I fancy myself to be an amateur photographer and I cannot stress the term amateur here enough. Ever since I can remember I have been drawn towards art, mostly drawing in my early years. Around my later middle school and early high school years I became interested in photography. Every couple of weeks a would buy a couple of Kodak disposable cameras and take pictures mostly of my friends and occasionally landscapes or scenery I found inspiring or moving. However this dynamic would shift whenever my family and I would go on vacation. I would focus my photography more on scenes and occasionally get some shots of my family. This would be especially true whenever we would take a family vacation to Wilmington, NC or to the nearby Carolina Beach, both of which have a special place in my heart.
Things continued like this for the first half of my university life. Then when I got another job my senior year in university I bought a digital camera. It was here I started to focus more on scenery and landscape. On the one hand I was no longer limited by film, the disposable cameras had on 28 or 30 shots on them, so I had to be very selective. On the other hand, a year or so prior I took up M.U.G.E.N. as a hobby and my particular interest was stage/level developing. The thing about M.U.G.E.N. stages developing, you can make a stage out of anything you have a digital photo of. So in addition to wanting to take pictures of places for their artistic or natural beauty, I also took them because I thought they would make great stages. At present I haven’t been as active with my photography as I used to be. In 2019 I lost all of my mugen stuff in a hard drive crash and I need a new camera.
It doesn’t always shine through on my Youtube Channel, though it probably does more so on my other social media, but I am a proud North Carolinian. (though I try to do a yearly video on Ghost stories and other supernatural folklore from NC for Halloween). As such I have been to probably around 94 or 95 counties out of 100 counties. Much of this love and travel is reflected in my photography. Though regrettably, some important journeys of mine are not reflected here, namely my yearly family trips to the Outer Banks when I was younger.
Also in my later twenties I met and fell madly in love with a beautiful Javanese woman, so I relocated to Indonesia, and have been here for the past thirteen years. While I have not traveled as much as I’d liked to, the places I have seen here have been absolutely amazing. This too is reflected in my work.
Places Listed
Carolina Beach Fort Fisher Wilmington Topsail Island Alert The Park Rural Piedmont The Mountains of North Carolina Batu Goa Cina Malang Surabaya Rural JavaNorth Carolina
The Coastal Plain
Carolina Beach
Carolina Beach is not just my favorite place to vacation to but it is also the place where I fell in love with photography. My earliest attempts at it originate from there. It is also a place the never fails to leave me invigorated no mater how short the duration my stay there is. There are few places outside of the Outer Banks that my family and I have visited more.
This is the earliest picture I still have that was taken for this purpose and it is of the view from bridge that connects Pleasure Island to the mainland. Carolina Beach is located on Pleasure Island. Fun Fact Pleasure Island did not exist until the 1920's when engineers working for the military decided to dig the waterway overwhich the bridge is built.
This picture was also the basis for the very first Mugen stage I ever made.
This is another one of my earliest photos originating from the same time as the above. I don’t have any particular connections to this place as I never stayed there, however it did feel like it was or once was an iconic place. It also gave me the feeling like it may have been haunted. Sadly it burnt down in 2005.
This is the final of my earliest photos I will show here in this section. Frank’s Pizza was a legendary pizza restaurant located on Carolina Beach’s iconic boardwalk. I considered no trip to Carolina Beach complete without at least getting a slice of Frank’s. Sadly Franks Pizza Closed in March of 2020.
This picture and the one below are both rather unique as this would be one of my final shots taken with a disposable camera as just a few months later I would get my first digital camera. This shot is also a great introduction to my approach to capturing scenes. I try to capture either the extraordinary or the extra-ordinary moments in my shots.
Besides the beach, the harbor at Carolina Beach was another favorite target of my photography. This is also another great example of something I would love to do later in my work: revisiting shots with new cameras, in different seasons, times of day etc. I also made the above shot into a Mugen stage, but I made it when I was much more seasoned at creating stages.
Sometimes When I go to take a shot of a scene, I will ask myself, “Would this make a good painting or inspiration for a painting?” This is no random question. When I was an art student in high school, some of my fellow art students would sometimes paint my pictures or use them for inspiration.
Fort Fisher
Fort Fisher is a state recreational area not too far from Carolina beach. It was the site of the fiercest naval battle of the American civil war. As much as I love history, that is not what drew me to this place. This place was where one of my heroes, Robert Harrill, the Fort Fisher Hermit decided to call home. Part Henry David Thoreau, part Ernest Hemingway, he lived a life in some regards similar to Christopher McCandless. Despite this and my numerous trips to Carolina Beach, I have only had the pleasure of going to Fort Fisher twice.
Light can be a particularly hard thing to capture with a basic camera, especially if you are someone like me with no technical knowledge of photography, still I love how the light play across the water was captured here.
I was never really one to set up a shot or to create a scene to capture, preferring instead to capture things as they naturally are. This photo is one of the very few exceptions to that rule. This shot was inspired by a stanza from a my second favorite poem, The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The marsh on the opposite side of Fort Fisher offers its own points of interest rivaling that of the beach side. This is the side that the Fort Fisher hermit chose to get most of his subsistence from and the flora and fauna that call this place home had a lot to offer him. The marsh grass in this shot formed its own little sea, with the wind creating waves in it as blew across it.
Wilmington
Wilmington, NC has a special place in my heart. It has a similar rejuvenating effect on me that of Carolina Beach and this is probably no coincidence. Growing up, a trip to one also included at least one visit to the other. While Carolina Beach has a much more laid back atmosphere, Wilmington has a much more upbeat feel. Being one of the oldest ports in the country the city also offers many historical sites to see and this aspect of the city is what most of my Wilmington related photography is focused on.
The Riverwalk is one of the most scenic locations in Wilmington and it is my favorite location due to all Iconic locations found there, such as the riverfront street, the bridge, and the Battleship North Carolina, fro which the above picture was taken. It features not only the Riverwalk but a good portion of the skyline of historic downtown Wilmington.
This one is another shot of the riverwalk, but this is another of my earliest shots taken from the same time as my earliest shots of Carolina Beach, and as such this was photographed using a disposable camera too.
Cape Fear Memorial Bridge is likely the most iconic landmark not only in this particular area but in all of Wilmington and if not it is second only to The Battleship North Carolina. Very few landmarks have inspired my photography quite like this bridge.
I do not have a very strong connection to The St. James Churchyard Cemetery, in fact I only stumbled across this place on my final trip to Wilmington, just weeks before leaving the US. However this shot always stood out to me because with its willow tree it seemed like the quintessential southern grave yard.
A few times in my amateur photography life I have attempted to capture the hustle and bustle of a busy and chaotic city scene. In this instance I wanted to capture the average midday scene in downtown Wilmington.
The final picture I will share here for Wilmington is another one that originates from that oldest set I have mentioned above several times previously, taken with a disposable camera. As I write this and have been writing this section of my site I have realized I have a real affection for the aesthetic of this type of film. Sure a disposable lacks the bells and whistles, hell even some critical tools, like zoom of digital cameras, but there is something about the special about picture quality of an analog photo I am just now coming to appreciate… This was a very lucky shot for several reasons, but one very important one is I have no idea where in Wilmington this fountain is (or if it even still exists), as the first time, and every time I have came across it, it was always by accident. I like to think it is a great representation of my discovery of Wilmington and Carolina Beach. My extended family and I would take yearly trips to the Outer Banks, however in 03/04 a hurricane hit a week or so before and wrecked the place we were going and so we decided to go to Wilmington.
Topsail Island
Topsail Island exists in a rather interesting position, it lies in between the beaches of both the Crystal Coast and beaches of the Cape Fear region. It is a nice and quiet small little island. I do not have as much experience with this place but what experience I do have is quiet intimate and meaningful. I spent a romantic weekend there with the best woman I was ever with prior to meeting my wife. As such I would highly recommend it for such an occasion. It offers my opportunities for romantic moments. Granted my romantic weekend there was back in 2010. However I also visited it briefly in 2012 with some of my closest bros. We were hoping to stay there but were unable to find a hotel room, so we ended up a bit further south in Carolina Beach. Sadly almost all of my photos from my romantic get away are lost, with one, possibly two exceptions.
This is the one, without a shadow of a doubt surviving picture from my romantic weekend getaway. We had arrived the night before and decided to take a walk on the beach the next day, and that’s when I came across this scene. Two poles just sticking out of the water intrigued me. Having no experience with this area I wondered what it could have been? So I decided to grab a shot. The way the water came out and the reflection of the poles on the water is, to me, really what made this shot so special. They give it kind of a dream like quality. And those two things were completely fortuitous. That is a good summary of what nature photography is: curiosity, the willingness to explore, a bit of skill, and some degree of luck.
A few years later I returned to this same spot with some friends and found some birds inhabiting the area. I have taken a few shots of animals over the course of my travels but outside of trips to Zoos all of my animal shots were due to chance encounters.
The Piedmont
Alert
Alert (pronounced AY-LERT) is a very small quaint community in Franklin county, northeast of Louisburg. Many people there will even wave at you as you ride by, even if they don’t know you. I spent quite a few Sundays there in 2011 and 2012. One of my good friends had some family there and we would go visit them every other week. Much like Alert itself, their place was located in a largely rural area, that was great for exploring and offered some amazing shots, as well as some other hidden oddities for those willing to make the trek. In this section I am going to do something a bit different. I am going to guide you through that walk in pictures.
If you follow the path in the picture under the title it will take you to an opening and in that opening there sits this hill with two lone trees side by side. I have often wondered what was the story be hind them? I am not sure if this explains them, but much later in life I learned that NC farmers in past planted lone trees like this in their fields as place to go to for shade for a break or lunch time. Not sure if that is the case here, as clearly the topography is not exactly right for that, but that is the best guess I have.
Next we come up to the house. I have often wondered what this house cold have been used for too. One thing I feel safe in saying it was not used to prime or dry tobacco. I grew up in an area with a lot of old buildings that were used for that and this one seems a little too small for that. Off to the left you can see a path that leads through the pine woods, which is our next destination.
Just in case you are wondering what is on the inside of that building, it is nothing but some dry hay and an old, iron wood stove. Considering the stove was originally here and not just placed here some time later, that would indicate that someone stayed here at some point or if not lived there, then at least spent considerable time there.
For those who have never had the pleasure of walking through a pine forest, it is quite a sensory treat. First is the pine aroma that permeates the air. Then there’s the sound of the rustling pine needles and the crunch of pine cones under your feet. The pine tree is the North Carolina state tree and for good reason too. This tree is plentiful here and forests featuring them prominently are common.
At the end of the pine forest you come to an opening that includes one of the most perplexing things I have ever found while exploring the North Carolina outdoors: a train caboose. I don’t have any clue as to why it is there or how it got there. Even my friend who’s family owns this land had no idea. Still till this day I find myself wondering about it.
So technically this one is not Alert, but we would always pass it on the way there. It is a real gem of a location. This place is not just eye candy either, but a tangible piece of the past. In the past mills were not just an essential place in communities for their production of ground food goods like flour or cornmeal, but where social hubs. In isolated rural communities before the advent of telecommunications, communication was slow. So you went to the local meal to hear the latest talk. If a politician was campaigning they would give speeches and hold debates at the local mill. There are still few of these relics still standing in NC, with some even still functioning.
The Park
The park is a place very dear to me. It was less than half a mile from my grandparents house, which later became my own family’s home. I have spent so many days there playing on the numerous play grounds as a kid, watching baseball games, having picnics and cookouts, and of course, exploring the trails.
Someone once aptly compared the forest to a great cathedral and that is often my experience in nature. Often my feelings in nature are the same as those I experience whenever I visit a great cathedral, synagogue, mosque or temple: awe, reverence, and inspiration to reflect. This park, especially places like this, where the vast majority of people never venture to is where I would frequently experience this. But this feeling was not the only reward waiting for those willing to explore deeper.
This building is one such hidden treasure. As a young kid I used to imagine it was some lost Mayan or Olmec temple lost in a jungle. It would be years later, when I was a teenager, before I would actually make an expedition to get up and close to this building.
I was finally able to get close enough to it in my teens, but it was until I was well into my twenties that I was able to get a shot of it. This shot was taken in winter, after all the growth around it was dead for the season. After getting up and close up to it, it lost a lot of its mystique, however its exact purpose is still unknown me. What I was able to gather from talking with some older members of the population is that the building was associated with the water distribution system. I believe this to be very likely as the pond in this park was once one of the resevoirs in which the city drew on in the past.
Just in case you were wondering what was inside the building. Unfortunately when I took these pictures back in 2011/12 the floor was in very poor condition so I did not enter the building. I am not sure if it was built over water or the water seeped under sometime after it was built, but there is a pool of water of some depth under the rotten, wooden floor. From the looks of what remained of the contents I would guess it was a station or office of some sort. That is considering that the table seen floating/submerged in the water is original to this building.
Relics of the past are the only rewards waiting for those willing to explore the trails and paths of this park. Another kind of reward is pictured here. This is a cool and intimate spot out in nature. A place who’s natural aesthetics fills it with a sense of mysticism as much as it does beauty. This is not only one of my favorite places out in nature to visit, but this is also one of my most beloved photos.
Rural Piedmont
This section is a bit different from what I have been doing up to this point. This section will not feature just one place but multiple places I will not name in order not to dox myself. I grew up in a largely rural area. Occasionally we did live in the city, more rarely in what could be considered the suburbs of that city (calling it the burbs is a bit of a stretch), but by far we lived mostly in the various rural areas out in the county.
This is one of my oldest pictures, not quite as old as the above pictures from Carolina Beach and Wilmington, but it probably dates to about a year or so later. This scene and the next photograph perfectly capture the area in which I spent most of my formative years. This is photo was also used as the basis for a Mugen stage.
This was an attempt to capture the view of what I would typically see on an early late Autumn or winter morning while waiting for the bus. The house I spent my formative years in was surrounded on three sides by tobacco fields, which played a role in many of my leisure activities as a boy. From using them to pay sports in to running into the water from the irrigation system to cool off in the summer. The fields shaped my childhood.
One of the things I really tried to capture in my photography are scenes of everyday life in rural North Carolina and this picture perhaps may be the best example of that.
I have always been interested in capturing the beauty of dawn and dusk in my photography, but with just having a basic camera, without any special lenses I never really attempted it before this photo. This picture, taken just a few days before Christmas of 2011 is filled with colors not really found else where in my work.
By chance I had stumbled across this while out walking a path in the woods, one pleasant October day will home for Autumn break. Loving the famous Robert Frost poem, The Road Not Taken and I myself being just a few months away from completing my time in university, was at a crossroads, I knew I had to take this shot.
This is another one of my best shots and a picture of one of those rare NC white Christmases. Though the snow did not fall until later Christmas day, so I am unsure if that actually counts as a White Christmas. Still I have often used this shot as my holiday greeting card.
The Mountains of North Carolina
The places mentioned here will be kept vague, not for security purposes, but for the simple fact that these photos were all taken while traveling by car. In some circumstances I can give a general location, particularly the Blue Ridge Parkway. The astute viewer will notice that this section is far less populated than the Coastal Plain and Piedmont sections. There are two reasons for this. First my family was definitely more keen on visiting the beaches of North Carolina. I have been to the coast around twenty to thirty times, but only to the mountains about three times. Additionally the last and most significant of these trips involved me taking a trip to see the same old flame who I took that romantic getaway with to Topsail Island. By this point I had been out of university for close to two years and my old flame had transferred to Western Carolina high up in the mountains of NC. She invited there for a romantic get away, I always suspected with the hopes of getting back with me but it never happened. She broke up with me and so I believed, rightly or wrongly if she wanted to get back with me, it was on her. Still I wanted it more than anything at the time. Despite this we spent a great weekend together. Saw some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever had the pleasure of beholding while in the western hemisphere, climbed my first and only mountain (The Devil’s Court House), and lost twenty dollars playing slots at the casino in Cherokee, NC. The second reason being, on the above mentioned trip, I took many beautiful photos, but for the very same reason as my Topsail photos, my photos from this trip are largely gone.
This is by far my favorite scene I have ever seen out in nature and in my opinion by best picture. This was taken when that special gal and I took a drive through the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had stopped when we saw this sight, as I knew I had to get some shots of it. What I love about this is how the rows of mountains look like giant waves frozen in place. I also love the beams of sunlight bursting through the dark clouds, illuminating the landscape.
I have only climbed one mountain in my life and that was the Devil’s Court House. I have for most of my life been deathly afraid of heights but because I was with an amazing woman, I definitely bit the bullet and climbed it with her. I am so glad I did too! It was such a rush! And this is one of the views from the top.
Indonesia
Batu
Batu is my favorite city in Indonesia and is located high up in the mountains of Java island. It gets cool and sometimes even cold there. Even in my early months here, when things felt hotter than the really are here, I felt cold in Batu and had to wear a jacket. I used to go to Batu a couple of times a year but as of late such trips are rare. In fact when I took the above picture a few weeks ago it was my first time going in about ten years. One of the reasons I really love it is its spectacular view overlooking Malang.
This picture was taken on my third trip and an impromptu one at that to Batu. It was also my first time going during the day. My future wife, two friends, and myself had went to a Cafe (a cafe that played Ska Punk, it just so happens) and as is typical for a rainy season afternoon, it began to rain hard. We had a great view of the city park from the second floor of the cafe. For context, Batu is known as The Apple City due to its cooler climate allowing for there to be lots of apple orchards in the area. Hence the giant fruit.
This picture was taking during my first or second year of marriage and was taking on one of my first smart phones. The camera on said phone was so low quality it gives the image almost an oil painting like feel to it, which is why I included it here.
This picture was taken on one of my final trips to Shinning Batu and captures night life at a historical night market. Note the Javanese, Chinese, and Dutch influences in this scene. It is a great representation of classical Indonesian culture.
Goa Cina
Goa Cina, Cina is the Indonesian name of China, hence the aesthetics you see here. I have been here for more than 13 years and yet I have only been to the beach once. But what an amazing trip it was. At the time, my wife and I were very close friends with another mixed nationality couple: she was Indonesian and he was Australian. He was also my best friend at the time. Here I have had horrible luck with having best friends: either they have been older locals, who passed away or they have been fellow foreigners who all returned to their respective countries. This particular beach trip was probably my favorite memory with my then best friend. The beach is not like our beaches back home, they are not built up and developed, which I think is a smart move. So there was not hotel or place to stay so we ended up sleeping outside under the stars that night. Sleeping under the night sky of the southern hemisphere with the sounds of waves crashing in the background was a special experience. However, even with ignore the above, this location is one of the most breathtaking places I have ever seen.
I was really surprised to see this sight. I certainly knew beaches like this could be found in South East Asia (giant rocks protruding out of the sea), but I always associated it with Thailand. Still this was probably the most stunning view of a beach I have ever personally witnessed.
Malang
Malang is, as far as cities in Indonesia are considered, very young, being founded in 1914. Malang, being the city closest to my home is also the Indonesian city I have visited the most. Malang has been called the legendary cold city, as it is high up in the Javanese highlands. As such it is surrounded almost on all sides by numerous mountains.
Alun Alun Malang or Malang City Park is perhaps one of the most gorgeous man made areas in Malang. In this picture you can see its iconic fountain and Masjid Jami in the background. It is also the part of the that undergoes the most renovations. Since I have been here it has undergone two to three major face lifts. I never miss an opportunity to spend some time there whenever I visit the city.
Ijen Boulevard is the most iconic street in Indonesia and for good reason. This street is quite scenic with is colonial era Dutch houses, lined rows of coconut trees, and beautiful Bougenville flowers. Ijen Boulevard was one of the first places in the city I explored by foot.
A view of one end of Ijen Boulevard as viewed from one of Malang’s public libraries. The blue van like vehicle you see is called an angkot, a form of public transportation. Many cities have these and they go along predetermined route, however you can stop anywhere along that predetermined route for the same price.
Surabaya
Surabaya is the capital of East Java, as well as the second largest city in Indonesia, second only to Jakarta. The City of Heroes as it is commonly called was the first city I ever set foot in in Indonesia. From the plane, I was quite surprised at just how expansive this city was, it even is more expansive than New York, at least that is how it felt viewing both series from airplanes. I usually find myself in Surabaya at least once or twice a year.
This is a very common view in Surabaya. The city being very flat, having a few rivers, and being seaside is home to many such canals. This one is near the Joyoboyo area.
This is what a typical neighborhood in Surabaya looks like. For most, the housing is very close together. This, according to my wife who has lived in Surabaya, can lead to some rather interesting social issues such as it makes true privacy, even in one’s own home a rare commodity.
This is perhaps one of my best photos of a cityscape. It captures the then modern face of Surabaya. This photo was also the basis for one of my final Mugen stages, of which unfortunately no pictures survive. The Mira Inn holds a special place in my heart. It was there my wife and I stayed for our Babymoon. The street it is located on makes it very convenient for exploring downtown Surabaya.
This is probably my favorite shot capturing a chaotic cityscape. This picture attempts to capture the chaos of the Surabayan evening traffic rush. This photo was also the final photo I took on our Babymoon.
Rural Java
Rural Java is where my heart is. The Javanese countryside is a place of almost mythological beauty. A place were it is almost as if time itself has stood still. There are places there where an ox and cart remain the main form of transportation. As much as I do love the many wonderful cities of Java, the countryside has captivated me. I will never be able to own a house or land here due to restrictions on foreigners doing such, but if I could I would have a spot in one of these mystical rustic areas.
Dominating the landscape are two volcanoes, Mount Semeru and Mount Bromo. You can see these from most places in the region. These places are considered sacred in traditional Javanese religion. I have never been to those two places myself, but I hope to make an expedition there in the future.
Even though this is a rural area, neighborhoods are still occasionally found. This is what a typical street looks like. You will notice the houses here all have fences and gates. This is a very common feature for most houses here.
This is another picture of a rural road, this one on a mountain. This was another picture taken on that old smartphone, who’s camera quality was so poor it has almost a painting like quality
This picture captures one of my favorite aspects of the Javanese highlands is the amount of diversity of flora that can be found there. In this picture you can see tropical trees, like coconut or banana trees, side by side with more temperate trees, like pine or ceder trees. Some areas have so many pine trees I feel like I am back home in North Carolina
This picture too was taken with that poor quality camera, however that painting like quality is not why I included it here. I included this picture because of the way the light shines through the trees. Despite the low quality of the camera, I believe it is perhaps my best work in regards to capturing some of that magic of the Javanese countryside.