Manisan Cianjur

Text and pictures by Eki Qushay Akhwan

Frankly speaking, I don't know how to translate "Manisan Cianjur" into English. "Manisan" literally translates as "sweet stuff" and "Cianjur" is the name of a small town about an hour away to the west of Bandung.



Anyway, "manisan cianjur" is a kind of traditional food made of fresh fruit or vegetable preserved in sugar and vinegar syrup plus other ingredients (like chilli). I think it is originally from China or was introduced here by the Chinese, but has since been adapted to the local conditions.

Does anyone know what the name of this thing is in English (or other languages)?

Bandung Urban Scenes - Exploring Urban Photography #2

Text and picture Eki Qushay Akhwan

As I Was saying yesterday, urban photography is esentially about finding "order" in what looks like a chaotic realities of urban life. Patterns are one thing that we can look for. Another thing that we can look for to comprehend the chaos is the human elements - their activities, their day to day struggles in navigating the hustle and bustle of a city, etc. Unlike the geometric or "still life" elements, the human factor tells the story of a city through motions (and emotions).

The focus on the human element is, I think, where urban photography intersects with street photography.

I took the scene in the above photo on Jalan Suniaraja (Suniaraja Street), Bandung. Three human figures in the photo depict motions of different kinds symbolic of their stuggles in finding their ways to their uban existence.

Bandung Urban Scenes - Exploring Urban Photography #1

Text and picture by Eki Qushay Akhwan

Urban environments may look visually chaotic. But to the discerning eyes of photographers and visual artists, this chaos is just a facade beneath which are hidden an infinite number of interesting elements ready to be discovered if only one can pay enough attention to the details and/or rhythms that make up that chaos. This, I think, what urban photography essentially is: an attempt to discover "order" in what looks like incomprehensible and chaotic realities.

In exploring urban photography, a genre of photography which is generally still categorized as a subform of documentary and/or street photography, a photographer needs to be creative and have a daring attitude to see the realities around them in different ways. One way to do it is to look for patterns, like what I did with this photograph, which I took at BEC (Bandung Electronic Center) parking lot a couple of days ago.