Rony Zakaria October 20, 2011

Temple Offering. Bali 2009

Rony Zakaria (b. 1984, Indonesia) is a documentary photographer based in Indonesia. He studied Mathematics and Computer Science in college before starting his career as a photographer. Rony has been recognized with awards and grants from the National Press Photographers Association ‘Best of Photojournalism’, the Mochtar Lubis Award and the United Nations FAO Indonesia Grant. He has worked with many leading publications including TIME Asia, Monocle, The New York Times, National Geographic Indonesia among others. He is a current fellow at Asian Center for Journalism, Philippines.

About the Photograph:

“Between 2008-2010 I visited many mountains and coastlines in Indonesia, mostly in Java and Bali. I was documenting the people and communities living on the slopes of the volcanoes and sea shores for a project called Men, Mountains and the Sea. In late 2009 I was in Bali and witnessed this ceremony, a ritual to cleanse bad spirits. Recently the Hindu temple was broken into by a thief, stealing ruby stones attached on a sacred masked stored in the temple. A Balinese man was holding a goose while circling the temple with others. They were performing a ritual before sacrificing the offerings which included dogs, chickens and geese. Later the offerings was taken along with the mask to be cleansed in the sea. Balinese believe evil spirits live in the sea and need to be released there.”