Ranan Samanya Photography
fashion runways, portraits & personal branding, environment, and documentary photography
a happy life?
Bertrand Russell once said: “The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good”. A happy life. That is a wish I heard a lot for the new year. What define a happy life?
Please continue to see (more) picture(s) and read the rest of the story
this is it!
Last day of the year! And what a year it has been. Recapitulating back, postaweek2011 was a real help in pushing this blog to run on a routine weekly basis. I started my own Twilight Saga with the twilights above Singapore and Bintan Resorts reservoir. I didn’t go too much on food photography this year, but dwell more into religious matters, from Singapore Cathedral to Vietnam’s Cao Đài. There is a new page on weddings (which I hope will be filled more often once I retired), a few portrait posts (also more to come on this), numerous posts from Bintan Resorts’s Bintan Cultural Festival, and then of course there is the sea nomads stories. There were sad moments of loosing dear friends, but as yin and yang, there were also happy moments.
Looking forward is like looking to the blue-green ocean in front, with a lot of opportunities if we can identify and grab them, with the company of the wind breeze that will provide fresh air to our lives. With this, allow me to humbly thank you for visiting this blog and for your friendship, and let me close 2011 and wishing you a great 2012. God speed.
so this is Christmas
What more can I say? With the streets brightly coloured, Christmas songs up in the air, and facebook wall full of Christmas greetings, the atmosphere -no, the world- is ready for this special season. Thus allow me to humbly wish you all an eminent, solemn and happy Christmas.
PS. John Lennon has been singing in my head for a few nights, let me share with you:
So this is Christmas
And what have you done
Another year over
And a new one just begun
And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear ones
The old and the young….
A very merry Christmas
And a happy New Year
Let’s hope it’s a good one
Without any fear….
[The HDR image was constructed from 3 individual frames taken handheld in the infamous Orchard Road Singapore.]
tina and ignatius
Tina and Ignatius are young couple who is always smiling in front of my camera. In this picture I got bored with the usual tropical green background in front of Mayang Sari Beach Resort, so after an initial enhancement from my RAW file in Aperture I fired up NIK Color Efex Pro plugin and changed it to autumn leaves using one of its predefined presets.
Continue to see more picture(s) and read the rest of the story
total lunar eclipse over Lagoi
An evening with the moon. If you have never felt the romantic ambiance, wait for the next lunar eclipse, and get away from the crowd. That was what I did. And now I know why there are so many songs relating the moon and love (for this time let’s ignore Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon that speaks of insecurity, war and death).
Last saturday was the last total lunar eclipse of 2011. I had better luck than friends in Bandung or Jakarta, for the sky was clear above Lagoi. Black clouds were easily moved away by the relatively strong wind that evening. Sparks of stars from distant galaxies decorated the sky. I went to the highest place in Lagoi and watched the moon transformed its colour from bright yellow to dark orange and back for almost 2 hours, alone (I pretended the two security guards of the place as non existent, it helped a lot).
As Sting whispered through the tiny speaker of my handphone, I let my mind travel to the moon….
It was many years ago that I became what I am
I was trapped in this life like an innocent lamb….
…How could I be this way when I pray to God above
I must love what I destroy and destroy the thing I love
Oh you’ll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet
While there’s a moon over Bourbon Street….
throwing sands
Just a quick note:
Saturday morning was fun! 2 young and energetic families came with me to one of the beach to act as my models in my first ever family mini session. I still need to do a lot of editing, but here’s one showing Nathan throwing sands to his father (lucky he didn’t have the idea to throw at me!). More to come (hopefully) in 2 weeks’ time.
thinking about mara
If you ask me: Love her totally. Mara, my soon to be 12 years old only daughter, is like any other kids of her age: stubborn (got this from her father), doesn’t like studying (she hates math and physics), crazy about Conan manga, belief in pixie dust, and full of imagination.
Continue to see more picture(s) and read the rest of the story
I wonder what the day may bring
I wonder what the day may bring….
happiness within
and a bowlful of life,
or a deepened sorrow that cling
from an everlasting strife.
I wonder whether tomorrow may sing
like a blossomed flower in the morning
fresh with a few drops of dew
that will help me pull through.
Ranan Samanya Photography 
You must be logged in to post a comment.