Last night was the official screening of the documentary film and photographic work that friend Mike Rogers and I created for The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP) in Timor-Leste two months ago.

More than 100 people attended the outdoor screening and fundraiser at Singapore’s Mount Emily. I always get a little anxious sharing my photography with a large group of people, but I am proud to say the work that both Mike and I produced for TCRP was warmly received.

As background, TCRP is a non-profit philanthropic organization born in 2009 when four extremely inspirational women in Singapore committed to help change lives in some of the world’s least-developed nations.

United by a love of adventure and a passion for philanthropy, TCRP seeks physical challenges and local organizations that can benefit from their efforts.

TCRP’s journey began in August 2009 with the Tour de Timor, a 5-day, 450-kilometre mountain bike race across Timor-Leste. Using the race as a platform and harnessing the power of social networking and media, TCRP successfully raised awareness for Timor and more than SGD$50,000 for HIAM-Health, a Dili-based malnutrition rehabilitation and education centre for parents and children.

This past June, TCRP returned to Timor-Leste. But this time a group of 22 “Catalysts for Change” joined them in running the Dili “City of Peace” Marathon to raise awareness for the poverty-stricken nation and its people, as well as to continue their support of HIAM-Health.

Together they delivered a SGD$28,000 playground and more than SGD$10,000 for the children of HIAM-Health.

This is my personal donation to TCRP: a documentary slideshow of their journey and efforts.

Mike produced an amazing 12-minute documentary film chronicling TCRP’s work, which was also screened last night.

Together, these two pieces of media will be used as marketing tools and ways to garner additional sponsorship and donations for TCRP’s future endeavors.

I recently spent two weeks’ holiday with my family in Canada.  It is a long way to travel, literally half-way around the world, from Singapore to Toronto.

But there are two little girls there that make the 24-hour airplane journey worth every minute: my little nieces, Brooke (4 years-old) and Paige (6 years-old).

I made this series of photographs — swinging high, higher, highest on their backyard swing set — while visiting with them at their home.

Brooke and Paige are wonderful subjects to photograph. Like all little girls, they love the attention.  And like all young children, they aren’t (yet) self-conscious.

I love Brooke and Paige for more reasons than I can count: their vivid imaginations, their boundless curiousity, their fervid individuality.

But I think I love them most because they love me back.

In June, I once again visited Timor-Leste with The Chain Reaction Project (TCRP) to document their philanthropic endeavours.  Like last year, I am producing a slideshow of my photography that documents the efforts of TCRP.

It is a tedious task — culling through the thousands of photographs I made in Timor, and choosing just the right images to tell TCRP’s story — but I do love it.  I’ve spent pretty much every spare moment this week editing and re-editing my selections, and retouching the best pictures for inclusion in my slideshow.  It is almost completed, and will be presented at TCRP’s fund-raising event next Saturday night in Singapore.

As I worked away on my images late one evening this past week, I came across this trio of photographs I made at the river bed on the outskirts of Dili.  During Timor’s dry season, the river bed is quarried for stone and gravel for the many construction projects in and around the capital city.  It is quite a sight to behold: dozens and dozens of men shoveling and throwing and sifting dirt and rock from sunrise to sunset.

From the bridge high above the river bed, the scene reminded me of armies of ants toiling away on their ant hills…

Photography is one of the most accessible and democratic forms of artistic expression there is.  The ubiquity of cameras — on mobile phones or small digital point-and-shoot cameras in our pockets, all the way to the large, powerful digital SLR cameras we lug around with us — makes it ever easier to capture fantastic images.

But, as we all know, making great photographs has little to do with owning the best and most expensive equipment. The real secret behind original photography is in how you see a moment and interpret it in a still frame.  Are we able to make something ordinary appear extraordinary by showing it differently?  Are we able to make the viewer feel a physical emotion when they look at our photographs?  Are we able to transport someone with us to a moment in time simply by pressing your shutter?

Jointly inspired by this artistic and photographic philosophy, as well as a close photographer friend who is never without his digital point-and-shoot camera, and Chase Jarvis (a Seattle-based photographer) and his The Best Camera is the One That’s With You Project, I’ve taken to shooting a lot more often with my iPhone.

It’s free.  It’s fun.  It’s easy.  And it makes walking to get lunch more than just about food; its now a daily photography assignment.

Here is a small collection of my iPhoneography I’ve made around the world, from Singapore to Shanghai, Hong Kong to Toronto, Bali to Dili and places in between…

Dear LIF’ers,

I have a small favour to ask: for the past few months, the “braintrust” at SCOTT A WOODWARD photography (essentially myself and a clever, creative young web designer) has been working very hard on designing and programming a brand new website and blog, both of which are almost ready to launch.  However, before we “go live” to the masses, it is important to test the sites on a variety of machines, operating systems and browsers to make sure they work perfectly.

We are pretty sure that everything works well, but there are so many different variables — including cross-browser compatability — that we want to be sure.

So this is the favour: would you mind going to www.scottawoodward.com and www.scottawoodward.com/blog and cruising around for a few minutes, clicking as many of the links and visiting as many pages as you can, and making sure that the sites generally operate well, all the links work and that everything looks good to you.

If, while on the sites, you encounter any problems or see anything that doesn’t look right to you, then I would be extremely grateful if you let me know what you experienced (either in the comments or here), along with the type of machine, operating system and browser you are running.

I really appreciate your time and am grateful for any assistance you can provide me with this.  Thank you and I hope you like my new site and blog (and that you’ll visit often)…

Scott

I spent last week in Shanghai shooting an advertising campaign.  The shoot called for making a mix of indoor and outdoor photography, which was an enjoyable brief to work on, as I was able to share my time working/shooting in a studio and out exploring the amazing city of Shanghai.

I visited Shanghai once more than five years ago, but that was a whirlwind week end that didn’t really give me a chance to properly experience the city.  This time, however, I spent the better part of three whole days walking, exploring and shooting on the streets of Shanghai, and I soaked up every minute of it: the remarkable fusion of historical and modern/post-modern architecture, the hornet’s nest of frenetic energy and (seemingly controlled) chaos on the roads and the sheer excitement that comes from spending a few exhilarating days amongst 20 million people in one of the fastest growing cities on the planet.

I am not sure I can say that I fell in love with Shanghai. But I can say that I developed a bit of a crush on her.

More fantastic work from the LIF contributors inspired some more banner design here in Singapore.  Here’s a Top 40 of the last month or so.  I hope everyone is happy with how I cropped/edited/rotated their photos to make them work for the banner design.  And look forward to seeing these up on LIF when Lawrence has the time to get them in the rotation (and manages to tear himself away from his brand new iPad)…  :)

Across the field from “Set Point”, and just around the corner from “Joy”, I came across this little fella hanging out in the afternoon sun.  I don’t make a lot of straight-on posed portraits, preferring more candid moments in my imagery, but the setting, the light and the subject just felt right for this type of photograph.

The sun sets on a pick-up game of volleyball at an abandoned school yard in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

A man does the dishes, down by the railroad tracks, in Phnom Penh (Cambodia).

A school playground in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Looking out across Street 178 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Its been quite awhile since I’ve posted anything here.  The truth is, professionally, I’ve had a bumpier start to 2010 than I would have liked.  I’ve been so focused on securing new assignments that the joy of actually getting out and spending time alone with my cameras has faded.  I’ve continued visiting LIF, but have really refrained from truly digging into all your work (shamefully, because your bottomless inspiration has made me feel sad about my own lack of it).  But the past month has seen business gaining momentum — a handful of stylish editorial fashion cover features, a few exciting collaborative personal projects with an amazing filmmaker and producer team, a couple of portrait shoots with an interesting cast of characters, and an advertising campaign that was the most technically challenging of my career — and with it, my spirits and excitement and personal enjoyment from actually making imagery has also blossomed again.  I am in Cambodia this week photographing a small reportage piece for an inflight magazine, but late this afternoon, as the sun snuck behind the rooftops, I finished shooting my assigned subjects and snuck out onto the frenetic streets of Phnom Penh during the golden hour.  As I roamed the buzzing boulevards of the Khmer capital, I stumbled upon some roadside mechanics toiling away on a graveyard of decrepit scooter skeletons.  They smiled; I smiled.  They continued working; I started shooting.  And I felt truly, passionately inspired for the first time in a long time.  Hello again, old friend.  I missed you.

There have been so many amazing additions to Lost in Focus in the past month that I was inspired and spent some time making 25 new banners (to add to the 22 I’ve already made and posted here http://www.lostinfocus.org/?p=5338) for the top of the LIF website.  Lawrence, I hope its OK that I keep making these — and that its not too much of a hassle to include them in the rotation at the top — but I think it will be very cool to have the collection continue to grow, featuring everyone’s work, so that it will be a different experience by all visitors to LIF every time they come to our fair internet community…