PHOTO JOURNALISM?

Being an engineer,I am more adept to see the city as clusters of building blocks along the roads.Personally,I love the architecture and the cityscape.When I am on the street,I love to capture life in photo shots of street photography.

Yesterday,I attended a group photowalk at Bukit Bintang,Kuala Lumpur.The group leader,Mr John Ishii,a freelance photo journalist told the group to go out and take a few photos(about 5 or 6 photos) that tell the impacts of urban renewal that affect the daily lives of the people.This is an exercise for us novices in visual storytelling and may be my first lesson on the street on how to be a photo journalist-my dream job.He advised us to construct the story in our minds first and go out and look for the photos that tell our story.Not only that,we were told to engage with the people and ask them about their views on urban renewal.That is a tall order for me because all these years,I only took photos of landscapes,cycling trips,family photo events and nothing professional like photo journalism stuff!

Looking at what I had to do to be a photo journalist,I may have to change to travel writers when I stop working to earn a living.Anyway,I will give a try.Who knows,I may acquire the skill along the way..

We broke out into a few groups of 5 to 10 photographers.As I walked with the group,I saw some of them already started snapping photos as we came out from our meeting place -the local McD Restaurant.I walked away and started looking around and thinking what to shoot and my little mind was composing something which I don't yet know what it is going to be.One thing that came straight to my mind via my stomach is Paradise Restaurant-my favourite roti nan and minced meat curry and iced tea for lunch.

We walked around for 30 minutes and found a mamak stall where we stopped for teh tarik to get to know our team members.We chatted for another 30 minutes while waiting for the city to wake up so that we can take photos.Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning is too early..

Life around the place started to get moving around 11:30am.We moved to Pavilion to take street photos and later on moved back to McD and waited at the junction Jalan Bukit Bintang and Jalan Sultan Ismail.

Below are my six shots that I think  each one of them has a story to tell..

The construction work has badly affected the motorised traffic and pedestrians.Not adeqaute road signages were at proper places and no handicap persons can cross the roads without help from passers-by.One restaurant has its revenue cut off by 50% but small stalls are doing fine.Traffic management needs a lot of improvement.