I could never get used to Orlando or Florida as a whole when I have a chance to travel down there. The heat, the humidity, flash thunder storms and all these elements where you can found in the tropics are reflected on this peninsula state. But it's not really the weather that made me uncomfortable. It's the atmosphere that made all the memories of unpleasant years I spent in Indonesia comes back to me.

Floria has many uniqueness as a state. But the one that draws me to there is the high density of theme parks in or surrounding Orlando. So much so that the association which representing theme parks around the world has its headquarter here. The other interest fact about theme parks in Orlando are varieties. Here, unlike California which is also a theme park magnet, if you tired of Disney, Seaworld, or Universal you can always drive along International Drive or near by roads and find yourself a nice little parks that provide very different taste than industry giants in town. One theme park, for instance, I visited is built to promote Christianity while the other is a educational showcase about alligators.

Unfortunately, while theme parks provide Orlando an interesting place to be, I don't enjoy them at all other than bringing back images. The reason is simple - as much as I like to photograph these places I never and will never enjoy them.

Labels: off assignment, orlando

While I was in New York an unfortunate event occurred to me which gave me a chance to take a shelter and visit my distant relatives' home for the first time. Though I've known for years that I have some distant relatives immigrated to New York but I did not realized the scale until I started to talk to my uncles and aunts.

To understand why so many of my relatives move to New York you have go back to the 1990s. It was the time when 'going to NYC for better money' was a hot trend among people of my relatives' hometown in central Fujian province and people are willing to pay anything to go there legally or not. As the result during the decade news of Chinese migrants died or end up in slave labor occurred quiet frequently in the US. Luckily, my relative are safe and sound.

Aside from their struggle in the US, what's really excited about staying with them is the fact that I can re-live my childhood memory all over again. Ever since my grand father passed away there's almost no chance of having the kind of foods my grand father made because they are very specialized foods and can be found only in his hometown. But because these relatives are from grand father's side so these foods are their daily diet, although to me they're treasure(and that's what they told me literally....our ordinary food is your treasure......).

So, In the end, even there's an unfortunate event it was worth a trip to NYC as I get to see yet another side of the city and visiting my relatives. By the way I already thinking about going to their hometown next year and pay my respect to my grand father's grave and just get the sense on how much it has changed since my last visit back in the late 1980s.

Labels: new york, off assignment

One of the pleasure of being a photographer is that you get to travel to places, some familiar, some exotic. Although not every trip photographers took is a pleasant one, they do get to have opportunities to observe things that casual travelers sometimes unaware of.

From time to time when I'm on assignment I photograph scenes that are more or less for me to keep as a visual journal. Things that are unrelated to the assignment or project but still interest enough to grasp my attention. And so, I thought this would be a good place to share some of my thoughts from these 'detour' images.

I have been in Las Vegas for many times since high school with family, and each time I reached the city I was dying to get out. To me the city is just everything I want to avoid - casinos, neon lights, culturaless and tasteless sceneries......etc. If it wasn't the fact that there are few amusement parks(which is a project I'm working on) in town I wouldn't even consider coming to here. Now, since Las Vegas is known for its gamble industry one would expect the place filled with slot machines. However, to my amazement I did not expect slot machines filled its way to the international airport. Was I took the flight in the past to Las Vegas I would be less surprised about it. But since my past trips to this city was by car(I lived in L.A. during high school) you can imagine the shock I had because slot machines are the last thing I would expected from an airport.

Well, guess they're calling it 'Sin City' for a reason.......

Labels: las vegas, off assignment