BUANASENI

Title: Loneliness
Medium: Photography
Photographer: Johan Ishak
Time/Date: {Time and date not recorded}, 2000
Place of creation: Shah Alam
www.buanaseni.blogspot.com

HOTOGRAPHY is a form of art which I admire. The attached photo is my first attachment on the blog for photography. The photograph was taken using a simple automatic Olympus camera. Nothing expensive. Whilst a higher resolution camera has the ability to focus with clarity and impose fantastic effects, a simple photography can produce the intended metaphoric feel by having the right combination of background, colour scheme, choice of object(s), positioning of silhoette or light source; and most importantly, timing, to capture the moments (hence the phrase "the Kodak Moments").

This piece had no title since the day it was photographed. I have decided to call it "Loneliness" as it is attached to my blog spot for my poem "Kesunyian" (Malay for "Loneliness"). Of course this one was chosen to partner that particular piece of poem because it does, somehow, potray that dark feeling of melancholy, despite having a very bright background with the presence of ample light.

A plain white wall and concrete floor: a simplicity depicting an absence of joy. A shadow of an awning potraying insecurity whereby there is a need to shelter under another's care. A leafless plant and an empty shell: a desastrous existence without life. Whilst the plant has the companion of the shell, it is no more than a physical proximity that means nothing (just like an out-of-job musician with his broken guitar).

This whole combination is intended to create the feeling of "Loneliness", a state of emotion that no one deserves to suffer. Yet we humans, still face it occasionally, if not continuously (like some miserable souls we may encounter in our lives), as how God intended it to be. Death, wars, divorces, separations, quarantines, punishments or even lost of faith. All these impose "Loneliness" onto us. Who are we to challenge God's preordained plan destined to be the saga of our lives?