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Gilang
@gilangkartasasmita
Best of the week 20 at #nomadict 2020
In 2017, when I first used Instagram I often saw great photos from food, travels, lifestyle, or any other genre. Though looking at my own photos, there were just ordinary. It was in 2018 that I was invited to a teagarden by a friend and he showed me how to take a good photo. This triggered me. I wanted to know more. So I sent a message to one of the Instafamous here and asked if I could join one of their adventures. The first time I joined them we went to a waterfall, after which I would go with them on many other trips and I started to realize that each photo has a great effort and story behind.
"That’s how I began to really enjoy exploring nature, travel and photography."
"In the past 7 years I have always traveled to find a job. I once moved from Bandung to Bali taking only 200 thousand Rupiahs with me."
It was the first time going to Bali and I didn’t know anyone. This experience really taught me how to survive; I bet on myself, just did it and learnt a lot. Meanwhile I was developing my passion for photography, I tried to connect with many other creatives interested in the same field in order to share the passion and advance my skills. I also began to bring guests from other countries which I would show around in order to earn a living. A little later I found a job in a company. Growing simultaneously my own business, my passion for photography and my role in the company, I got quite busy and the day arrived that my boss left me with the choice to either focus on my job and become the area manager in Bali, or continue with my personal side job and activities.
"I chose to resign and develop my own business further."
"I was very ambitious and that made that I could kind of substitute the money that I lost by resigning through my own business."
In my opinion, there were many opportunities in the field of travel and tourism and furthermore I loved it so it wasn’t difficult to put all my energy in that project, together with a friend. I can go everywhere while taking guests and meanwhile I can focus on photography; it is an added value for the guests to go home with nice photos or their trips and I am really happy with what I am doing.
"Traveling to various places around Indonesia enables me to really get to know my country and I love it."
I can discover and connect with ethnic communities, learn about their cultures, and each time my love for Indonesia increases. We have 748 languages, 17504 islands and 1340 tribes. It is very diverse and there is always something to explore, either culture or nature wise. For me every trip is extraordinary; but the most surprising was when I was invited by my best friend to Labuan Bajo. I never wrote Labuan Bajo on my wishlist because of the quite high costs that would come with that, but at that time I really could go and it allowed me to actually create a sailing tour over there, one of the most beautiful places this country has.
"It is a great example of how we should not underestimate life and what it can bring us, what we ourselves can do and realize."
Everything is about the willingness to try, to not be afraid and not let discouraging expectations guide you. The day of my winning shot, I almost stayed in my bed. I felt demotivated, lazy, it had been raining for two days and I had been very busy so I suffered from sleep deprivation. My brother insisted to go out and explore though and asked me with a sad face that I couldn’t resist to go to the hills. So, the next morning we arrived around 5am at the destination. It was wonderful; it was totally worth it and I felt so good. I remembered my lazy thoughts and if it wasn’t for my brother, who was full of positive energy to explore, I wouldn’t have experienced this moment.
As little I was looking forward to wake up early and as little I expected it to be a wonderful morning and good day to explore, even less I imagined that this photo could become a winning shot.
Actually, I didn’t even want to post it. I took the photo with an iPhone 7 plus and didn’t like the original file because there was a lot of noise. I mostly use different apps for post production because not each app has the same options, and at the end I just decided to upload the final result to Instagram. I was very surprised it got selected and even more when it won. I learnt my lesson: “a photo that I don’t particularly like isn’t necessarily bad or not worth posting.” It is always good to see what others think and learn from it, it opens opportunities and our minds to try other things or go in different directions. Sometimes we are so used to what we normally do that we don’t do it differently; it feels incorrect or non-aesthetic – not because it really is incorrect or non-aesthetic, but because we are not used to it.
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