For those who missed the exhibition, I'll attempt to recreate the experience.



You know, I never quite liked it when people call me "the Hasselblad guy" or "the Leica guy" or anything along those lines. But this time, I really didn't mind being labeled as "the CK guy". May the spirit of Fade live among us for as long as we draw breath from existence.

For we live in the flicker - May it last as long as the old earth keeps rolling.

PS: Pardon my sporadic grammatical errors. I did up this entry at 5am in the morning with less than 3hours of sleep the previous 3 nights.



Ladies and gentlemen, this was roughly what Fade was all about:














































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Working on this series was a mentally and emotionally taxing journey. I'd never burnt so much calories from thinking and feeling till Fade came along. Prior to the actual shooting itself on the 30th Oct, I spent an entire week alone, in sheer solitude and away from all forms of human contact in an unconscious attempt to prep myself for what I know not. I swam alone, had meals alone, went to the darkroom alone, shopped alone, and even went to watch a movie alone for the first time ever. I found myself wondering around the streets for hours; a weary traveler treading a path that led to naught. Was there even a need to do this? I really don't know. For the longest time ever, I seemed to be only churning out questions, not answers.  

The week after I shot Fade, I was a total wreckage, a severe mess in the head and everywhere else. I had dreams of the shoot; and scenes from it just recurred again and again like a faulty videotape. I remember the times I laid down on bed plugged into Yamagata feeling so, so sad about something I couldn't quite understand nor fathom myself. It was like experiencing a Frankenstein moment; being in so much shock and awe over the work that you created. You just feel the inability to fathom, to embrace the kind product of your own hands, in your own hands. That form of helplessness and despair was indefinitely unbearable. I was almost depressed, and very much in disarray. 

Thankfully, I managed to exorcise these inner demons after a good, long conversation with her one chilly night (I apologise for the hazy details, everything seems like a whirl when you look back) - Just in time before the commissioning of these pieces on Friday. There and then, the burden felt like it was lifted. What burden I know not, but I guess it could very well be the burden of knowing what it means to be fully human, and to find oneself, inadequate when anyone demands from one what one needed most from others. I think apart from making things happen for me, you sometimes make and spell things out so simply for me. That is just but another reason why you're such an amazing person in my life.

And that, as they say, is history. Everything's over now; the more undesirable parts at least. 



On a lighter note, I had some of the most amazing conversations with strangers who actually came down for me. I received some of the most touching and heartfelt comments on my guestbook I was just really at a loss at what to say. I felt the ardent support in a different, but warm fashion. This goes out especially to those who never leave a trace here but religiously come back to this site for their fix of visual poetry. Thank you all so much, you guys made it all feel so right. Like I was doing the right thing.


I was still frantically working in the darkroom even days before the opening of Fade. And I remember telling her this, after a nine hour marathon in the darkroom:

"You know, every single time I see you staring back at me in the developer, the stopbath, the fixer, the running water under the soft amber light, I knew I was doing the right thing."


And a common question that presented itself constantly in the undercurrent of the entire exhibition went as such:

"So did you do this for her, or for yourself?"


I pondered then, and I'm still pondering now. I have no concrete answer to that but this is no laymen's confusion cause all these while, I just knew I was doing the right thing.

Yeah, the right thing.

Enjoy.