Selamat Datang ke Kuala Lumpur

View onto Kuala Lumpur from Room 1712 in the Dorsett Regency Hotel.

About two and a half weeks after I arrived in New York I was sitting on a plane again heading east to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the Creative Economies, Asia-Europe Emerging Photographers’ Forum 2009. I arrived in KL roughly 26 hours later with an increase of 14 degrees Celsius and a level of humidity that felt like a concrete wall. Surprisingly I was still in pretty good shape. That trip and the lack of sleep took its toll later on of course when my nose got all clogged and my eyes felt too heavy to keep them open.

So how the hell did I end up going to Kuala Lumpur shortly after my arrival in New York? Just a week after I started to work at Magnum Photos again and during the week of the New York Photo Festival 09 which I would have really wanted to attend? I received an e-mail about six weeks ago talking about this photography forum in Malaysia and inviting me to come. I briefly looked over it and was about to hit the “Delete” key. I suspected yet another Spam attack. But then I realized that certain things in this e-mail didn’t look quite right for being Spam and so I read it again. They talked about my work as a photographer, my work for Magnum and about the old version of Journal Of A Photographer. Ok, no Spam. It turned out that I was invited to the forum as a lecturer, presenting the Magnum Blog and talking about blogging for photographers.

Oh well… Of course I’d love to share my experience with the participants of the forum, of course I’d love to be invited onto my first trip to Asia, of course I’d love to be that cool dude travelling the world… Speaking in front of an audience however does not excite me at all. I mean it does, but not necessarily in a good way. After having heard the first lecture on the day of my arrival on Monday I started to feel more comfortable with that thought.
So far the best thing about the forum is meeting a lot of nice and interesting people, hanging out with a bunch of photographers, being able to smoke while working in front of my computer in the hotel room (I know it’s bad, bad, bad) and having some great Malay/Indian/Chinese/Thai food. Ash, you were absolutely right about the culinary wealth in Kuala Lumpur! The food is fantastic, you don’t even have to go to a fancy restaurant, it’s these little street restaurants where it all happens. On top of that, the food is really cheap. The only thing the spoiled European in me misses is some nice wine to go along with the food. Well, I’ll just stick to fresh Coconut juice instead!

The third day of the forum just started and I have one more day to prepare my little presentation. Everything is going to be alright - I am sure. I’ll keep you posted.