Someone Else's Fences

Currently Reading: The Undoing Project - Michael Lewis

If you want to see a true Indonesian city aesthetic, I think you should look at the fences that adorn the rows and rows of houses. Small paved alleyways lined with rusty fences and old houses are my favourite settings. Often I feel inspired to get my photos taken at such settings, but those streets are usually highly used—meaning there'll be cars or motorbikes every five minutes or so—that I can't, in good conscience, position a tripod and myself smack dab in the middle of it and snap some self-timed shots. Which is why it's always a welcome presence when there's someone else with me there. This instance, for example, in which my brother and sister were kind enough to accompany me to some random neighbourhood to snap these shots—okay, we also just grabbed pizza and gelato beforehand. These are literally random people's houses; we don't know them and we probably never will. But the façade is just so aesthetically Jakarta that I was instantly smitten. Thankfully, this small road was barely used by anyone, allowing us some pretty good shots. This whole experience somewhat reminds me of this instance. Here's to more photos in front of random people's houses!

Old t-shirt // hand-me-down skirt + sandals + bag // photos by my sis

Lately, I haven't had much time to conceptualise blog posts or even think up of a location to have as a backdrop. Usually, my blog photos are taken on Saturday—unintentionally at golden hour, cutting it dangerously close to sun down. It could be anywhere, depending on where my sister and I are at the time. The problem, often, is that the places we visit will be too packed with people to be a great setting, so we'll venture somewhere close by, find an okay place to frame and hastily snap some shots. Unfortunately, this means that a lot of my photos will suffer in quality. It's been making me feel less inspired and excited to share—which makes them pretty much pointless, to be honest. The other problem is that I often haven't got enough brain power within the week to think of the outfit I would be wearing. As a result, I usually just slap on anything I can get my hands on—like this one. What do you think? Do you notice the struggle behind the scenes?