Fucking pissed. Distraught. I don’t even know where to begin. Probably not the best time to be ranting seeing as how this will settle over time but for now it’s a low blow. Fuck. So I found out symmetry WAS actually taking in official photogs for camp symmetry next Saturday. And basically the OS photogs are all going. Or rather this year’s baybeats team. With the exception of one guy. I mean, 4 people are shooting - and only one of them, who, like me, wasn’t a part of the baybeats photog programme this year. But the point is that they’re a clique. Okay not really. A batch, more like. Like how somebody else described them. This “team” of 4 people, who I feel have always excluded me from the group. I know that this is largely my fault alone, seeing as how I’m never willing to go out of my way to socialize and establish connections. But really, I just can’t believe this is actually happening. Okay yes, I’m aware that my complaining now is very one-sided/biased. Ugh. I don’t know what else to say. Like, I keep thinking of ways to beat the system, so to speak. Beat them at my own game, y’know? Like, send emails out to other publications which I believe they never contacted before, stuff like that. My own personal “trump cards”, if you will. But every time, every fucking time, that I think I’m one step ahead of them, they prove me wrong. For instance, the recent BMTH show - it’s terribly selfish of me but I find comfort in the knowledge that nobody else (or at least majority of the group) is shooting the show. I feel it gives me equal grounding(?). So anyway, there’s always this gap between when me and this guy in the group (my closest friend of the lot) will talk to each other on Facebook, to discuss recent/upcoming shows and what have you. Normally it is then that I’d find out who he’s shooting for, the gigs he might be getting, etc. But as of late it’s been getting worse (for selfish ol’ me again, of course) because I find out every time we converse that he’s getting to shoot shows that I don’t. So just this afternoon I find out that he’s shooting camp symmetry officially (which is by far one of the LOWEST BLOWS in the history of me not getting to shoot shows) for symmetry directly. And not only is he doing that alone, but, as I feared, he’s shooting it with the whole “batch”. The lot of them. Fuck. I mean, okay, to give you a better idea of how much of a fucking gut-wrencher this is, I only stated my interest in shooting urbanscapes festival (IN KUALA FUCKING LUMPUR, WHICH I AM PAYING DEARLY FOR) for the sole purpose of shooting Franz Ferdinand - a highly acclaimed musician, as most of you would know. And he’s just one act, a headliner, out of many others. So, in comparison, FOR FREE, this fucking team are staying put RIGHT HERE IN SINGAPORE TO SHOOT *MULTIPLE* INDIE MUSICIANS BACK TO BACK WHICH I WOULD DIE TO HAVE SHOT for camp symmetry. Yeah. See the picture now? Urbanscapes - one bigshot indie artist, paying dearly. Camp symmetry - ALL INDIE ARTISTS, free-of-charge. Fuck my fucking miserable excuse for a life, seriously. And by the way, to the friend of mine in the clique who may happen to chance upon this post, just know that I can't help but feel a little betrayed. Yeah.

just had my first nightmare about urbanscapes this morning.
(hopefully not the first in a series to come)
but yeah wow it was pretty terrifying.
it is friday, supposedly the day before the festival is even scheduled to start.
i'm there with somebody, i forgot who.
it's night.
franz ferdinand takes the stage.
the crowd is mental.
everything is a blur from when i start snapping pictures in the pit to when i'm out after the 3rd song.
the panic arrives when i realize that my lens is faulty.
for some reason the photographers were asked to leave their gear at one side for a period of time?
after said period of time was over, i collected my camera back (from the ground?)
and it is then that i realize my lens (the tamron 17-50 2.8) (aka my "all-in-one" lens, the one that i use to take 99% of all my shots with) is faulty,
as in i can't zoom with it or focus or anything.
all is a blur again, until i am suddenly crowd-surfed for a considerable distance (approx. 10-20 rows back into the crowd?)
i am let down gently, to my surprise, albeit the horror i was feeling from not being in the pit anymore + my lens being broken.
i quickly rush to the side, where i regroup with my friend.
still in panic mode, i find another friend in the crowd who so happens to have a 18-35 3.5-5.6 (i am amazed at how i can still remember the exact lenses).
i ask to borrow it from him.
he says only in exchange for my prime.
i hesitantly swap with him.
he's being an ass about it.
i freak out, a lot, for some reason.
i think my prime had scratches on it too or something.
i was screaming.

i then wake up, sweating.
couldn't really differentiate reality from dreams at that point in time, which was weird.
that was the terrifying part: it felt as if what had happened in the dream had really happened in reality.
sigh. ah well.

this is just a small thought but i think i might wanna move to australia to cover shows on a regular basis.
of course, getting paid for it too, hopefully.
emphasis on 'hopefully'.
the thought occurred to me this morning during class.
i was looking at one music site in particular - looked like it works pretty much the same way that other sounds operates.
i mean, there wasn't much difference, not even in the layout of the site and all.
(on a side note: damn i really have to find more avenues through which i can vent my music/photog thoughts/frustrations)
so yeah
i guess when compared to the larger states australia doesn't get much attention from bands but it certainly gets more than singapore any day.
and even if i didn't get to shoot huge bands like foals or peace at least covering the local shows wouldn't be too bad either, i mean, they are australian after all.
the birthplace of last dinosaurs.
sigh.
yeah, haven't really given this thought much.. thought. but it's there.

update:
there's a plus side and a minus side to music photography in australia.
the minus side is as mentioned above (less bands perform on a regular basis there as compared to larger states),
and the plus side, which i've just conveniently thought of, is that there will be an annual festival taking place there every year: laneway. australia is literally the founder of the festival, the place where it all got started.
moving there and shooting there might give me a chance to photograph a festival like that, hopefully.
oh but then again there are larger-scale festivals to think about too, elsewhere, like glastonbury, reading + leeds, etc.
ah, damn. ok i hadn't thought that far, clearly. shit.
ugh, the uk really has it all.

so...