pictures were the same and waking up at 3 in the morning was not really a push factor for me.
I guess we all got to find fresh ways of looking at things and doing this multimedia definitely gave me that push. I was lucky enough to find an anchor as a voice-over. He was a friend of Steve, our SNTV guy. So i went over to his little convenient store to interview him the night before and realised that he was going to perform his ritual only at 5pm that day.
Part of me, as usual, asked myself why I was doing all this and started thinking of two words to descibe it all.
SELF INFLICTED.
Firstly.
To get nice photos out of Thaipusam, you've got to wake up early to catch the blue blue sky at dawn.
Next, you've got to remove your shoes and risk losing them while you move around a temple and go home smelling like temple.
Then, you've got to squeeze with thousands of people, only to take photos with messy backgrounds and worse..have your frame filled with like a hundred other photographers next to your subject.
Oh and in this case, if I want the blue sky, and my friend whom i've interviewed, I've gotta go there twice.
As usual, I complain the whole way and as i'm doing this, i ask myself why...
But the final project excites you and overrides all these questions.
Now pain fades with time.. and it hasn't been that long really. I'm already thinking of what I can do next.
It's only the beginning of the year. I hope you find your inspiration too.
(:
Click HERE to see the slideshow
2 comments:
Look on the bright side you got your shots and the slideshow is really interesting!
I did not sleep while shooting the entire festival from 11pm to 8am>.<
My shots: http://myalice.deviantart.com/gallery/#Thaipusam-2010
YEsh it was all worthwhile!!
THanks for the post...
will check out your photos as soon as i get a chance!
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