My latest video couldn’t be more different in content and tone than the previous one. I was in Yokohama for CP+, Japan’s annual camera and imaging show, for work. I went there to capture both stills and video, as well as to write about it.

While the official work video has been edited and uploaded by my colleagues, I did this personal edit for myself – hence the ‘remix’ edition. Hope you enjoy it!

P.S. Why the name hayabusa, which is Japanese for ‘peregrine falcon’? No reason really, it was the name of a movie I kept seeing promoted there and the name stuck.

1. My Friend the Monk
2. A Drought of Words
3. Burn Out

It’s been 2 months since I visited my friend Paiboon in the forest monastery of Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, and I’ve finally finished the video interview I filmed with him there. I hope you enjoy it.

It was a tremendous learning experience for me, personally, spiritually, as well as technically. I’ve always wanted to visit with Paiboon again ever since I first visited him in 2007. I’ve had the idea of filming an interview with him for some time, to let Paiboon’s friends back in Singapore see how he’s doing and to see a little of what life is like in the forest monastery.

Somewhere along the line, during filming and editing, I realized that the story could be better served by concentrating on the content that was more universal, rather than simply personal, and more people could hopefully benefit from hearing Paiboon speak.

There was a wealth of material I didn’t use, but don’t worry that it’ll go to waste. Paiboon and I have something else to take care of that – something even better, but it’s been delayed due to the floods in Thailand, so the announcement will have to wait.

I haven’t filmed and edited a video since my student days in 2000, so please forgive the errors in the video. I ambitiously took on the project with a Canon 7D, a professional camera that even the pros need to know how to use to get the best out of. I also had to relearn an editing app from the ground up. Working only on the weekends and weekday nights I had free added to the long time it took for me to finally finish.

Special Thanks

This video wouldn’t have been possible without three people. First, my friend Junming of Haroko Studio was the one who persuaded me to get off my ass and actually do it. Secondly, Jason of Brotherhood Films who taught me everything I needed to know to actually film something, and generously lent me the equipment I needed to get it done. Thirdly, my fiancé, who was a hundred percent behind me going off for a week by myself to a secluded village in Thailand. I can’t thank the three of them enough.

And of course, special thanks to Paiboon for agreeing to do this, and the patience of everyone at Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, who must have wondered what this non-Thai speaking foreigner was doing running around with his camera everywhere. Thanks too to the friends I made there; Sor and Zai, who helped me breach the language barrier and kindly made sure I stayed fed

I had the good fortune to spend a lot of my time with Paiboon, simply sitting around in the temple or doing a one day road-trip around north Thailand. We talked a lot, about Buddhism, life, and of personal things. I met so many friendly and helpful people in Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke, and managed to visit places off the beaten path thanks to Paiboon.

I feel grateful for the entire experience, and I can’t believe I ever hesitated to go.

1. Announcing Project Monk
2. Back from Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke
3. Sunday Dhamma Talk or Buddhism & the City

I returned home on Thursday night, after spending five days with Phra Paiboon in Udon Thani (Phra is Thai for ‘monk’). My original goal for this visit was to shoot a video interview with Paiboon, to show his friends back home something of his life as a monk. While I knew I would grow creatively during this trip; learning new things about videography and story-telling, I didn’t expect to gain so much more spiritually as well.

Coming Soon

I got to spend a lot of time with Paiboon, talking with him about his life as a monk, Buddhism, and life in general. I learned so much it’s going to be hard to summarize it all, but I’m going to try and write those lessons down over the next few weeks. Quite a lot was captured down in the video interviews, which I will edit into two versions; one will be a shorter trailer for those curious about Paiboon’s present life, another a longer version containing Paiboon’s talks on Buddhism.

We also recorded three 30 minute interviews for Thai radio in English about practical Buddhism for city life, and I hope we can get the permission to share those online.

Buddhism & the Blues

Many think that Buddhism is a religion, and while it can be, the core of Buddhism is a non-religious, pragmatic practice that anyone can use to live a happier life. Before embarking on this trip, I had been feeling blue for quite a while which I assumed it was burnout from work. No matter what I did, I didn’t seem to be able to shake it off. I was hoping that maybe Paiboon could give me some advice, and he did, but it wasn’t the advice I’d expected.

Paiboon helped me realize that the cause of my blues wasn’t burnout from work, which was only a symptom. It was the result of my lack of clarity. To put it more clearly; it was the result of my inability to be mindful. I’d been trying to lift this weight called ‘the blues’ and get rid of it, but my muscles just hadn’t been strong enough. Everything I’d tried; taking long breaks from work, doing reflections, was akin to poking and prodding this weight, but contributed nothing to my ability to lift it.

What I need to do then, is to gain clarity and strength of mind, two qualities which will help me see the cause of my suffering more clearly and deal with it more effectively. To gain what Paiboon calls ‘mindfulness’ and ‘concentration of mind.’ And the way to do that is to meditate.

What is Meditation?

Paiboon helped me understand that meditation isn’t just confined to sitting down with legs crossed, doing nothing. As long as you do something which trains your mind to focus and be mindful, that can be considered meditation. Meditation, in this Buddhist tradition at least, is nothing mystical. It’s simply a tool to help you train your mind, akin to lifting weights at the gym for your muscles. To gain mindfulness, strength of mind and clarity, there’s no way around it: I have to train my mind through meditating regularly.

I’m sure I didn’t explain this all too well, but I wanted to capture what, for me, was the biggest lesson for me personally. I’ll take the time to write more about what I learned in the next few weeks.

1. Sunday Dhamma Talk or Buddhism & the City
2. My Friend the Monk
3. The Rainy Season

Paiboon & I filming.

Instead, there’s a lecture hall, a larger multi-purpose hall used for meals, and smaller huts and houses scattered around for the monks and visitors to stay in. The entire area is populated with trees, in fact the temple is what’s known as a forest temple. It’s not an untamed jungle wilderness here, neither is it a luxury garden, and to call it a forest sounds about right.

I’m not sure how large the temple grounds are, as the roads extend further into the forest than I care to explore, because the deeper into the trees you go, the more voracious the mosquitoes become (and I’m already mosquitoe food here most of the time).

Today is the third day I’m here, and while most of the temple looks unchanged to me since my first visit in 2007, there have been a few upgrades. Newer houses for visitors. A newer toilet (which I really appreciate). A new office with Wi-Fi, which is how I’m able to publish this post.

I’m learning a lot from talking with Paiboon, my friend who went off to be a monk for three months but ended up staying one for nearly six years instead. We’ve been talking about so many things that it’s going to be hard to sum them all up into a coherent whole. Luckily I’ve recorded quite a lot of those discussions and my goal is to edit those recordings together. From the looks of it, I have so much material now that the final product may end up being two videos instead of the one I’d planned originally; a shorter version about Paiboon and a longer one with his discussions on life and Buddhism.

We also recorded 90 minutes’ worth of dialogue on what Buddhist is, how its teachings can help us overcome distractions, increase happiness and achieve our goals. Those audio recordings were done for Paiboon’s English radio show, but I hope I can get a copy of them for distribution somehow. We’ll see. And yes, Paiboon has his own radio show, three of them in fact. The Thai people here tell me that Buddhist talks on radio are common.

It’s pretty quiet here. I came in on the last day of a week-long retreat, and nearly every visitor has left. Everytime I come here I feel like a fish out of water; most people here don’t speak English, but the people here are so friendly and kind. Without them I’d truly have been lost.

For example, I was prepared to eat less on my visit, as the monks only have their one meal a day in the mornings. But the friends I’ve made here in the temple prepared lunches and dinners for me, and made sure I didn’t have to go hungry. The kindness of strangers in a foreign land always touches me, and reinforces to me just how people all over the world want the same thing; to be happy and loved.

When the Thais call this time the rainy season, they’re not kidding. The rains come and go suddenly; with clear skies one moment, a flash of rain the next, and back to being all clear again. Last evening the rain started in earnest after I drove Phra Paiboon to town and back in a car infested with ants, and it poured the entire night for hours on end.

The hours are slow, and I have much free time here to read, think and meditate. I’ve forgotten how much I enjoy meditation, and how wonderful it is to have a quiet place to practice. I’m surprised by how serious many of the visitors here are about meditation; I can hardly bring the topic up amongst my friends and colleagues, but maybe I just don’t spend enough time with practicing Buddhists back home. One lady here has received special permission to stay here for three months just to practice her meditation (no, she’s not a monk). Their level of commitment humbles me, reminds me that I’m still just taking baby steps on this path, and I need to work harder on my own practice.

I’ll be leaving here on Thursday, after staying five days in the forest temple. This is my first visit to Wat Pa Don Hiay Soke again after four years, but I have the feeling that my next visit won’t be as far away.

1. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 2

A friend of mine once asked me how often the feelings of relaxation and happiness stayed with me after a vacation. Now, research has found that travelers may not experience feelings of happiness for long after a vacation.

Like every other life experience though, I believe that travel can be mundane, or it can be life-defining. I’ve spent moments traveling where I couldn’t wait to be home. There have also been moments traveling which have changed the way I look at life. Not all travel is good, and not all that is good can only be found in travel.

Having just come back from a work & play trip in Queenstown, New Zealand, I realized that maybe the point of traveling isn’t always about relaxation or happiness. Perhaps the point of traveling is in expanding your mind, to open up your worldview to include new vistas and cultures. To see things you have not seen, to consider viewpoints you may not have considered, to smell and breathe in a place entirely alien to the world you’ve known till that moment. To help you see the world differently, even if by only a little bit.

Before I’d gone to Queenstown, I would never have been able to imagine that such a breathtaking place could exist. Sure, I’ve seen the landscapes shot on TV and in the movies, but that’s never the same as being there yourself. I constantly found myself thinking there that if heaven really exists, it’d surely look like New Zealand. My world is bigger now.

On the shores of Lake Erskine, a pristine lake high up in the mountains. Easily the most beautiful place I’ve ever been to.

1. Fruits of Your Mind
2. Looking Back: 2010
3. Sunday Dhamma Talk or Buddhism & the City

A hundred years ago, the most powerful man in the world – for all his riches and might – couldn’t have done this.

And yet today, we fly above forests of clouds, islanded amongst seas of white, uninterrupted sunsets lining the entire horizon.

I try not to take it for granted.

1. East Coast Night
2. This One’s for the Turtles
3. The Tools You Love Help You Love

Continuing from Parts 1 & 2 of my recent photographic trip to Tokyo, Japan, where I continue my exploration of street photography.

After grabbing a quick breakfast at the convenience store right next to this junction, I hung around while waiting for a call. I noticed the light was lovely that morning, took out my camera and started shooting. There’s something I like about this one. Makes me think of my own solitary early morning commutes to work, feeling like the weight of the day ahead was already upon me even before I’d started.

This was shot at another crossroads, about half an hour later at Omotesando Street. I spotted this beautiful mother and daughter pair from across the road and snapped a few photos, feeling again that mixture of excitement at getting a good shot and nervousness at disturbing someone else’s privacy.

This was a happy accident. I probably didn’t think too much of the shot at the time, and only saw this result later back at home. It’s not the best of compositions, but I love how the overexposed sky elevates the star from a Christmas ornament to something altogether mystical.

Omotesando Street, if you’re not familiar with it, is one of the glitzier shopping areas in Tokyo, with high-end boutiques and beautiful shopping centers. Its stores are filled with exquisite items, which are usually pretty high-priced, and its streets are filled with beautiful people – I saw some of the best dressed people I’ve ever seen here.

When I saw this dapper gentleman I just had to take a picture. Later on, I realized this was part of what made taking pictures on the streets of Tokyo so much fun; there are so many well-dressed people there that you’d be hard-pressed not to snap an interesting photograph.

Talking about fashionable, even the motorbikes in Tokyo are full of style. I realized this while watching the traffic go by at a crossroad (yes, lots of crossroads for me that morning). Check out this girl’s funky red ride! She was looking pretty good herself, but I prefer this shot where you really get to focus on the details of her bike.

I was waiting for a friend at this crossroads for a good 40 minutes or so – turns out we were both waiting at the wrong place for each other. But I discovered something while waiting for those 40 minutes with my camera in my hands; lots of fascinating subjects pass by at crossroads. It brings to mind something a travel photographer said to me once: Sometimes you just park yourself at a street corner and shoot everything interesting that passes by.

This is one of my favorite photos from the trip. It encapsulates for me what Henri Cartier-Bresson describes as “…the harmony between subject and form that leads each one of those elements to its maximum of expression and vigor.” I love how the colors work in the lead subject; how the blacks complement the browns while contrasting with the purple and yellow. I love the purposeful stance he’s in as he looks out of the frame. I love how he’s positioned perfectly along the rule of thirds, while the background contains a nice, full crowd just out of focus on the periphery.

I realize that this looks like a perfectly ordinary photo to any viewer, but I suppose it’s one of those photos that have more personal meaning to the photographer than the viewer. I feel as if everything I worked for that morning, shooting on street corners, standing up, sitting down, climbing up, squatting down, twisting and turning, shooting complete strangers, came together in this little chance moment of time that might have missed my eye completely and been lost forever, if not for the instance-stopping frame of my camera.

I love that about photography; the ability to capture meaning and memory in a way which wouldn’t have been possible with the mind and eye alone.

1. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 1
2. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 2
3. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 4

Continuing from Part 1 of my recent photographic trip to Tokyo, Japan.

The one day we went out of the city was the one day it kept drizzling. Instead of being disappointed though, I wondered if I could take advantage of the rainy weather. Sure enough, I realized that there were many beautiful colors and patterns in the umbrellas that people were carrying. In this shot, I love how the color of the umbrella complements the color of the temple in the background.

There was a price to shooting in the rain though. I realized very soon that I couldn’t shoot holding both an umbrella and a Canon 7D DSLR at the same time, so I abandoned the umbrella and walked around in the drizzle, tucking the camera into my jacket whenever I wasn’t shooting. Although it got really cold with the rain and the wind (around 10 degrees Celsius), I was more worried about the rain getting onto my DSLR than getting onto me! The Canon people assured me that the 7D was weather-proof, but I kept wiping raindrops off as fast as I could.

This is one of my favorite shots taken during the trip. I was wandering around the temple grounds when I noticed a spot where a few white birds were hanging around. I parked myself there and waited for them to start flying around, which they were quite happy to do every once in a while.

I wanted to achieve two things with these shots; one was to try and photograph an illustration of an idea, instead of simply photographing a pretty picture. Since my subject was birds, I tried to illustrate the idea of freedom with this series. The second thing I wanted to do was to catch the birds against the small temple in the background, so it could provide context to the picture.

I shot a lot of photos at this spot, and I could have happily stayed there for the rest of the day just shooting away, trying to catch as many decisive moments as I could. But unfortunately I only had 15 minutes before I had to leave. I got quite a few usable shots in those 15 minutes though, and I remain convinced that I wouldn’t have gotten as many without the quick 8 frames per second ability of the Canon EOS 7D and a fast Sandisk Extreme Pro CF card, both of which I was lucky to get on loan. It really made me understand how important good gear is when you need to place high demands on it.

Most of the shots I took in Japan the previous year were of inanimate objects; architecture, interiors and still life. I wanted to challenge myself to shoot photos with more emotion and life this time round, as well as a more human sense of Japan, so I started to shoot street candids. This was something I’d never done before I went on this trip, so it was a real stretch for me!

We were waiting for the bus and I noticed the pedestrian crossing ahead would release streams of people our way every once in a while, so I stood right in the middle of the street, pointed my camera forward and started shooting away. I was part nervous, afraid someone would scream at me, part embarrassed, not sure if I was being rude, and part excited, because I was getting some really good shots. This was one happy accident that happened (see what I mean by those umbrellas?).

I’m not sure if it’s a cultural thing, but I noticed that Japanese people weren’t as adverse to having their photos taken by random photographers as Singaporeans, in fact some of them were quite game and posed for my camera. Maybe looking like a tourist helped! In either case, I realized that the ins and outs of being a street photographer was something I was only beginning to learn.

This is another shot I particularly like, and I have to thank Paul-Henri Cahier for the inspiration behind it. Before I saw his beautiful impressionistic photographs of the F1 night races, I thought all photographs had to be picture-perfect sharp. The moment I saw this car at the crossing, I knew I wanted to try my hand at making the same effect.

By then, I’d missed too many shots and learned it was much better to travel with the camera in my hands, even if it was cumbersome and made me look like a snap-happy tourist. Which was lucky for me, because I probably had 3 to 5 seconds from the moment I saw this car to when it drove away.

That’s it for Part 2. Look for Part 3 coming soon, where I really start exploring street photography in the streets of Tokyo, Japan.

1. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 1
2. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 5
3. Photographing Tokyo, Autumn: Part 3