Some good deeds can start with a simple message.


Exactly 4 days after the Help Portrait Indonesia, I had the opportunity of shooting another charity donation by a group of youngsters in Jakarta. Indonesia is the largest BlackBerry cellphone user in the world and these group of 5-6 young girls started their charity acts by using Blackberry messaging.  They message blasted their circles of friends to invite them to participate either through donation or participation. Driven by their passion for religion and helping people, about 30 people joined, came with over 15 cars, packing them full with supplies in the shape of staple needs: food, cooking supplies, to even a refrigerator. Some of them already know each other, some got introduced to each other that same day.


Living conditions are borderline questionable, and this donation definitely would help them considerably.
Despite their situation, the kids are open, happy, and so full of life.  They are amazing. Sometimes we can learn more from kids than adults :)


CONTACT:

Yayasan Berkat Kasih Immanuel
email: boss_gbl@yahoo.com
Phone: (021) 4417447


This post is not about the glorification of religion, race, social background.  It is about creating change.


Access was quite challenging.

Here are some shots of the kids around the neighborhood.

Dead rat on the tarp covering the adjacent buildings.

Quite impressive amount of items delivered.  Quite impressive indeed.

A simple game of musical chairs that lifted their very spirits

And a game of pass-it-on for the youngsters

After that a quiet moment visiting the elderly nearby.  Such a touching moment and I can’t help but to reflect.  This older gentlemen apparently was abandoned by his family (he has diabetes and could barely walk) and had to live there with 3 other people in that room.

Love one another, treat others the way you wanted to be treated.

Technically this happened in my first week I am in Indonesia.  I was in a gathering of Indonesian wedding photographers, when my friends, Sigit & Tito mentioned that they are in the midst of coordinating the first-ever Help Portrait: Indonesia (under the umbrella of HELP PORTRAIT movement).  I was invited to shoot behind-the-scenes, so I thought to myself, why not? I believe in their system. It’s a good thing and it gives hope – transformation, as they mentioned in their site. And I love stories through images. I’m sold on the idea.


The recipients of this Help Portrait Indonesia is a Catholic all-girl orphanage in Jakarta called Vincentius Puteri in Jatinegara, Eastern Jakarta (since 1938). This place houses about 170 girls aged from 6-18 and their goal is to nurture these individuals to become an independent, educated, and equipping them with tools to make their society a better place as well.


These kids have been through a lot at such an early age.  Some of them are without parents. Some has crippled parents, or ones who couldn’t afford to raise them.  Some came from a broken family.  Talk about issues, they have them.  I am sure they have their bad days and I can just imagine how hard it is for them.  But for that one day, it seems perfect.  They are all laughing, asking for their pictures to be taken, some of us loaned them our cameras for them to play with, we interacted, talked, and laughed.  That’s exactly why we were there – to give them support, to be a friend, even for just one day.  Seeing them happy was such a treat for me.


Over 50 people from wedding photographers/videographers, printing company, and make up artists were there to lend a hand.  We even had an Indonesian Celebrity Chef appearance.  Some took pictures, some did editing, some continuously did make up for 180 people. All had done a great deed that day. I loved seeing how everyone pitched in, believed in one goal, and that very day, made 180 very happy, ecstatic girls / women.


CONTACTS:


VINCENTIUS PUTERI
The orphanage operates solely through donations from different people / corporations.
If you would like to help or inquire about their mission, vision, or values, contact them through:
email:
pa-vitri@telkom.net
pantiasuhanvitri@yahoo.co.id

HELP PORTRAIT
Join your local group for the worldwide-movement on Dec 10th!   To find your local group, visit: http://help-portrait.com/

More photos can be seen soon on:

http://www.facebook.com/help.portrait.indonesia

http://www.facebook.com/aperturaphoto

This post is not about religion, race, color of skin, social standing, etc. It is about caring about people in our surroundings.  Change starts from within each and every one of us.


 

Some of these girls have never been made up before.  Some are nervous, some are just giddy with excitement.

I love the way she looks at herself in this photo.

Our Celebrity guest for the day, Ms. Farah Quinn.

It is amazing to see the impact a celebrity has on kids.

Being really shy in front of the camera.

During dinner, we had a couple of girls came up and sang for us as a token of their gratitude.  Here is one of them.

These days I have been really intrigued by experiencing life through my photography. It is starting to become a visible alternate path of my photography career that I have a passion about, telling stories. One of my first steps were to shoot A Day In The Life of a Chef, and now I have witnessed and shot something that a single person would not normally see.

Julie + Roozbeh were our clients from way back when, and we have all grown to becoming such good friends. We shot their wedding, maternity, we played poker together at my place, partied at their house, and I now have the opportunity to shoot the birth of their second daughter, Jileh. This is something that is very different from what I’ve shot before and I am beyond ecstatic. They responded to my facebook update about wanting to shoot a birthing, and I am so glad that it was them. Keep in mind that at this point I’ve never really witnessed a birthing other than from the movies, and I heard so many stories about people fainting with the sight of blood, etc. I jokingly said to Julie + Roozbeh that I would be coming in with a helmet just in case if I fainted so I wouldn’t end up checking in the hospital as well, and his reply was: Don’t worry, Erwin.. at that point we don’t really care what happened to you (for anyone who knows Roozbeh, you have to expect a funny comment like that). I laughed in response.

I have a window of 1 week of being an “on-call photographer” in which I had brought my gear everywhere I go and I tried to keep my week open from any meetings so I can just get up and go when it is time. Their delivery would be at The Cedar-Sinai hospital and I was hoping that I wouldn’t get the news when there’s a lot of traffic towards Los Angeles (traffic in the LA area can be unbearable at times, and I just hope that I didn’t miss this opportunity because of this). Luckily, things went according to plan and Roozbeh called me on Friday night and told me that they are going to check in at the hospital on Saturday morning and it will be an induced birth.

I arrived Saturday morning and spent the whole day with them. There was a lot of waiting, silent moments alternating with funny moments. Around 1pm they moved Julie to the delivery room and we waited for another 3 hours or so before it all happened. I was dedicated to tell the story of the day and unfold everything that would happen to couples waiting for labor. It was a complete 180 from the wait to the labor time. I was nervous and excited at the same time, but to be honest, when I saw the baby’s head this indescribable feeling took control of me and I could just take the deepest breathe I can take and keep shooting. It was truly a magical feeling that words can not describe. I am literally holding myself not to tear up.  As I was shooting, this thought popped in my head: I couldn’t even imagine what it would feel like if it was my own.

Jileh was born after about less than 15 minutes of pushing, and I can just see the happiness and love flowing from Julie + Roozbeh. This was, and will most likely be the most intimate and magical experience I have shot for a very long time. Thank you Julie + Roozbeh for opening up their lives to me and for trusting me to document this experience. I am forever grateful and honored.

Obviously from these images, I did not faint. :)

This is the story through my lens:

Julie + Roozbeh joking around about their Lamaze classes

The waiting game.  Julie is exhaling in boredom.

The painful contractions and Roozbeh being there for Julie.

Julie’s mom peeking in to say hi.

The delivery room is right across from the Beverly Center Mall

Julie + Roozbeh’s daughter, Laleh was so afraid of hospitals in general, and at this point she was terrified seeing her mom hooked up with so many tubes and needles.  Poor thing.

More waiting game.  Facebook and Solitaire to the rescue while Julie takes a short rest.

Jileh.

Pain. Exhaustion. Relief. Love. Happiness.  Seeing her baby for the first time.

Roozbeh facebooking Jileh’s first photo to the world

I love this reaction by Julie’s mom and Roozbeh’s sister

A tender moment between mom and baby

Roozbeh’s dad showing his love for Julie.

And their first family portrait as a family of 4 :)

Congratulations again, Julie + Roozbeh + Laleh + Jileh!

Any other ideas of what I should be shooting next? :)

Been a bit behind, but here are some of my images that made it to the latest ISPWP contest :)

From Kate + Shaun’s lovely Maui, Hawaii wedding:

From Samar + Ali’s epic Italy wedding:

From Star + Amir’s colorific wedding:

ALOOOOHA!


Chef Edgar was my wedding client when he got married to Salila on Oct 10, 2010.  Throughout the process we became good friends and it seemed natural for me to approach him when I wanted to start this project of “Day in the Life” featuring him as a chef at work.  The excitement was mutual and it grew into my deep appreciation of the culinary world and the people in it.  Edgar is the chef partner at Roy’s Restaurant (Hawaiian Fusion Cuisine) in Newport Beach where he was named Chef Partner of The Year in the whole Roy’s organization.  This doesn’t come as a surprise to me since upon knowing him, he has a vast knowledge when it comes to all things food and he is always great with people.  He maintains a great working relationship with his team and it definitely showed while I was there, how well they work as a team because of that.

Cooking is like love.  It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.  ~Harriet van Horne

I have never worked in the food industry before and what I can summarize from my experience is the following.  In order to work in the culinary industry as chefs you have to really possess the love for cooking – being a foodie, having knowledge of cooking, or even liking to cook is not enough.  YOU HAVE TO BE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT.  This restaurant never rests, even if they are not filled between the lunch and dinner hours.  The day’s cycle goes like this:  Prepare for the lunch rush, maintain momentum, speed, and quality during the rush, then cleanup and reset / prep for the later crowds and the rush starts again for the evening crowd, and normally this is the hardest to keep up with especially during the holidays and weekends.  As Edgar puts it: “You’ll see an organized Chaos.”   The most transparent indications of this is simple: they are playful during the prep, but their serious, no-B.S. attitude comes out when things are busy.  People are working under an accurate, army-like system to coordinate orders at speeds that I would never have imagined before.  Standing in the aisle ways of the kitchen during this time makes me feel like Neo dodging bullets in The Matrix.  No Joke.  Seeing all this made me reflect on my earlier days where I at one point wanted to become a chef and I just know now that I wouldn’t be able to do this occupation.


Edgar makes time to go out to some of the patrons to say hi and ask people how their food is like.  This type of commitment and service toward their patrons is one of the reasons why they have lots of regulars that come in.  Edgar mentioned that he knows a person who always comes every Friday nights to eat dinner for years.  Talk about dedication, or rather addiction to good food and service.  Of course, the great customer service is not delivered only from him, but also from the managing partner, Tim Lowenberg who is always super nice and attentive.  Combine Edgar and Tim with their crew in one restaurant, they make sure that each person has a wonderful dining experience. Special thanks to the Roy’s organization for allowing me to do this, and Sous Chefs Kevin Wong and Mitchell Allen for putting up with me throughout this process and foremost, for becoming my friends.


It was definitely an unforgettable learning experience and my appreciation to chefs and restaurants has found new heights.
Right now, I’m having serious withdrawals about hanging with these fine folks again as they do what they are passionate about the most: cooking.

Here are some of my favorite images:


Prep time.

Joking around.

Quick meeting in the backlot with Edgar’s crew to discuss daily plans.

Not long after, the servers received some explanation of the menu for the day, as well as a chance to taste each dish so they can better describe to their customers.

The rush hour starts.

Edgar taking a quick 5-minute break to make and eat his dinner that night, an ice cream sandwich.

Immediately after, back to work.

Getting serious.

Edgar chatting and high-fiveing one of his sushi chef’s son

The grill section, which is the hottest place in the kitchen: an open grill and a 400-degree oven in one area. Honestly I was afraid that my lenses were going to melt shooting in this area :)

Edgar conversing with his patrons (during a purveyors’ dinner)

End of the night, cleanup time. Things are light and happy again.

Edgar checking out the schedule board for the coming weeks while eating his dinner at 12:30am – french fries.

I have found so much joy and cherish this experience that I am opening up more possibilities of doing similar projects. If you are interested, contact me at erwin@aperturaphoto.com and indicate “Day in the life”. Whatever occupation/business you have from humanitarian to anything, I would love to hear from you!