Yes, hit those streets, shoot away, and keep on shooting. Your image will be very valuable socio-historical records, in the not-too-distant future, when it all changes and what you have recorded on film or pixels becomes past.
Another important aspect of recording and showing your images from the streets, is the photos can be a useful tool to promote social changes and improvements in conditions and facilities. As we know, there is more than enough money in Indonesia to do many more things than are now being done. Sadly, the money is being mismanaged, and there doesn't seem to be the will, either politically or publicly, to change things.
Sodark1828 (#3), what you say about Ahok is so spot-on,I agree with everything you wrote. Sad that he is now in prison, such a great talent and poltiical force languishing behind bars and wasted. Even sadder that Jokowi did so little if anything to try to diffuse the situation, obviously from his usual fear of offending anyone. Leadership was sadly lacking in this situation. Let us hope and pray that Ahok will be released soon. Indonesia needs people like him to move it forward.
I went to Palmera many years ago and also shot many memorable images there, on slide film. Used a Leica M2 and sneaked around taking grab shots of people living their everyday lives. I see the same scenes even now, in Surabaya, along the rail lines between Gubeng station and Kota in the city center or to Sidotopo where the old (Dutch colonial era) locomotive works are still in use. In some places along the tracks, when the trains come along (fortunately they don't travel at fast speeds), there is less than one meter of free space between train and houses.
All this will disappear eventually. Most Surabayans won't miss it, if indeed they even know it exists.
I'm now in Sarawak, shooting with my Nikon D700 kit and a 1966 Rolleicord Vb I bought recently, with B&W film and a 16 exposure kit. Ten, twenty, thirty years ago it would have been a Nikkormat 35mm kit and a Rolleiflex. Times pass, things (and photo gear) change. The 'cord kit is getting heavier to carry around. I had six rolls of film processed in a small Chinese studio here last week, and was amazed at the beautiful negatives I got back, even if the studio owner did them in print developer. The negs look good. I hope they print or scan as nicely.
Everyone uses phones now as cameras. Mirrorless compacts also. Not many DSLRs. I almost never see anyone with a film camera out of Singapore or KL, maybe as film is impossible to get locally and it costs too much per image to be economically viable. People tend to stare at me when I use the Rolleicord, but as I use the waist level finder and I don't lift the camera to my eyes to shoot with as I do the Nikon, they quickly lose interest and go about their business. I get better shots then.
I may return to Surabaya in November or December. There are many nice places in East Java I want to revisit, not having seen them since the 1980s. Malang was then a quite compact, quiet, cool and relaxing place. Now it's fast becoming another Indonesian city, tho' by no means as crowded, congested and polluted as is my usual hangout, Surabaya. Life in Malang doesn't take place so much in shopping malls as it does in 'boyo, but then it's cooler in Malang, and locals can hang out in the great outdoors without being cooked by the sun and the heat. Good photo ops abound in either city. Oddly, in Surabaya, I rarely see anyone shooting scenes they can't do without getting out of their massive air-conditioned SUVs. There are more photographers out and about in Malang, but again they don't seem keen to go beyond the pretty-postcard-picture places. The best shots in either city take a bit of walking to find and get to.
The Shoot Jakarta Project is interesting. I for one will look forward to seeing some images posted. Will you be doing a web site for it in the near future? It's the sort of photography more shooters should be out doing, before the city changes and many of the areas in the city center disappear forever.
I'll most definitely be watching this thread, and looking for more images. Keep up the shooting.
