Tuesday 29 May 2012

The Americans in DC

Hi,

It is my second nights in DC. Last night I finally settled in at my relatives house in Maryland! I got a king-size bed by myself (anybody wants to join me? Come here!). Yesterday we were out the whole day since it was Memorial Day. We were at the National Mall area to see the parade. It was great, not spectacular yet. I think everywhere (well at least Iowa and here), people don't really dance when they hear good vibe of music.We also went to Tyson Mall, ate Pho and had Yogberry frozen yoghurts. Man, I've met like 15 Indonesians less in 24 hours! They're like everywhere here.

DC itself is so far beautiful. It is very interesting. A mix of modern landscape with young-European-like building. Some of the corners just look like Paris. There are a bunch of museums, and they are all for free. DC was so hot. It made me want to scream!

My internship starts tomorrow! I have to be at the office at 10am. Have I told you not that the guy which is the Chief Editor of VOA Indonesia is going to be my supervisor him self? Ain't great? I am nervous too tho, like "the guy" is supervising me!

Anyway, so far, all I can say is I love DC. And I realised yesterday during the parade that "I LOVE AMERICA SO MUCH"... I am sorry America, I think I am going to make my living here. Especially after all, this year I am hooked by this American genius senior. He is the first American on my crush list!!  He is the kind of American I want: kind-hearted, kind-looking, handsome, curly hair, tall, black hair, nice smile, cute, eats ice cream, studies in the library, genius, smart, scholar, and the list goes on... I never thought I would like an American guy. He really is the first American guy on my crush list!

So I will be updating you with my internship story!

p.s: I took some pictures during the parade that is inspired by favourite Swiss-American photographer, Robert Frank! Enjoy!

Kiss and Love,
Rut Nastiti

I like this flag so much. Always takes my attention. I love you USA!

My all time favourite brigade: MARINE! Eye candy stuffs out there!

Cheerleaders!

Iraq soldiers!

Miss USA 2012 knows I am taking picture of her. She is definitely waving at me!
It's not like everyday you can take a picture in the middle of this road!


1/6 of my closet!



Friday 25 May 2012

Beauty Around the Globe

My final project is the highlight of my photography career in my freshmen year. I decided to take portraits because I always enjoy taking pictures of people (portraiture), especially when I communicate with my model. It's tricky but fun. You have to bring them into the mood: natural or posed; talking with them, joking with them.

I cannot believe how much I accomplished during my first year, especially May Term! I did four photo shoots (7 different settings) and some other projects with Panoramics and Landscape. But porttrait is definitely my favourite! It was great to be inspired and get to know famous portrait photographers. My favourite is of course, Michael Disfarmer! I was about to imitate him, but my professor said my idea was to vague and would have taken more than two hours - he said "Make something simple". So actually, I changed the idea slightly to focus on beauty, and voila, it turned out to be fascinating! You know what, I just planned and organized everything 18 hours before the photoshoot, calling the models, learn how to use the studio and all.

I really want show a different kind of beauty in this world. Our mind is filled with mainstream picture of girl with soft skin, straight hair, thin lips images of beauty!  Hey, beauty is about how you feel! 

I am so happy with my final project! When we did a critique in the class some of them was actually wondering "Are those photographs ours? Because they are so good," My favourite comment was , "It looks like professional" "Like in magazine". 

I feel so grateful for everything I have right now!
I hope I can take more portraits with more different and unique faces in DC (excited my internship is in 4 days!

I feel so beautiful!

Kiss and Love, 
Rut Nastiti



Mengzhen Wang, China


Selasi Ametewe, Zimbabwe

Apraisia Moshi, Tanzania
Akimi Shioya, Japan

Lindi Matse, Swaziland
Anh Nguyen, Vietnam
Linda Geoffy, Tanzania
Seng Niphojaracoe, Thailand
 Braulia Carlos, Angola

Friday 18 May 2012

Panoramic Corners of Waverly




 My ART 208 Photography I class is just getting more interesting. Day to day we got to learn different techniques in photography and also Photoshop. Starting from last week, we have exploring landscape photography which includes panoramic picture. Hello, we don't use the old panoramic camera anymore. But that is not a problem! Photoshop did a really good job of merging a sequence of pictures.

My job is just to take the photographs and Photoshop will do it all. All the places above are pretty panoramic, who believes that the hometown of my college, Waverly,  is pretty amazing!

Kiss and Love, 
Rut


Downtown Waverly always interest me.
 In Jakarta we don't quite have the sense of "downtown" of each town.
 I mean Jakarta is a city and in its own town. I know it's complicated....
Look how gorgeous the arch is!

I just want to name this photograph"Bridge over troubled-water"

The distortion of the building just reminds me of the Colosseum in Rome




Sunday 13 May 2012

The Making: I'll Bring You Back to The 90s

Get a hint where our first location was? Yeah, right Sunny's Liquor Store!


Selja tried to be a wild and nasty animal. But she is too sweet, she could not.

"Wait this looks like a penis!" she said.

On the way to the railway we stopped by the hourse house and found this precious wooden swing chair.


Get ready for the third location: heading to the right spot!
This shoot is a bonus since we still have a piece of clothes that has been worn.



I was really a fashion photographer and stylist today! Four hours ago, I just finished a photoshoot with Selja Zelena Trebo. Sejla is such a cool person, very friendly, and easy to talk to. Honestly I never really talked to her before. But she had done modelling before in Bosnia and she was so excited to do an 80's theme photoshoot. She is really fun model to work with. However though,  Kibby Hera the other beautiful girl with the beautiful curly hair did not make it to photoshoot because something bad happened to her loved one, wish Kibby could have made it.

We did the photo-shoot in four (and a half) different locations.   No wonder it took us almost three hours! Right after that I had to leave right away to take picture of Megumi Otaki, for portraits assignments! Today was all about photographing, styling, and directing.
 

All the pictures that are shown in this post above are the unused ones. When I moved everything to  my laptop apparently I took 771 pictures. Crazy! See how unprofessional I am, not being efficient with the shutter.  Usually at the ned I just need five to ten photos for each location which means I have to abandon 720 pictures! It means depreciation of my camera. It's okay it's all learning process!

So I will put the selected pictures soon! Just be patient okay!

Kiss and Love
Rut






My Mother, Anastasia ♥

Since today is Mother's Day, I think it is worth to write a short article about my mother. She was born in Jakarta May 20th, 1963. She is the third child in the family out of six. She was grown up in a loving family, even tough my grandfather is a really strong character. Her family is not the wealthiest family that time, unlike my father's. She went to some hard time too. I remember that she and her sisters really wanted to take an English course but since that time my grandparents were not financially fulfilled. This was also her reason to always send me to the best English course in the city, because it was her dream to learn English.

Her family really concerned about education, and so did she. She was always be on the first rank until high school. She really encouraged me to achieve what she achieved when she was younger. And I did. I was always on the top three, big five or top ten until junior high. She is really studious. She was graduated with Cumlaude for her undergrad Bachelor from IPB and for her Master from University of Indonesia. I was studying in school when she graduated for her Master. I did not attend her graduation.

Sometimes, she is even more studious than I am. She pushed me to take so many tutorials after school: Math, Physics, Chemistry (it was also because I am bad in Science). She was committed to drop and pick me up many days when she was not working. When she was working for some month, she hired a driver to make sure that we still went to our courses. Can you imagine waiting in the car for two hours with the air con off (she is really efficient)? She wanted the best for me and my brother: education, tutorials, technology, food, everything.

High school was different for me and for her. For her, it was when she met my dad. She went to SMAN 8 Bukit Duri. I know she was pretty famous that time because she always led the choir in her school. But she did not encourage me to go to SMAN 8 and I did not desire to go to the same high school like my parents. She wanted me to enroll in the best school in Jakarta, SMA Santa Ursula. It was actually her dream to study there. But since it was a private school, the tuition was so high - even in the 80s. My grandparents had to send all his 6 children to public school. She was really proud when I made it to Santa Ursula. And she was still always committed to make me successful there.

She was the alarm every morning.  She started to soar five in the morning to make sure that I was awake. She coordinated the cooks to provide healthy meals for my breakfast and lunch. She still also showed her commitment by dropping and picking me up to my tutorial courses after school.

When I was in high school, it was the time when I had fight almost every week with my mom. In the car, in the house, almost everywhere. Sometimes the argument was so insignificant, for me. But it is a big deal for her, for the best of me, because she loves me, she cares.

There were sometimes I did not talk to her in the car just because I was so mad. Now I realised that it was so rude and disrespectful. My mom did not deserve to be treated like that. At the end she always forgive me. She always opens her door for me.

Five years ago, after my grandpa from my father passed away, my grandma has to live by herself. Worse, my grandma got a stroke and breast cancer. My mother knew that she needs someone to take care of her. My mother was the one who suggested to our family to live with our grandmother so that there is someone who takes care of her. Moving out mean sacrifices too. She had to sacrifice her career, her time, her privilege to provide the best health need for her mother-in-law. Imagine, her mother-in-law, not her birth mother. My mother is sick too. She has psoriasis. Her skins becomes so red when she is stressed . And so far there has been no medicine to cure it. The best prevention is not to be stress. It's like sick person takes care a sick person. 

I can even say, she treats her mother-in-law more intensely that she treats her birth mother.  I don't even know sometimes where the rest of my father's siblings are. I mean it is so strange that my mother is the person who is 24/7 there for my grandma.  She is a real definition of a devoted daughter.

The result was her business was in a mess. Her company went bankrupt.

But she took it as a learning point. She believed that something greater will come after. She believes that one of the important things to do in life is to make her parents happy, to treat older people with a great care, to make her kids happy. Sometime she even sacrificed herself not to buy new clothes, shoes or bags, just for the sake of us and our grandmother.

My mother believes in miracle. She believes coming to UWC was a bless that God gifted our family. She never dreamed of sending me to study abroad for my undergraduate school. She just thought that time I would go to University of Indonesia to study Law or Communication, or maybe in Singapore, if I could get a good scholarship. 

I never knew until my first year in UWC that she was really stressed when she found out I got accepted in UWC. I never thought about that before because she looked just perfectly excited as I was. She was always with me during the preparation.

She told me when I told her that "Mom, I got accepted in UWC in Italy" her stomach was in pain, the acid went all over her blood. She was actually really sad, stressed and anxious that I had to leave her in a very young age, 17 years old. 

But know she is so proud that I graduated from UWC and made it to Wartburg, because she was actually really stressed that I was wait listed in so many US' top colleges. She thought I would not make it to US. She prayed everyday, did devotions for me, for my future.

Here I am in the USA know. It's all because of the hardship of my mother; her disciplines, her constructive critiques, her thoughts, her prayers, her LOVE.

I haven't talked to my mother for three days since she lost her phone in Paris three days ago. I am so happy that she made it to Europe. It is actually her first time to make it outside Asia. And it's a jackpot: Europe. Even tough her trip was not so smooth with the camera, cell-phone, and all. I really miss her. I can't wait for her to be back in Jakarta because I really want to talk to her like crazy. At this point I can say I miss her. I can't believe that my tear dropped as I was writing this post. 

By the way I made this video before I cried right now for my mom. I sang her "Mother How Are you Today" ! It's my Mother's Day present for her.

My mom is an inspiration for me. She is a very care-loving-and-responsible mother for our family. She is definitely a figure. She is a very loyal, generous and supportive mother, wife and friend.

I love my mother so much. You know I love her, and my love cannot be expressed by more words in this post.

Happy Mother's Day, Mama!

Kiss and Love,
Rut


My beautiful Mother

Christmas 2010 at my grandparents 50th Wedding Anniversary Party

Summer 2010

Summer 2011

I am the one on my mom lapse.

Nanny Ira, Mom, Nanny Sumiyem and Me in that white hoodie.

Saturday 12 May 2012

Fitting: Selja and Kibby


The theme

She also inspires
The perfect songs for tomorrow's photoshoot: The Smiths!

Perfect 90's: Messy hair, dimples,.... hello!
I am so pumped for the photo session tomorrow! The two georgous girls who I will be shooting with are Selja Zelena and Kibby Hera! They both are seniors.

I love their curly hair! It will make a good vibe for the photoshoot tomorrow!
The thing that I also already enjoyed from this photoshoot is to style them with my clothes.
They look good on them!

Wait a second, I might want to make Selja wear my Dr. Martens! That's true!

I still have to style two other pieces of clothes. We might be doing the photoshoot in two different locations! Do you want to know where? Well, it's a surprise!

I am going to rock my camera tomorrow!
I know you can't wait to see the shoots

Kiss and Love,
Rut

Sunday 6 May 2012

Pink, Happy, Pink

I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles. (Audrey Hepburn)


Kiss and Love,
Rut
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...