Also, a camera is a tool with only one purpose. A phone does everything, which makes it a tool of distraction. A camera does one thing, it asks you to see. Really see. And that matters. There’s is a sole intention behind a camera, whilst the phone is a jack of all trades.
We take this life for granted. Every day, every moment, every second. We take God’s creation for granted so often that even if we spent every waking breath in gratitude, it still wouldn’t be enough to repay the beauty we overlook.
Sometimes, sure, we go back and look at old photos. And when we do, it hits those flashes of nostalgia, the goofy moments, the cringy childhood videos at the dinner table. It’s laughter. It’s warmth. It’s appreciation for a time that’s already gone. Those photos become little altars of memory and proof that something existed, that something mattered.
Photography, for me, is about capturing God’s creation, freezing a moment He gave us. It’s a prayer disguised as an image. It’s saying, “Look at this. Look what He made.”
But I also think we’ve gotten a little lost. In trying to preserve everything, we’ve forgotten how to live in it. Phones made photography too accessible. And in that accessibility, we stopped being present. We fear forgetting so much that we record everything. Even grief. Even death. Even joy.
If we could only take photos with a camera, maybe we’d stop trying to hoard every second. Maybe we’d breathe more.
This portfolio is full of the moments I decided were worth stopping time for. I hope when you look at them, you don’t just see where I’ve been, but what I saw while I was there.
I didn’t start photography with some grand vision. At first, it was honestly just me taking pictures of myself. But over time, I developed somewhat of a philosophy. I began to see photography not as a tool for nostalgia, but as a way to stop time. A photo has the unique ability of stopping time. It can freeze the unfreezable. It lets you hold a moment, a feeling, a truth that otherwise would’ve passed by unnoticed.
I don’t take pictures so I can scroll back through them later. Most people don’t. I take them because, in that exact frame, I’m saying: “This mattered.” Maybe it’s someone walking alone at the end of a tunnel in Malaysia. Maybe it’s my fiancée in a hijab, in the Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan Mosque. Maybe it’s a protest mid-chant. These aren’t just photos. They’re fragments of story and evidence that something beautiful, complex, or sacred happened.
And I don’t edit my photos. Not because I’m lazy (okay, maybe a little), but because I genuinely believe if a photo needs heavy editing to be good, it probably wasn’t that good to begin with. The subject, the light, the moment; those are what make a photo. If Photoshop is doing the heavy lifting, it’s not photography, it’s graphic design.
I shoot unfiltered. I shoot with intention. And I shoot with the belief that there’s beauty hiding in plain sight. A leaf, a hand, a shadow: if you frame it right, if you pay enough attention, it becomes something holy.
That’s what I love most; revealing the sacred in the mundane.
I didn’t start photography with some grand vision. At first, it was honestly just me taking pictures of myself. But over time, I developed somewhat of a philosophy. I began to see photography not as a tool for nostalgia, but as a way to stop time. A photo has the unique ability of stopping time. It can freeze the unfreezable. It lets you hold a moment, a feeling, a truth that otherwise would’ve passed by unnoticed.
I don’t take pictures so I can scroll back through them later. Most people don’t. I take them because, in that exact frame, I’m saying: “This mattered.” Maybe it’s someone walking alone at the end of a tunnel in Malaysia. Maybe it’s my fiancée in a hijab, in the Masjid Wilayah Persekutuan Mosque. Maybe it’s a protest mid-chant. These aren’t just photos. They’re fragments of story and evidence that something beautiful, complex, or sacred happened.
And I don’t edit my photos. Not because I’m lazy (okay, maybe a little), but because I genuinely believe if a photo needs heavy editing to be good, it probably wasn’t that good to begin with. The subject, the light, the moment; those are what make a photo. If Photoshop is doing the heavy lifting, it’s not photography, it’s graphic design.
I shoot unfiltered. I shoot with intention. And I shoot with the belief that there’s beauty hiding in plain sight. A leaf, a hand, a shadow: if you frame it right, if you pay enough attention, it becomes something holy.
That’s what I love most; revealing the sacred in the mundane.
Also, a camera is a tool with only one purpose. A phone does everything, which makes it a tool of distraction. A camera does one thing, it asks you to see. Really see. And that matters. There’s is a sole intention behind a camera, whilst the phone is a jack of all trades.
We take this life for granted. Every day, every moment, every second. We take God’s creation for granted so often that even if we spent every waking breath in gratitude, it still wouldn’t be enough to repay the beauty we overlook.
Sometimes, sure, we go back and look at old photos. And when we do, it hits those flashes of nostalgia, the goofy moments, the cringy childhood videos at the dinner table. It’s laughter. It’s warmth. It’s appreciation for a time that’s already gone. Those photos become little altars of memory and proof that something existed, that something mattered.
Photography, for me, is about capturing God’s creation, freezing a moment He gave us. It’s a prayer disguised as an image. It’s saying, “Look at this. Look what He made.”
But I also think we’ve gotten a little lost. In trying to preserve everything, we’ve forgotten how to live in it. Phones made photography too accessible. And in that accessibility, we stopped being present. We fear forgetting so much that we record everything. Even grief. Even death. Even joy.
If we could only take photos with a camera, maybe we’d stop trying to hoard every second. Maybe we’d breathe more.
This portfolio is full of the moments I decided were worth stopping time for. I hope when you look at them, you don’t just see where I’ve been, but what I saw while I was there.
