RANZ IN DA HOUSE

This year my wife and I decided we would host an invitational Open House for the first time so instead of heading up to my in-laws in BSB right after lunch, we would spend the first day in Seria and a little more time my folks and friends and relatives before I disappeared for a few days. Despite the extremely wet morning, rain stopped when we were expecting people to arrive. It all went well, a lot better than expected and towards the evening, still blessed with reasonably good weather, Rano located my house when many have previously failed even with ample directions.

A casual portrait of Rano Iskandar at my home studio against a gray backdrop

The timing was perfect. Had Rano arrived a couple of hours earlier, it would have been challenging to spend any time exclusively with him. No doubt, he would have been well received by my nieces and nephews and several guests who had never met Rano in person and things would have certainly been interesting. Afterall, we both live for the moment and our paths have a natural tendency to cross in often very crowded occasions! So it’s rare that we met under much quieter circumstances at my home in Seria and I wasn’t about to let him go without a portrait or two although he seemed fascinated with a thing or two himself.

I don’t recall exactly when and how I was introduced to Rano but that must have been a few years back when I was starting out in the photography business. Ranz, as he’s called these days and I have been meeting on and off over the years at countless corporate events. As the brain and brawn behind Brunei’s No.1 Social News portal, it’s amazing how Rano finds the time and energy to go from event to event pursuing news in a dizzing pace from every conceivable happenings within any given day or night. I think my Seria-BSB commutes pale in comparison!

I showed Rano a bit of the house in particularly, the kitchen balcony where these dramatic landscapes were captured in the early hours of a Sungai Bera sunrise! Other photos featured on DST Easi Card can be seen here. More of Rano at BEDB THiNK BIG Forum.

EASI Card © DST. Images © Jan Shim Photography

I had my studio and lights setup just in case there were moments in between visits when I could shoot some portraits of my guests. As things turned out, these opportunities were far and few but I managed just a handful including also one of a Dutch photographer and her family. I took no photographs during the open house as my wife and I were busy entertaining the guests who came in droves and on top of that I had gate keeper duty but my niece, an aspiring pro who goes by the nick “NZ” had her Nikon with her and she captured the guests, the food and also a moment with my daughter Jewel whose face appears on Insurans TAIB posters that you see at their roadshows.