Memarahi Diri Sendiri

Ternyata memang benar, sekian ratus foto dalam dua kali kesempatan memotret, tak satupun yang memuaskan hati.

Entah itu berarti standarku tambah tinggi -- tapi kemampuanku stagnan -- atau standarku tetap tapi kemampuanku menurun. Tak satu pun dari pilihan itu yang menyenangkan hatiku. Keduanya bahkan menyebalkan!



Sekarang ini aku malah memilih untuk membaca buku saja daripada melihat dan memilih kumpulan foto-foto buruk itu. Biar nanti malam kulihat lagi lalu akan kuhapus semuanya. Atau mungkin aku akan menyimpan beberapa saja sekedar pengingat bahwa aku hadir di event itu.

Sedinya.

Day 295: Lelah Sekali

Setelah mencoba mengerjakan tugas dadakan dengan mengebut, sekarang aku merasa lelah sekali. Tetapi tetap saja aku merasa ada "gangguan", yaitu perasaan bahwa spreadsheet yang tadi telah kuselesaikan seoptimal mungkin ternyata masih ada kesalahan dan kekurangtelitian! Astaga!

Tapi aku merasa teralu lelah untuk mengkoreksi ulang jadi aku mengirim dulu saja apa yang sudah ada itu sebagai preliminary material, sekedar pembanding saja. Aku sadar kalau ternyata kesalahan yang aku lakukan adalah kesalahan seorang pemula, aku akan sangat malu karena tak sepantasnya orang selevel aku melakukan kesalahan seperti itu.

Mungkin ini yang disebut kurang koordinasi juga karena seharusnya aku memiliki semua informasi barang dan jasa yang aku butuhkan atau aku bisa meminta rekan kantor mencarikannya. Tetapi kok malah aku berkutat sendiri dengan segala kesulitan itu padahal seharusnya aku bisa dan pantas meminta bantuan.

Mungkin besok akan kugunakan untuk me-review lagi hasil kerja kebutku tadi malam sampai siang keesokan harinya (alias sampai hari ini).

Capek!

Akhirnya!

Akhirnya ada kegiatan juga! Aku harus mengurus sebuah daftar pekerjaan sesuai spesifikasi dua buah operator seluler di Indonesia, untuk tujuh regional. Jadi tujuh dikali dua sama dengan empat belas tabel yang harus diisi dalam kurang dari 24 jam -- termasuk malam ini.

Alamat tidak tidur atau kalau pun bisa tidur, ada kemungkinan tidak selesai.

Kelambatanku mengerjakannya rasanya karena sudah terlalu lama aku tak mengurus hal seperti ini sehingga tentu saja aku seperti orang bego lagi ketika diberikan buku referensi, daftar-daftar lama, lalu diminta mengisi daftar baru.

Hiks.. Hiks.. Perasaan campur aduk antara senang ada aktivitas yang cukup berarti lagi dan sedih karena sebenarnya aku ingin tidur cepat malam ini karena sedang tidak fit.

Rusting, Skill Not Put In Use

It had been a long while since last I did some stage photography, the thing that I like most among the object of photography. Come to think about it, a LONG while indeed.

That's my thought when I went through, selecting and deleting the hundreds of shots I took on two consecutive event that I photographed. My thought was that my photos look so ordinary that any person with a similar gears would have taken them. That idea really hurt my pride, you know.

But what can I say? I thought I got skills to do stage photography but now I doubt that I even have it in the first place, seeing all the photos I took. A lot of them are missed focus because I point the focusing bracket at the wrong subject. A lot of them are blurred because I had the inappropriate shutter speed. A lot of them are not properly exposed because I set the exposure compensation wrong. And many of them are composed poorly.

I even realize that I used to be active, walking and trying various spots for some shot, constantly moving to get the best shot. But these last two event, I just stand pretty much on the same place and took shots. Even after I reviewed them and I realize they're not even decently good, I stayed on the spot. Which actually was a bad decision.

Now, all I can do is one thing: PRACTICE MORE.

How else can I be responsible to the one type of photography that I like most?

Now, when will another event coming?

Panas Hari Ini

Cuaca kurang bersahabat hari ini. Terasa panas bahkan AC yang dinyalakan pada suhu 18 derajat tak mampu membuatku berhenti berkeringat. Mungkin akan hujan sore ini tapi aku juga tidak tahu. Kuharap tidak.

Aku sudah lama tidak memotret pertunjukan panggung dan tawaran untuk datang ke acara ulang tahun sebuah operator telekomunikasi di Indonesia membuatku ingin sekali menuju Senayan membawa kamera setiaku, si Nikon D50 dengan dua lensa wajib: Sigma 24-70 mm f/2.8 dan Nikon 80-200 mm f/2.8 yang sudah lama sekali tidak dikeluarkan dari tabungnya.

Tetapi tentu saja kekhawatiran soal cuaca adalah persoalan utama. Aku tak tahu dan tak yakin soal cuaca dan kemungkinan hujan-hujanan membawa gear senilai lebih hampir dua puluh juta rupiah (nilai saat aku beli tiap barang) yang rentan terhadap pengaruh elemen -- terutama air -- sangat mempengaruhiku. Ragu kan jadinya untuk berjalan dengan kondisi seperti itu?

Pilihan dan alternatif lain adalah dengan mengendarai mobil dengan resiko kena macet yang biasanya terjadi tiap weekend di rute yang rencananya akan kuambil. Memang terlindung dari elemen tapi ya tetap saja kemacetan akan membuatku terlambat datang ke tempat tujuan ditambah lagi kelelahan menyetir. Tapi setidaknya kamera dan lensa-lensaku aman dari resiko rusak oleh elemen.

Semua itu membuatku ragu dan YA, aku memang seorang yang peragu.

Apapun akhirnya kuharap tidak ada gangguan dan hambatan karena aku sudah ingin sekali memotret pertunjukan panggung. Kuharap semua bisa dilaksanakan dan lancar-lancar saja.

Day 285: Discipline And Focus

That's two of the most important things for character integrity -- or so I think.

Even with a commitment, being discipline and stay in focus take up a lot of energy and can be surprisingly tough thing to do. As with my initial intention on keeping a 5-day blog post which by the time you're reading this you must be able to guess that I am failing miserably.

My ideal thing with this blog is that I will write an update at the minimum of one for every five days passed since first of January, 2009. I even loosely limited the topic on anything that might be interesting to me -- since that time I thought on just focusing on one theme only and post anything related to it every five days might be an untenable task (please consider to look up on dictionary if "untenable" is an appropriate word -- atmr).

But that turned out to be a folly. Without focusing on a certain theme and keeping it on schedule (the fifth-day regular update), I can easily lost focus and not making any update AT ALL. Don't try to tell me about that fault because I am already felt like a failure at this and my self-esteem is hurting like a... I don't know. What'd be a word to describe it?

Again and again I am reminded but as always I am easily distracted and that cause me to unable to attend to my own schedule, the one I set for myself. Maybe I should do this differently from now on, like making a more specific description on my topic for that five-day regular and maybe sometimes make it a special!

Blah blah.. I am only so full of ideas!

:(

Day 279: Jumper

No, I'm not refering to the movie about some people born with an ability to teleport to places just by looking at the image of the place. Instead, I am talking about the Third Eye Blind's single, titled "Jumper" that I saw in Jim Carrey movie, "Yes Man".

The song tell about a friend that want to commit suicide by jumping from atop of a building. Well, that was kind of stray too much from my REAL point but the tune catch hold in my head and I found myself humming or singing part of the lyrics.

Maybe because that song remind me of myself, as I standing here prepare to jump. No, you! I don't mean to jump and die as in suicide. I mean that I'm jumping to embrace another operating system, jumping away from Microsoft Windows XP that I have been using these past few years. Let me admit it:

I am embracing open source software!

There! I said it!

I am the first in my office to start backing up my own work and personal files to CDs and DVDs. Too damn bad I didn't found one system to catalogue the content of all those disks, scratched on both surfaces and unable to be put inside a drive anymore.

I am the first in my office to start putting some work files in the cloud. That's because I don't want to carry a notebook around, adding at least three kgs to the overall weight of my luggages. That way, all I need is an internet connection and a rental computer loaded with appropriate office suite, be it OpenOffice or Microsoft Office.

Now, I am the first in my office to jump to open source section of the computer users. That's right! I now use dual-boot, Windows XP Home Service Pack 3 and Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. Even right now, I'm typing this post in a Mozilla Firefox web broser on GNOME, using Rythmbox to listen to my music list (it's still on mp3 format so I have to install the proper restricted codecs).

What I really mean that, even on a small scale thus have no power to change any other computer users in my office to ditch their older software and take Open Source Software instead. When I push up the idea to change into open source, I justgot rejected. Nobody seemed to like the notion; give it some consideration first; or even curious about Ubuntu Linux! Nobody, except me.

So here I am, writing this post, after jumping to another Open Source operating system and softwares..!

Let me qoute something:

At the core of the Ubuntu Philosophy are these core philosophical ideals:

1. Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.
2. Every computer user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.
3. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.

The freedoms at the core of free software are defined as:

• The freedom to run the programme, for any purpose.
• The freedom to study how the programme works and adapt it to your needs.
• The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others.
• The freedom to improve the programme and release your improvements to the public, so that everyone benefits.

Source in here!

Today, I'm thinking of doing another Jumper session. What jump now that'd be?