Living with the Monsoon
Waterfront Portraits
Photographs
2014 - Ongoing
Reflections
Eddy I.M.
2018 - ongoing
Canon 6D - 2017 to present
Mitakon Creator 85mm
Canon 40D - 2014 to 2017
Nikkor 28mm
Tamron 70-200mm
‘Living with the Monsoon’ initially started out as a Photo essay to capture, document, and research upon the tangible and intangible cultural preservation of lifestyle, industry, historiography, and sociosemiotic ethnographies of Waterfront cities, towns, and villages. However, while I was working on it at the time, I realize its geo-cultural and geo-political influence requires a much more in-depth study. In earnest, historical and sociological findings of the communities and their anthropology surviving within these regions prove extremely enlightening to high variables of interpersonal dimensions of my life and others around me. Due to this, I decided to pursue this premise for my Master’s thesis, but it had since been altered substantially through multiple reiterations. At one point, there was even an idea of conducting practice-based research utilizing my photo captures during my fieldwork as data samples for a qualitative study.
Yet, as the volatile flow of research often perplexes, this strategy was eventually left out once again. Many of these images within this section were legacies of that approach that has since been abandoned. But there are many reflections left to be explored and articulated that simply dropping this whole project altogether seems to be doing these images a disservice. As such, I am currently in the process of distilling my reflections and may likely pursue this premise into a book eventually. Until then, the images presented here would retain as precedent studies until a future possible endeavour seems likely.
Note that the scope of ‘Waterfront’ abides by geopolitical and geo-cultural definitions of any area under 5km (high relation) to 10km (mild relation) from any prime water sources; includes ravines, rivers, lakes, or sea.
