Here we go.

I've decided to start an album with different portraits of different people around me. Sounds banal, right?
Everyday, when you go out your door, whether you go to school, go to work, or just heading out to do groceries, you are in constant exposure to the dense population living around you.

As sad as it may sound like, you have strong chances to see someone from the first time, just to never see them again ever. That's just how many we are, and that's just why everybody feels like a little ant submerged in a never ending sea of people.

Fortunately, everyone's unique. We all have our own look, our own thoughts, our own decisions, our own talents. We are who we are, and we all absolutely want to manifest our core to everyone else, to manifest our presence to rightly find our place in the society.

We're no better than anyone else. We're just ourselves, we're different. We have our qualities and defaults, just as someone else will.

Our lives are just so damn busy that we never really stop by , analyze, think about or care much about someone else's life around us.
"Hey, how you doing?"
"Good, you?"
"Good good!"

And that's it for a lot of us. Have you ever wondered what that person does outside of your connection bubble that you know of him/her? What he/she eats for breakfast, his/her hobbies or talents, his/her childhood? Useless information, you may find. So what? Isn't it in our nature to be curious, to just know more about others and spark our own feelings in regards to them? You don't know it, but there are probably a LOT of people around you that you can relate too, share ideas, feelings... only if you could find out more about their lives.

I'm thus creating this album not only to expose people around me, but to also tell a story. You may very well not know the person at all, but what does it matter anyway? If we stop by and spend a few minutes, it certainly won't hurt to know a little bit about what others do and like. Consider it as a little story that may make your day and bring a little sunray to your daily routine.

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Ber's a fellow coworker that I've seen walking around my floor, but never really had the chance to talk to. It was only until we had a Starcraft 2 competition organized internally, that I found out he was the organizer (you all know I'm an SC2 junkie).
Our daily conversations were only limited to strategies on microing/macroing, scouting and what not (only geeks would understand those terms), but getting into a deeper stage of conversation lead me into finding out his passion for drawing - and I can tell you, Ber's a very humble guy.
If ever you're curious, here's a few of his work:

kodiakber.net/tree.jpg
kodiakber.net/caravagio.jpg
farm6.static.flickr.com/5225/5599225983_6f8c3ae2a5_b.jpg

Needless to say, I was clearly astonished at the detail of his drawings. The funny thing is... not many people know much about his work, and they should.

Everyone has a talent hidden somewhere - if you think someone doesn't, it means they're just good at hiding it, or they may have never discovered it.

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Even though I've only recently met Nick, we interestingly connected pretty fast because of our similar interest in martial arts tricking. Though he's currently living in Germany, he occasionally travels back and forth to Canada for dance workshops and seminars. As a teacher.

Yes, a teacher. Nick is not your average man who dances like that guy you've seen dancing at a club last week. Back a few years ago, Nick wanted to make a name of himself in the dance industry, but didn't know exactly where to start. That's when he had the great idea of committing himself into workshops offered by other famous dancers, and then started developing his own style, which is currently well sought among canadian dancers. His hip hop style is sleek, smooth and can be defined with a gentleman touch, with flowy footwork. In other words, his dancing is just plain awesome to look at, which explains why he already gave so many seminars throughout Canada already.

He is unfortunately going back to Germany in a few days, but if you're ever interested, you can check out one of his demos here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_D_N3Q3ueI

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Meet Nathan.

Every morning, we quickly glance and exchange a faint "hey".

- "Cookies?"
- "Oh, thanks!"

You know, the usual conversation whenever you meet someone half-awake in the wee hours of the morning. Well, that's because he's my co-worker.

Programmer by day, cricket player by night - assuming the night would be the whole time outside the day job. Would you have guessed?

Nathan is a very experienced cricket player (and should you not know about this sport, I invite you to check the following link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket), where his passion eventually lead him on the path of becoming a referree.

I actually didn't know much about this sport until I saw a couple of videos, and for those of you who aren't aware, India just recently won the Cricket World Cup 2011 (last month, I believe).

I am quite amazed that Nathan. even as a devoted and proud father of two, still has the time and determination to play, lead a team and be a referree for that sport, while maintaining a solid daytime workflow as a programmer. He hopes one day to eventually become an international referree, highest level in the domain - a level that can only be achieved with expert knowledge, through an extremely hard written exam provided by a Board.

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Peter's a long-term friend I've met a while ago that I could never disassociate with anything related to either anime or video games. Reason is, he's simply that hardcore into it.

I mean, all you have to do is start blabbering about almost any game (especially from Japan), and he would commonly start his story-telling from A to Z about the creators, how it was acclaimed, its predecessors/successors, reviews, and what not. Not only does he know so much, but he plays them all as well. Xbox 360? PS3? Wii? 3DS? PSP? He owns them all.

If there's anything else you should know about him, it's his inherent passion for animes and mangas, aka japanese animation and comics.

With his cool eccentric personality and his funny habits of declaring "GG" ("Good Game", it's a gamer thing) to any life situations that he deems as over, Peter is probably one of the wisest person I will ever meet around.

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Meet Xin Ben.

I think the picture pretty much says it all - but there is much more to it than meets the eye.

As a matter of fact, her whole road that lead her to learning piano is an astonishing story by itself - a story that is so touching that a movie was even made on it: Mr. Mergler's gift.

Quoting the lines of the official synopsis of the movie:
"The girl sits at the piano and plays the opening bars of Für Elise. Daniel Mergler has heard the Beethoven bagatelle countless times over the decades, but this is different. He listens with surprise, and delight lights up the old man's eyes.
The young pianist is Xin Ben, the 9-year-old daughter of Chinese immigrants. Fate has brought her to Mr Mergler, a music teacher whose career is drawing to a close."

I really invite you to check out the short movie that was done on Xin Ben's progression with Daniel Mergler, but I have to warn you that you will be moved, as the story is not fictional and really happened a few years ago. Music has really that much power in our lives, yet we don't realize it. I have heard Xin Ben play in real life, and her music is played with an eloquent interpretation of her own, produced by the striking technique that she has initially learned throughout the years, starting with Mr. Mergler. For the connaisseurs, you will recognize works from Beethoven, Chopin and Schubert, among others.

Here are the links of the short movie, for those interested:

films.nfb.ca/mrmerglersgift/
www.nfb.ca/film/mr_merglers_gift/

And for techies:
- 1 overhead small octa
- 1 bare camera left pointing down to piano
- 1 bare camera right pointing down to piano

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