First of all, I extend sincere apologies for not posting anything new or of substance since mid June. I've been running around like a madman getting the July exhibition together.

Its interesting and rejuvinating for an old dog like myself working with a group of people half my age. I used to think that only us 'old timers' got the drive and vision....boy was I wrong.

Li Yan Feng and Jaron Chan, two 20 year-olds have been absolutely dynamite in hustling to get everything in place for Vicki and myself last week and this week. The first function....a Thursday evening cocktail session for 85 clients of sponsor Refco turned out well with great food and wine. My heart did skip a beat or two when a few of the guests tipped into the hanging pictures. I'll remember to remind them to cut down on the booze for their other 2 events.

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In the past some people told me that I would never learn anything useful, past basics, in any of today's photo forums. I was also warned about running into possible 'whackos' online. I beg to differ. Forums like Drik, Offstone and Contaxg (look in my links page on how to get there) have given me the courage and encouragement to examine my personal approach to shooting. Past basics and technical information, these 'villages' have rearranged my perceptions and brought me an understanding of myself as a photographer and also as a human being. I thank them for not patting my back but for enlightenment, self-examination, education and honest critique.

Without them, the learning curve will have been laborious and long.

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By next week, the exhibition works will be put online here in Walkeast for those of you located in Siberia who cant make it to the actual show. The show's images are traditionally hand-printed and the online gallery's images will undergo some PS work to reflect as much as possible the results of Desmond's wet darkroom work.

Vicki has also done the same with an online gallery of her story 'Wide Open Spaces' . I've listed her gallery in my Links page under the same essay name. Check it out!

Tomorrow's the opening and I'm still going crazy ironing out the last little itsy bitsy details which nobody is going to notice anyway. I cant believe I'm getting so anal over these details.

I cross my fingers for a terrorist-attack free weekend as the US celebrates Independence Day.

I promise MORE on Monday.......(to be continued)

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Monday 7 July

A good crowd of about 130 showed up for the opening of Photo Essays v 2.0 at the Museum on Saturday.

Thanks to all you guys and girls who showed up! I really appreciate your presence.

I was worried... it was a beautiful afternoon and I crossed my fingers that folks wont change their minds and head down to the pool or the beach..... I sure felt like a swim myself.

A few lessons were learnt during this, my first, exhibition.

First, dont piss your printer off or frustrate yourself (if you're printing DIY) by using C-41 processed B/W film like Kodak T400CN or Ilford XP2 Super. My printer, Desmond, poor fella, spent a whole week working and reworking the prints and bringing out the contrasts. He begged me NEVER NEVER again to sully his darkroom with these types of emulsions. 'PLEASE!!!! Get Tri-X or Delta.... I'm too old for this kind of stress!'

Lesson 2 was in the area of print mounting for exhibition. Due to budget, but essentially due to our own ignorance and stupidity, we used thin cardboard to back the mounts. They looked fine initially when mounted. We hadn't figured on the huge environmental change in temperatures and humidity in the Museum. It was a chilly 21 degrees C and humidity was a bone dry 50% RH. The mounts, frames and prints didnt 'marry' well and threatened us with an angry 'divorce' after the first few days by warping and giving the prints an errie twisted look.

Lesson 3. NEVER NEVER NEVER mount the prints with cheap masking and double-sided tape. They dried up and lost their adhesive properties quick.

Lesson 4. 3M has various grades and strengths of double sided tape. We got the light weight version and the 3m x 1.2m signboard at the window fell off after a proud 30 minutes up. Replaced it with heavy duty ones that would hold 2.5kg per sq inch and that worked wonders.

Lesson 5. Never ever get your wife to do the catering for the reception! She did a grand job with the few bucks to work with and I love her for a great job. But she forgot to factor in the time it needed to get our daughter fed, bathed and dressed. I almost missed the exhibition opening because of my caterer! Still, like Jesus, she fed the entire crowd well on a budget that was meant to feed only a quarter of those that came.

I'm sending all the prints to a more experienced mounter after the exhibition for a full re-do on wood frames and glass. Should cost me a few hundred dollars more, but well worth it if they every get exhibited again.

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My Fists Feed My Family is not a boxing story. This is a story about survival and living. It revolves around the lives of people who depend on the sport for survival in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Emerging from the shadows of Pol Pot?s horrific acts of genocide through the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia remains amongst the poorest of countries relying heavily on foreign aid. If there is a place called NGO country, Cambodia is it.

Ordinary Cambodians in the city get by on wages of about US$30 a month. Many in urban areas squat with no land to their name. The limbless number in their tens of thousands, victims of land mines and continuing violence. Many amongst the 2nd generation are born with club foot and other physical deformities caused by their parents? exposure to Agent Orange.

With a majority of businesses controlled by foreign-owned companies and a small elite class of Cambodian Chinese keeping business opportunities amongst themselves, the disparities in wealth remains wide like a dry desert and a rich forest separated by a deep unbreached valley.

Ordinary Cambodians labor in farms and along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers and lake. In the city, many are sold as house servants to Cambodia?s upper class while the streets are littered with cyclos and motocycle drivers who count themselves lucky if they pick up more than US$3 in fares a day.

The children? Many have ended up in brothels or walking the streets peddling themselves for as little as US$2.

Yes of course there is hope. Many young Cambodians are now getting a proper education. Too poor to establish and support a quality education and skills development program, the task of education and health care lies mostly in the hands of foreign Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) and privately run, foreign funded-schools.

Others turn to the saffron cloth and seek solace and support in the many Buddhist temples.

For some, the toil of education takes too long of a time. Many in their teens without a prior education have realized that the future lies not in their hands but in the hands of their younger brothers and sisters. Thus the lure of winning prize-money through kick-boxing draws strong.

Good numbers of young Cambodians beg to be accepted into boxing gyms throughout the country, where a potentially rewarding career in the ring awaits them. Many do not go far but the number of hopefuls continue growing.

This body of works document these young lives around the sport of kick boxing .

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Not many people in thie part of the world are aware of it but 5 July was also the day the 100th edition of the Tour de France began. The Tour is a 3,000 plus km race that stretches for 3 weeks that circles France and its neighbors. Want to see human torture on a bicycle? Watch the Tour. That's one of the main reasons why I subscribed to cable tv. I can see each day's racing live on the French and German news channels. I dont understand French or German but, the TV coverage's been great. Lance Armstrong is going for a record equalling 5th straight title.

The Australians are having one of their best years ever in the Tour since Phil Anderson more than a decade earlier. McGee took the prologue in Paris, 2 Aussies came in among the top 5 on Stage 2 and Baden Cook won Stage 3 ....so far (8 July)

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At last, I'm getting my home equipped with a PC. I know alot of you are gasping 'Man, step OUT of the Stone Age!' My work and photography's starting to mix in an uncomfortable way so the need to keep the 2 seperate and distinct. I dont have half a clue how to set up the Operating System and the various drivers. I'm hustling around for some help in the forum and others who are more IT savvy than myself.

I think the Pentium 4 with 1 gig of RAM and 120 gigs of hard-drive memory should keep me happy for a couple of years.

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Travel Tales section in Walkeast has not had an update for a long time. I'll dust off the creative engine and will be putting up a few more stories over the next couple of weeks.

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Miscellaneous Bits

Projects dont seem to end. I'll be helping out in 2 upcoming exhibitions....... Religions and Heartlands ....... over the next few months.

Dawn Teo from Objectifs just emailed me a list of their upcoming courses. I see an intermediate Photoshop class by celebrated photographer John Cosgrove (for about US$100 I think that's a steal), a course on film critique and appreciation and a course for shooting films on a budget (Shoot it Cheap!). Objectifs is doing really great work with education and awareness of the photographic and motion picture arts. Check them out at http://www.objectifs.com.sg/about/index.htm

This Friday (11 July) is the first Pass It On project lesson on Basic Photoshop. We should have a class of about 10 attending.

This Saturday, Yian will be gracing the exhibition with a talk on people portraiture, 'People are People; so why cant it be?'.

I'll be getting in touch with the Association for the Visually Handicapped to arrange a ride and shoot on tandem bicycles. Their Sports Co-ordinator is Poh Poh. This event should be happening in August.

Darren Soh will be returning from Bangladesh later this week and dear friend Tay Kay Chin (I will simply strangle him if he did not cover the Tour's Prologue last Saturday) should also be back from Paris soon. Sha Ying has asked me to escort him through the exhibition. I'll try to kill the 4 birds with a single stone and invite them over on Saturday afternoon before Yian's talk.

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