mga pabuto ha intramuros

intramuros, during the closing night of wow philippines featuring mindanao, feb/09. (prof photographers, pls help: how to consciously shoot subjects in the dark such as fireworks? i have no idea what aperture to use, what shutter speed, etc etc... tapang shots la ini)

fotografia bpp

what to do? i almost forgot the password for this account. it has been a while since my last visit. not really sure if i would continue to blog or maybe a new past time is in the make.

i recently joined a forum for local photographers in leyte-samar. they are quite good in their craft. i am budding. but this is something i want to improve on. my recent buy of a nikon dslr is a start of something very exciting to happen in my bored professional life. maybe in the near future i will transcend from a hobbyist maniniyot to a professional one. i have seen their works, and really! what a work! they have great eyes. the photographer of my friend's wedding has really a very professional eye for angles and lights and colors. he was paid a sum. altho the market is highly competitive for this profession, but the joy of doing it is what really makes it worth it all.

now i am thinking of starting a blogphotography that will display my budding skills in this craft. it maybe rough for a starter, but really, going to the top of the ladder starts with the lowest level.

i will provide a link here if i have already opened a new site. meantime, i am savoring the moment of taking lots of pictures around.

here are samples:

street lights

taken in mall of asia, nov 08. happy holidays!

lights on

nov 08, glorietta mall

how many christmases most people have spent without knowing what really a christmas light is for. but for this christmas, may the light will be more than just a light to brighten up your christmas tree. may it be lighting on the dark christmases of before, and finally seeing the Light of all lights. may this christmas you shall all find Jesus Christ enlighten your hearts. a well-lighted christmas to everyone!

waiting

for whatevet this picture is worth, i consider this to be one of my story-teller shots. the emotion is not shown, but the dusk - combination of dark to fire orange colors - will tell us that there is something missing in us, something that we actually wait.

what is in his mind when he watches the sun sets? is it of waiting for a hopeful tomorrow? is it of remembering of a happy yesterday? whatever it is, sunset tells a story. for this particular moment, the setting of the sun will mean i will miss my today, and i will wait for whatever it is worth for the coming day.

sunset in ocean park

taken from the vantage point of ocean park, right after i had a tour inside. i was more amazed of the sunset than the schools of fish inside the ocean park. i paid PhP400, only to realize the sunset is more satisfying than the common, small live diorama of fish inside the park.

and by the way, this was taken using my new nikon d60, without flash, in landscape setting, point and shoot.

poster

let the tarpouline speak this time...

stuck

what else could i say? i am underemployed and i get no way out. or so it seems. heck with this department. really! i just couldn't pack up my bag and "'lock the door!'-(sir, wag po! wag po!)-'i said lock the door when you leave!'"

helplessness. pressured by boredom. my camera, the only companion that makes my professional life easier to bear, is broken. my laptop, that makes my personal life exciting, is obsolete, slow, big, uncharactered. my office - rants, rants, rants, rants to the 10th power.

i am stuck. simply put. the end.

more than words can say

going away

i oftentimes dreamed i was going away, but after receiving a txt msg from a friend one morning, i found myself in deep realization that no, i am not going away, and that i am now left alone.

the txt read: she has now tendered her resignation effective in one month. she will soon leave for the states (or txt to this effect).

i was speechless for a moment. why now? why her? other than her, all have now left to the other side of the pasture. and literally, yes, i am now left alone. the speechlessness was more because i am left alone than of them going away.

why are they going away? answers could vary from the simple to the complicated. now it dawned on me there must be something here that pushes them away. each one has his own reason of leaving. simple or complicated, that doesn't matter anymore. the fact is they have left, and are leaving.

so this boils down to me being left alone. shall i hold on to my dear philippines? shall i blind myself from the clamor of the greener pastures on the other side of the fence? but what if where i am now is greener than i thought? what if their stories, untold, speak of struggles in the rat race?

ambot. mauli la anay ako ha balay.

NEO Journey

i have watched the matrix trilogy, but never really had an understanding of it. except for the few days past when a video clip - part of the matrix movie - was used as a visual aid in the discussion on paradigm shift and transformational leadership during our national coaches training on the orientation course for the newly elected officials in los banos. a day after this training, i became part of the training management conducting the same thing to our provincial coaches from regions 6, 7 and 8 in cebu. this sort of echo training made me understood more the essence of that particular video clip. came the training for our field officers in our respective regions where we used again this material. the clip was all the more getting appreciated as we played it from one venue to another. now, my hands are full as most of our field offices invite me to be their resource person on this particular module on the conduct of the real orientation course. my hands are full in giving meaning to this clip, each discussion paved way for a deeper understanding of the message of that video clip.



and what is the video clip all about? and why, of all clips, this clip? first, here is a backgrounder to answer the why. we will tackle the dialogue of the clip, second.



NEO stands for newly elected officials. the term, perhaps an afterthought, refers also to the name of the main protagonist of the matrix movie. the framework of the orientation course for NEO (which the character in the movie exactly describes the general apprehension of our newly elected officials) focuses on the 4 S's (written down as 4's), and forms part of the ladder from from 2007-2010, one term for the elected officials, aptly termed as the NEO Journey. one s is one module about knowing the State of local governance. this module presents the situation of the local government unit, the jurisdiction of the NEO, i mean, officials. right after this, the discussion on knowing one self which tackles the leadership skills of the officials. the journey steps up to discuss the strategies or the future roadmap for development of the local government. and finally, (i forgot na).

(i can't finish. i will just publish this to remind me that i had once attempted to write about my insights of the work i handle... tinamad na, nakalimutan...bahala na si batman.)

noise of my hometown

biliran mountains

not so much of the place but of my childhood that i certainly feel nostalgic about when i visited my hometown very recently. fast rewind to twenty-five years past when i was very young, active, playful. we owned the street infront of our house from afternoon to late night, specially when the moon was up. i was usually the leader of one team playing patintero, hide and seek, and name the game, we played it. ours had very difficult game rules. it was more combative but fun nonetheless. even the hide and seek required the whole town as our playground, running to the mountain, to the cemetery, and yes to the beaches where we usually frolic after or before the game. the place we didnt take notice of, but the childhood lingers in all memories.



biliran beaches

twenty years hence, and almost 2 years of not coming back, i went home to see the place. i still got to see the beaches all around but i knew i was looking for something else. the only difference now is that i take notice of the place, take pictures of it, but i could no longer capture the noise and the laughter of the children who used to play around.

the place today, devoid of laughters, brings ooohhs and ahhhs. maybe because i feel i am no longer a part of it, but only a spectator of this natural exhibit. or maybe because as i age, i took another level of point of view. i tell you, i really have never seen my hometown as beautiful as this. as a child, you only take part of the game; as an adult, you now see things around as more than just a game.



tinago falls in biliran