German photographer Peter Bialobrzeski has dedicated himself to finding, framing and preserving the beauty hidden in Asia's concrete jungles.
Trees sprinkle color amid these drab environments, and, when dusk falls, the city lights illuminate the trees.
"One evening in Jakarta, I climbed a parking building on Jl. Sudirman to shoot some pictures below. I couldn't get what I wanted," Bialobrzeski said recently in Jakarta.
"What I got instead was something surprisingly interesting."
It was a picture of a big lush tree in front of the parking building, illuminated by bright city lights.
"The nature is so bright in cities."
Intuitively, Bialobrzeski knew that shooting such scenes would make an interesting project.
Sponsored by German cultural center the Goethe Institute, the photographer traveled this year to Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Singapore and Jakarta.
Equipped with a camera and 1,300 sheets of 4 x 5 inch film, brought from Germany, Bialobrezeski arrived in Jakarta in November to watch the sun setting through the buildings and the branches of trees. The magical lights that are switched on at dusk and off at dawn replacing the smog and congestion of the city core.
"Yes, I take pictures of nature. But my message is not about the disappearing landscape," said Bialobrzeski. "I'll make money if I say my work is about climate change. But I'm not doing art for climate change although I voted for the green party.
"I want my pictures to raise questions from the viewers.
Bialobrzeski said he had gotten 120 "exposures" from Jakarta, explaining he would only call them "pictures" once he was sure they were good enough to exhibit or publish.
"Probably I will get 10 good pictures. But then again I might get nothing," he said. "I don't know. At the end of the day I want to surprise myself.
"For my pictures, I require enormous amounts of detail. This is not possible with digital; light becomes unsharp in digital pictures."
He will develop the film once he is back in Germany, he said.
During his time in Jakarta, the lecturer at Germany's University of the Arts in Bremen participated in the Jakarta International Photo Summit, titled City of Hope, which closed Dec. 13. He also mentored a number of Indonesian photographers, with the resulting works exhibited on the sidelines of the photo summit.
Bialobrzeski has taken pictures of cities undergoing change for some time. His books, Neon Tigers and Lost in Transition, contain images of cities from Shanghai to Dubai.
"I went to Jakarta in 2000 and 2002. Somehow, I did not find the same pace of change as today," Bialobrzeski said.
At that time, Bialobrzeski was interested in photographing cities where fast-paced construction techniques were employed. He found what he wanted from Shanghai and Dubai but not so much in Western European cities.
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