Fearless Child Has Childlike Faith

[Bloodshed after a skate scooter race amongst a few boys at the square. There was no sign of pain at all. This photo is from my first day of shooting at the Arles workshop.]

13th July: First time taking a course organised under Les Rencontres d’Arles. I’m taking a week-long workshop by Gilles Leimdorfer called “Explore and discover your own photographic language”. I guess that’s the beauty of photography – you never stop learning and you never really reach a peak in a way. It’s not like an academic exam where you can attain 100%; the process never ends for photography. I’m the only Asian in class and the only one who can’t speak/understand French. It’s times like this yet again that I wish I knew many languages. The photo above reminds me of how when I was young, I wasn’t afraid to try things, not afraid to fall down. Why do we learn to become fearful when we grow up?

14th July: My first time being in France on its national day. Apart from having the international photography festival and exhibitions during this period, this week also happens to be the world music festival in Arles. This morning was the first time I attended a free concert organised as part of Les Sud a Arles.

Some First Times

[A couple in embrace by the river at a time approaching sunset. Me being a sniper from the windows of Tate Liverpool.]

9th July: First time I went to Serpentine Bar + Kitchen in Hyde Park. I had salmon fishcakes and they were so-so but the view was very nice. I managed to do quite a bit of readings there.

10th July: First time I saw a doctor in London today. Really had to because I’m traveling on Sunday and I was feeling terrible when I woke up.

11th July: Today’s the first time I saw an eight-year old looking boy being bought a DSLR at the camera shop. The world is changing. His mum and his sister bought it for him. Today is also the first time a tea pot handle broke just as I was pouring tea in a Chinese restaurant. Thankfully it didn’t spill on me.

12th July: Today is my first time traveling to Arles, and my first time going on a trip entirely on my own. For 9 days, I’ll be getting this new experience and my friends who’ve traveled alone before tell me it’s going to be liberating.

7th/8th First Time

[Pants to Poverty held Pants Amnesty in the cold London rain in front of the Royal Exchange in a bid to to raise awareness about the highly toxic insecticide used in cotton in many developing countries.]

7th July: After reading my new friend Chris‘ blog post on the Londonist, I headed to the Royal Exchange to check out the scene. It was quite cool seeing this big group of people in underwear and it was my first time too. It’d be cool if something like that happened in Singapore. Yesterday was also my first time being stuck in Selfridges because it suddenly rained/hailed/sleeted in London?!?! I never knew the ceiling of Selfridges leaked so badly until yesterday.

8th July: Today is the first time I worked out at gym in London. Decided to sign up for and print out the free one-day gym trial membership for the Fitness First just 2 minutes away from my place. Did rowing, stepping and cycling for 60 minutes and felt much better after that. I hope it cures my insomnia because for the past 2 days I’ve been sleeping at 5/6am? I have no idea why. And today was also the first time I was asked this question at a job interview, “What is your favourite drink?” I was very amused by that.

5th/6th First Time

[The kind of sunset you get after you've been walking in the medium rain for the whole afternoon.]

5th July: Went to Brighton for the first time. Very relaxing day just lying on the beach, reading, talking and eating super fresh and cheap seafood. It was my first time seeing people do stand up paddle surfing as well. It looked really tiring.

6th July: My first time in the Getty Images Gallery, just off Oxford street. They had a lot of nice, classic black and white photos all in black frames. It was also the first time buying Above magazine from my favourite magazine shop RD Franks. Above magazine does the whole preserving nature thing in a very unnoticeable manner. I like that. I also like the tactile feeling of the magazine – probably because of the way the solid/thick/textured pages feel as you flip them.

Forth First Time

[My view upwards whilst lying on a beach in Cannes just one week ago. The wonders of transportation.]

4th of July’s first time included buying a blue half-straw hat and going to Trafalgar Square to take photos at the London Pride Parade, themed ‘Come Out and Play’. The hat is half-straw because it is half-linen as well; it’s hard to describe but it’s sort of like a blue straw visor with floppy linen to cover up the top exposed part of the visor. Buying the hat was somehow more exciting to me than the parade and I think I will miss my favourite japanese hat shop, where I get all my hats from, once I leave London.

Third First Time

[What tragic copy in Liverpool which already felt like a ghost town to me.]

3rd of July’s first time included going to Richmond and having coffee made by an excellent barista friend (whom I haven’t met for a year since I last was at uni in Singapore) and then spontaneously going for a dinner at the friend’s friend’s house. Basically it was dinner with one friend plus 5 strangers (but not strangers any more). I had super yummy Italian food.

Second First Time

[Waiting for the sun to set at a beach in San Sebastian. It was the widest beach we've ever seen.]

Today’s first time included enjoying a rooftop BBQ dinner with friends and learning variations of Poker from Miss Colombia and Miss Italy. It was also my first time attending a talk by Chris Anderson (the author of The Long Tail). I first read his book when studying a Social Media course back at SMU. Today he talked about the concept of ‘freemium’.

First Time July

[Children climbing up the railing that overlooks the main river in Bordeaux. Children always want to climb over.]

My holidays have officially started with the little innovation event we organised being completed yesterday. My presentation was about designing your own funeral. I wonder if there are any funeral photographers around.

So today I decided to make July a ‘First Time July’, which means I do something for the first time for every day that occurs in July.  It’s sort of like being a kid again, always wanting to cross the line and do something for the first time; it’s about rebellion but more about  innocent curiosity. Today’s first time was eating cheese sorbet (on top of carrot cake) and that was not nice at all. I saw a bright blue grand piano and upright piano for the first time too when I walked past the Chelsea Pianos store. I also went to the cinema alone for the first time today (to catch Ice Age 3). I’m pretty much okay with doing some things alone but only when I was in Cannes recently talking to my friend who mentioned watching movies alone that I realised it’s something I’ve never done before. Looking forward to more ways of surprising myself everyday this July.

Today on the tube, this happened ( – every day of your life can be a story):

The cheeky little boy was swinging round the holding pole in the train as though he was at a playground.
His American mum just stood there, letting her son be, when she caught sight of the surfer dude in the opposite corner.
“Do you want him? I can see you looking at him thinking he looks like fun.”
The surfer dude smiled and continued smiling for quite a while longer.