A journey shaped by family history and what I noticed along the way
We flew to Java, Indonesia as a family. For my father it was more than a destination. He was born in Malang, learned to walk there, and spent his early years in and around the school my grandfather ran. He left when he was five and had never returned. His mother, my grandmother, had passed away not long before, which gave the trip a quiet weight even before we arrived.
I remember stepping out of the airport and feeling the warm, humid air settle around us. A mix of jasmine, exhaust and clove cigarettes. Something familiar in a place I had never been. My father recognised it too. He did not say much, but the way he looked around told enough.
The landscapes, the animals, the sounds… the food: the kind we used to eat at family dinners, only deeper, sharper, closer to the source. And the people. Always open, always generous. It was one of the first trips where I started paying real attention to people with my camera. I was shy then, keeping my distance and using a long lens instead of asking for portraits. There was no plan, just the instinct to photograph whatever felt close or honest.
Those early images are simple and loose, but something in them still feels true. Maybe it is the sense of moving through a place that was new to me but familiar to someone I knew well.
