a newfound friend

it’s funny how friendships work. sometimes, you bond well and create a lasting friendship with someone you’ve met for only a short while. other times, you barely say anything beyond a “hi, how are you?” to an acquaintance you’ve known for years.

i met my new friend joel not too long ago. i’d only been assigned with him for one assignment before he left the company. since then, we’ve been keeping in contact through sms-es, phone calls and yum cha sessions.

i admire and respect him for being a very intelligent and knowledgable person. he has held many jobs and is a worldly person. a colleague calls him an “intellectual photographer” and i agree. having graduated with an economics degree and done corporate finance and journalism jobs, he’s probably smarter than half the reporters out there.

could it be that a lot of reporters underestimate him because he is a photographer? hm…i think it’s dangerous to have preconceptions or to underestimate a person. i personally feel that it’s always interesting to get to know someone, and to work well with the photographers to produce an interesting story. (i guess this is where my social skills need some tweaking.)

what’s amazing is that he took up the photographer post at the star even though he had no prior experience in the field. he just had a passion for photography and worked hard to get the experience. he recently left for singapore to work as a photographer for a newspaper too.

as a person, i find him trustworthy, understanding and independent. he can be serious at times, yet playful at other times. he’s sharp, observant…and has all these quirks that make him really unique. he acknowledged that he has a “gift” of perceptiveness, which means that he’s a pretty good judge of people and their characteristics. i think it’s a great gift…knowing who can be trusted and who can’t…sensing the “real” person behind the façade.

it’s also fun to talk about the people we both know, like what happened on friday. i’d been assigned to cover an event in a hotel in KL, and the photographer was brian. this is roughly how our sms conversation went:

joel: so what do you think abt brian? chinaman but very smooth talker. if brian and sam (another photographer) were to run a “race”, who will you pick as winner?
me: i'd pick sam any day. he’s a sweetie compared to brian who talks a lot of nonsense. hahaha
joel: good answer! but i’m afraid the “sams” of our world may not get as much attention as they deserve in today’s world