Bali's Amazing Surprises

Meet Adriaan Palar

In my second day in Bali, my buddy Doddy Obenk took me to his close friend, Adriaan Palar. He is an artist, does painting, interior design, and a passionate photography enthusiast since his youth and yes he is 74 years old and still kick ass.

He's also the owner of RUNA Museum, a jewellery museum in Lodtunduh, Ubud. His wife is Runi Palar, a legend in silver jewellery world in Indonesia with more than 35 years credit under her belt. She is so famous in Japan, once the princess only want to buy the necklace she wore at the moment.

Adriaan is a very warm and an outgoing personality. A broad minded artist with lots of experience abroad and locally he always love to share his past experience and sometimes gives advice to me about art world. From coffee to beer, fried banana till Balinese lunch, we discuss every aspects of arts including photography.

A photography enthusiasts since youth, Adriaan is very passionate when we talked about it. What I know is only my experience in photography so it's all I can share with him, in a humble way as he is like my father in age. In the midst of conversation he spontaneously offered me to stay in his house, which I gratefully accepted. Since then our friendship grow and we started our adventure together in documenting the Balinese cremation or Ngaben the next day.

Langse : The fine excuse to go to Bali

The time is August 27, 2010.

I went to Bali to cover "Langse" (Curtain), two nights dance performance by dancers of Peliatan. Langse means "curtain" in Balinese language.

Peliatan is the place where dancers were born. This event was my first dance coverage in Bali. Frankly speaking, I was lucky because the organizer is my buddy, Doddy Obenk who only allowed 2 photographers to go to backstage to cover everything. I thought backstage would be more interesting as it captured true essence of the reality from the dancers.

There are some dance maestros who are still performing despite their old age. There always be weekend performance every Saturday with dance themes but the "Langse" performance was an exclusive and preplanned professionally for foreign tourists mostly. Sometimes if you come earlier you can watch them practicing.

Puri Agung Peliatan nowadays. This is the building that witnesses lots of historical moment in the life of their dancers.

This was my first visit so I was quite amazed and enjoyed the atmosphere and old architectures.

It's a day before the performance so we could get some information before the event.
I would be shooting the event so general rehearsal will be helpful in anticipating every movement or before the peak moment occurs.

It was early when I got there so I just sit and took some shot of the architecture, some details and even macro of the statue. It's my first visit so I looked around enjoying everything from architectures, trees, the air, ambience, people, anything I can see.
The big city chaotic feeling was changed into this peaceful, quiet, no-rush feeling and very spiritual air with sights of musical instruments prepared for the show.


Macro shot of a statue
After sitting down a while and talk to a new Balinese friend, Dodo, I walked around and looked at things surrounding this sacred and beautiful place. Of all different places in Indonesia, I might say that none could ever, I mean ever bring peace and happiness to me better than Bali. (Yogyakarta is second best to me in this regard)

So to speak, it's not only the place or even the people, that makes Bali so peaceful, but the atmosphere ! I mean you could feel the magic spell of this island if you have a psychic sense.

I would rather say that this is my first spiritual journey in my whole life. Ain't it amazing ?? At 47, after credit in ministry for more than 14 years, I found my peace of mind in Bali. OMG, thank you so much. Funny but a sight of a statue in gas station could bring a sense of being in Bali. ( Ha ha .. this is Bali, so even gas station is decorated with art)


Children playing at the hall. A moment before rehearsal.

This beautiful place is on the left side of stage. I came to Bali first time in 1993 assisting my friend photographing a hotel, and had a limited chance to explore the island and it's culture.

Now as my eyes became my most vital thing during this journey, I acted quickly and shoot whatever fascinates my eyes. So I went click click click....

Originally I want to show the rehearsal only in black and white but this is an exception.

After years doing commercial, being my self and able to shoot whatever interest my heart is a real pleasure and bring much peace and satisfaction to me. I can train my eyes and response quickly toward any event in front of me. Especially at the cost of nothing.

You can get lost in a commercial by always being stirred by client's need and neglecting your own artistic senses. In Bali you could be yourself and explore your inner being better be it only by sight seeing, listening to Bali music, sitting on the beach, surfing, trekking, do yoga, meditation and so on.. and in the end of the day sleep with gecko chanting its funny voice ... tokk..ke...


Purwanto rehearsing for tomorrow's performance. He is the only one of Maestro Ida Bagus Oka Wirjana (Gus Aji) successor. He performed Kebyar Duduk dance.
This dance is difficult to perform because as the name say "Duduk" means "Sit down", so the dancer will perform mostly by sitting down. The audience in the back will be hard to see clearly.

You have to sit in front row of the audience to completely watch this remarkable dance.

I may not see all Indonesian tribe dances yet but to me, Bali dances are the most alive, spirited and so expressive including the music. It's always kind of energize my soul whenever I listen to it.

Another rehearsal with nice background at Puri Agung Peliatan.

This shot supposed to be in black and white but to show the beauty of the architecture, I made it in colours.

I used Canon 550D with kit lens 18-55/3,5-5,6 with ASA 6400-12800 as the lights is low. I also tweak the contrast, hue, and saturation in custom set so I could easily adjust overall look according to the lighting or ambience.

I like the colors of the brick that match the musical decorations. They really make an art of anything around their life. You can see two guys on left and right side of the dancer with drum on their laps. (The one in white and one in black)
The one in black clothes is the leader of all musicians and he leads the rest of musicians by his beat on the drum. If he goes fast the rest will follow. It's like a locomotive in front of trains.

The musicians also have their own organization and the name is Sekaa Gong Gunung Sari. (Founded in 1926)

When the passion started ?

It all started in my young age, I was sent by my parents to boarding houses and unconsciously started to enjoy fooling around and saw beautiful places, people in the environment. My friends and I love to climb mountain just wearing sandals with bottles of water & some bread in our backpack. Soon our love of journey grew the passion in us. We went up by morning and down in evening, wasn’t it crazy ? Another day it was raining heavily and we went to rice field walking, playing laughing in the rain… entering strawberry field and picking and eating them freely… free soul.. free mind… no worries in kids brain.. Then along our way we saw irrigation canal in rice field with water running down. I saw plenty of small crabs and was always try to catch some to no avail because they always move faster than me… ha...ha...

Hmm.. I can also recall the cold air in rainy season with smell of soil and moist … very jungle like… and oh.. there was also fog in those days as we are in mountainous area. Finally we walked home by crossing a flooded small river with icy cold water.. wooo.. haaaa….

Every time I moved into a new boarding house, the love and passion for exploring the territory would burn up and I always waited for spare time to look around with suitable friend. Funny when now as I am writing this story it feels like I had made a long journey in every place I have been and if all those story filmed with narration, they will make a journey film of mine.

Well, that was back then in 1975 and those experience I had in the past, had create a love, passion and traveling sense in me but I didn’t have any chance to do it when I grew up. So it’s been 25 long years the love and passion for journey has been buried in memory.