Indonesia's High School Graduation

this year is a big one for me, because this is my last year in high school, or in another word, i graduate this year. and yes, i graduated. after months of hard study and weeks of hard waiting, me and all my friends in my regency is declared graduate and so we do what we always want to do in our graduation day; write of and paint our school uniform.

this have been a culture in Indonesia for last few year. in their graduation day, the graduated student will write and sign and and paint their uniform as an expression of happiness and freedom, as you can see in my shot here. they will also do convoy around the city to show that they have graduated and they are free. of course, the convoy is not really well manage, and not safety at all. the sign culture is also controversial since most of the people think it's a bad and barbarian habit. so most of the provincial government forbid the student to do it. some police department will give thicket to every student convoy; some other will give thicket to convoy that seems to be dangerous. some provincial government told student to use traditional uniform in graduation day, as my government do; some other school do online announcement and forbid their student to go to school to prevent convoy and uniform signing. but since this is a "one in a life time" moment, do we just want to obey them?

my government give order to the student to use traditional uniform to school. and so we bring our school uniform in our bag and start doing everything we want after the graduation ceremony finished. me? i sign my friend's uniform, but not mine, i give them to my neighbor. it will value my uniform much more that way :) i also not doing convoy, my motorcycle is not modified yet #ehhm. so what i do in my graduation day?? i photographing my friend in my DIY studio to give you some clear portrait of our painted-school uniform :)

my first intention is to make a portrait with black background. but i don't have money to buy a backdrop and no one paint their house black, so i do with a white wall (and a traditional Balinese cloth called "kamen" as you can see above)

and so me and my friends are graduated. now what left for us is a wild, hard living world, that we must live in. we still have to study in university, but it wont be the same; we are grow up, no more teen things. that what the signing party was for; as an ending of our teenage age