© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Raphael is One Year Old on 7th June 2012 | Syukur Alhamdulillah

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Happy Birthday Raphael

- Anak -

When you were born into this world
Your mom and dad saw a dream fulfilled
Dream come true
The answer to their prayers

You were to them a special child
Gave ‘em joy every time you smiled
Each time you cried
They’re at your side to care

Child, you don’t know
You’ll never know how far they’d go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it’s true
They’d die for you, if they must, to see you here

How many seasons came and went
So many years have now been spent
For time ran fast
And now at last you’re strong

Now what has gotten over you
You seem to hate your parents too
Do speak out your mind
Why do you find them wrong

Child you don’t know
You’ll never know how far they’d go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it’s true
They’d die for you, if they must, to see you near

And now your path has gone astray
Child you ain’t sure what to do or say
You’re so alone
No friends are on your side

And child you now break down in tears
Let them drive away your fears
Where must you go
Their arms stay open wide

Child you don’t know
You’ll never know how far they’d go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through
And God it’s true
They’d die for you, if they must, to see you here

Child you don’t know
You’ll never know how far they’d go
To give you all their love can give
To see you through and God it’s true
They’d die for you, if they must, to see you here

- Freddie Aguilar -

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Children of Heaven | Mabul Island | Sabah | Malaysia North Borneo

“We may not be able to prepare the future for our children, but we can at least prepare our children for the future.” 

- Franklin D. Roosevelt -

“Look at children. Of course they may quarrel, but generally speaking they do not harbor ill feelings as much or as long as adults do. Most adults have the advantage of education over children, but what is the use of an education if they show a big smile while hiding negative feelings deep inside? Children don’t usually act in such a manner. If they feel angry with someone, they express it, and then it is finished. They can still play with that person the following day.” 

- Dalai Lama -

“The soul is healed by being with children.”

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky -

© 2012 Wazari Wazir | Raphael Playing With iPad | 24mm | f/2.8 | ISO 2000 | 1/125

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.”

Kay Redfield Jamison (professor of psychiatry)

“The most effective kind of education is that a child should play amongst lovely things.”

 - Plato -

“Men should learn to live with the same seriousness with which children play.”

- Nietzsche –  (philosopher, writer)

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Sea Gypsies | Life in Black and White | Maiga Island Semporna Sabah

“Life is like a good black and white photograph, there’s black, there’s white, and lots of shades in between.” 

- Karl Heiner -

About this picture, actually I did both editing with this photograph, I mean I did edit this photograph in colors first but then I did not satisfied with the outcome and then I try to desaturate  a bit the colors which you can find the photograph in my flickr site and then I did a black and white version like what you looking at here. I like both but I like black and white the most.

It is not an easy decision to decide which one will work and which one won’t. For me a decision to turn any photograph into black and white always not an easy decision to make. I don’t have any recipe for that, but what I can tell you is that, I will do what feels right in my heart rather than look right in my eyes.

For this particular picture of a young Sea Gypsy boy paddling  a small boat not too far from Maiga Island in Sabah, I feels that by stripping away all of the colors and just leaving a monochromatic image, the pictures have more feels towards the boy. My concentration goes directly towards his expression, towards his excitement paddling the boat while I took his picture. Actually the boy was quite shy when I first approach him, but after a little while he get used being photographed.

We don’t see real life in black and white but life is full of colors but sometimes we can only feels what life is all about in black and white. maybe to someone will say, it is better to show happiness in colors rather than black and white but then again, black and white is not only for sad, sombre looking subject, black and white photograph is suitable for anything even in landscape photography but one thing for sure is that, not all pictures will look great in black and white, some photograph does look better in colors. More often than not, the best judgment when looking at a photograph is not to judge them from your eyes but through your heart. Off course you need to see it first from your eyes but then, your heart will determine whether it feels right or not.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Father and Son | Photograph Taken by My Wife

“My father always told me, “Find a job you love and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.”

- Jim Fox -

I don’t think I can carry my son like this if he reach twenty years old if God Willing “InsyaAllah”, so I better get the picture first before its too late. My wife took this picture and I’m not someone who can easily get satisfied when someone else took a picture of me, not even my wife, so after each shot taken, I will take a look at the LCD just to make sure “everything was fine”.

I want to make sure that the clock tower is visible behind and I want to make sure that me and my son is sharp, not necessarily pin sharp but sharp enough to recognize my face. I didn’t notice that my son hold a little dinosaur with him, not until I see this picture. I think those little dinosaur makes a perfect “frame” for me and my son.

Sometimes as a photographer we have very little picture of or own, so whenever I go out with my family, I will always make sure that at least I’ve one or two pictures with them together. This photograph was taken at one of Malaysia famous landmark, which is at Independence Square or “Dataran Merdeka” which most Malaysian familiar with. The building behind is Sultan Abdul Samad Building.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | HaiQal and Raphael | My Little Big Boss

“Epression beats perfection any day of the week, and if you have the most perfect photograph in the universe it’s a zero if you have no expression from your subjects.”

- Bambi Cantrell -

In term of photography composition, I’ve to admit that, I’m not satisfied with this picture. I wish, I really wish that I can go higher to photograph them both, so that I did not chop off their hands and legs. I know it will look much better if I get everything, I mean the whole body in the frame. But the fact is that, there is no higher ground that I can stand to and I don’t have much more wider lens with me, all I’ve is 24mm prime lens.

But I believe there is more to a photograph than a beautiful perfectly compose picture. It’s about moment, it’s about expressions that can’t be repeated, that will only happen once. I wish my little boy Raphael would smile but he has a better idea, to cry, maybe he feels uncomfortable lying on the wooden plank there. I love the moment, I hope both of them will cherished this picture when they grow up and hopefully they will smiles whenever they look back at this photograph.

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | The Joy Childhood | Taman Botani Perdana | Kuala Lumpur

“Children need the freedom and time to play. Play is not a luxury. Play is a necessity.”

- Kay Renfield Jamison -

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Mother and Son | Blue Valley | Cameron Highlands

“Epression beats perfection any day of the week, and if you have the most perfect photograph in the universe it’s a zero if you have no expression from your subjects.”

- Bambi Cantrell -

When it comes to portrait photography, I’ve to agree with Bambi Cantrell quote above “Expression Beats Perfection”. If you are familiar with portrait photography, more or less the pose is almost the same but what makes each portrait differ from one another is the expression from the subjects, whether they are smiling, laughing, serious or  sad looking face. There is so much we can say about the person just by looking at his/her expressions.

Sometimes as a photographer, we are too concern to take a perfect photograph and tend to forget what’s really important, the moment or the expression when it comes to portrait photography. The reason I share the photograph above is that, I like the moment and I like the expression from both of them, a mother having a great time with her son. There is nothing much in the background to add into the context of the story here. Just an empty road with thick mist in the background, where my wife holding my son standing on the side of the road, doing nothing but just having a great time together.

If you are familiar with World Press Photo Competition and take your time going through the winning photographs especially when it involved people photography, you will notice that among the great photograph that have win the competition is the photograph of a person with such a great emotional expression. Take a look at the winner of the World Press Photo of the Year 2004 where a women mourning a relative killed in the Asian tsunami which was taken in Tamil Nadu India. It is just a simple photograph with a simple composition but the expression from the women is extraordinary, you can almost feels her pain and losses and I’ve to tell you this.

The winning picture is far from beautiful but nevertheless it is such a very powerful photograph and if you take your time to go through all of the winning World Press Photo in the past, you might found that some of them are blurred, lacking in technical perfection, badly composed but they catch the eyes of the judged because the “expression always beats perfection.”

Get The SecretHERE

© 2008 Wazari Wazir | Black and White Portrait of My Son | HaiQal

“When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes.  But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls!”

 - Ted Grant -

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Take a Break With Ice Cream | 50mm | f/1.8 | 1/640 | ISO 200

Basically Negative space is the space within a photograph which is left unused. Negative space is a great way to help add emphasis to your main subject. Negative space usually is an empty space, it is not an important part of the photograph and usually we don’t focus on that area and most of the times we leave the empty space out of focus or blur but nevertheless if we use it wisely it can have a profound impact to the photograph.

Actually there are three main component when it comes to photography composition :

• Frame – The Frame is the border around the image.
• Positive Space – The main subject in the border, this is where our camera is focused and this should be the sharpest within the frame.
• Negative Space – The rest of the image, located between the positive space and the frame or all around the main subject.

Photographers talk a lot about fills the frame for more impact but sometimes certain pictures needs a breathing space for more impact or simply to complement the shot. The negative space may not be the centre of attraction but nevertheless it help to make the picture much more stronger, for an example like the picture of my son above,by giving an empty space to the left side of him, I put an emphasize where my son is looking, a room to breath.

Since his eyes is looking on the left side of his shoulder, then it is only natural for me to give an extra space on the left side of the frame and it will look odd if I give an empty space on the right side of his shoulder.

This type of negative space also commonly use during sports photography, like race car or during running event where usually photographers will give a lot of empty space in front of the subject where they are heading for them to have a room to “move”. I know the image is static but it is just appropriate to give room or space in front of the moving subject rather than behind it.

There is a time when we need to get real close to the subject, to get it as tight as possible in the frame, fills the frame with the subject and there was also a time when we need to give some space to he subject. Just be remember that, in photography sometimes negative space have a lot of positive impact on the photograph.