Photos & Words

Shadows

These are the shadows I saw this morning on the my bicycle commute to work. There was a strong sun and an unusual clear sky in Jakarta.

Check mate

Sunday. I was walking nearby our house in south Jakarta this afternoon when I saw these two men playing chess. I liked the pose of the elder man and how concentrated he was on the game.

Continuing with the project: 1 photo per day for 35 days with a 35mm focal length. Learning.

The Balinese door

There is a backstreet on the way to the office. It is closed on both entries so that cars cannot go through. It must have been a popular streets with people looking for coffee and restaurants, for there are few abandoned buildings on bpoth side of this back street. This is the dilapidated entrance of a Balinese  rastaurant. I like this entrance. The metal doors. The rusting decorations. The bricks and cement hlding up the doors and that are wearing down, struggling against the tropical weather of Jakarta.

Kopi Tubruk

I started today a new project: to publish 1 photo for 35 days using a 35mm lens focal length. I am using the Olympus 17mm f1.8 with my OMD E-M1 which is very very close to  35mm on a full frame camera.  I will take black & white photos in the streets of Jakarta mainly on my 8km communte to/from work which I do by bicycle. Let’s see how far I can go.

This photo is of a sign of an abandoned coffee. What remains of the place is a broken door and this sign. Tubruk is an Indonesian-style coffee where coarse coffee grounds are boiled along with solid sugar, resulting in a thick drink similar to Turkish coffee. It is popular in Bali and Java.

Rear wheel

There has been an interesting experiment going on in Jakarta this week. The city administration has suspended temporarily the 3-in-1 rule whereby at peak traffic times cars, on some of the more critical roads of the city, have to carry a minimum of three passengers (including the driver). This rule has resulted so called  Jockeys, people who are passengers for hire, waiting on the side of the streets to be picked up as the third person. The 3-in-1 rule has only marginally reduced the traffic congestion. Relaxing the rule has therefore resulted (on average) in a marginal increase in the traffic congestions, although, speaking to friends, it seems that traffic on main arteries has worsened considerably, while  smaller alternative roads seem to be more free of traffic.

In the meantime, it would be great if there were more bicycles in the streets, more commuters cycling to work, more bicycle lanes protecting cyclists, more parking space for bicycles. That would really make a difference.

Bike2Work

Front wheel

We need more bicycle lanes in Jakarta. We need ways that protect us from cars and motorbikes. We need more bike2work commuters.