Visiting Photographers

Saturday, the 29th of this month, was a busy day.

Well the day before that was kinda hectic also. Jose Mari Chan – singer-songwriter and sugar seller – had a concert (slash comedy show) Friday night and a few of us Sideroom Photo Club members were there to cover the event. After the show, we had a few beers and a couple bowls of batchoy. Promptly, we went home around three in the morning.

After a few hours sleep, four club members – me, Charles Borja, Roy Navea and Atty. Libby Casilan – went early to the city wharf to greet a bus-full of photographers from Cebu City on the first fastcraft trip. Thirty of them, all carrying a bagful of photography gear for their Bohol Photo Tour.

The Photographers Club of Cebu is a Cebu-based photography club with a membership of almost 300 online members (with about a hundred active members). The 3-year old club was born out of the desire to teach and start a gathering of amateur, hobbyists and professional photographers.

PCC’s board is led by Ben Shan, Ryan Belleza, Ian Javier, Michol Sanchez, Don Dexter Antoni, William Yeh and Eric Saguin. Known as the most active club in Cebu, the group conducts monthly workshops, organizes fun shoots and does club contests.

Marian Jabines and Ghen Lumayag, both Boholanos, coordinated the event. Marian who is from Maribojoc but now works in Cebu, emphasized that the club’s motto of having a worry-free and fun-loving club is shown in the way PCC gathers for fun shoots and out-of-town soirees.

While in Bohol, they visited and photographed some of our world-class natural and cultural heritage sites like the Baclayon Church, Loboc Church, Loboc River, Albur Python, Bilar Man-made Forest and Sagbayan Peak.

Too bad though, they had to catch the last fastcraft to Cebu after their Bohol tour. Our morning welcome was well-received but we were basically still half-asleep that time.

Cross Training

Manny Pacquiao, the reigning no. 1 pound-for-pound boxer in the whole world, will be facing for the third time (and hopefully the last time) archenemy Juan Manuel Marquez on November 12, 2011  at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Pacman is currently training hard in California to finally seal the deal and erase all doubts about his previous fights with the Mexican boxer.

Manny’s team is amazing. Freddie Roach is one of the world’s best trainers and conditioning coach Alex Ariza certainly tops everyone in the biz also. Manny does conditioning work, strength training, speed mits and spars with a number of opponents. Not satisfied with the regular training regimens that most boxers do, he does uphill running, basketball and swimming.

Cross training is a great way to diversify the usual training routine and develop new skills for specific purposes that are not necessarily covered by the usual schedule. Running greatly improves Pacquiao’s stamina. His signature fleeting left overhead punch while ducking and sliding into and out of the opponents reach clearly mimics his cross-over moves in basketball. His agility in the court translates well on the ring.

Swimming is a perfect alternative to road work like what happened last year when a tropical typhoon ravaged through Baguio while in training. Ariza wove this discipline into Manny’s training regimen.

Purposeful Shooting

More often than not, a professional photographer takes pictures to produce photos for a client. He is paid to do things such as conceptualize a shoot, scout for models, book a location, hire a make-up artist, a hairstylist or a designer who could supply the outfit, dress or costume. He may have to set up big studio lights or compact flash units a la Strobist to light the scene.

Renting specialized lenses, if the photographer doesn’t have it, will surely be part of the budget and hiring a Photoshop “magician” if needed – which is almost always – when dealing with commercial clients. Most probably, directing skills are a must. Acting like a total nutcase is a plus too, to get better reactions from hardy subjects.

Annie Leibovitz, when tasked to take portraits of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, had two sets of equipment and likewise, two teams of assistants. While shooting on the first location, the second team would be setting up the second location and as soon as the first set finished, the first team would then rush on to the third location. And so on.

The professionals would have to do these things because they are being paid. Heck yeah, they enjoy their jobs, but, it is a job nonetheless. They are being paid to do these things.

Anticipation

Back in the day, when I was still learning photography using a film camera (my father’s Canon A1), buying a roll of film was pretty darn exhilarating. Well, first of all, ‘twas due to the fact that I could hardly afford any – I was a high school student then – and times when I had the chance to steal/beg/borrow some cash were rare. Once every four months or so, I went to the photo center in Alturas (it’s still there, I think) to buy a 36-roll Kodak or to BQ Arcade to grab some Fujifilms which were cheaper. Sometimes, I get my stash from Ramasola Superstudio which sold 36-shot Agfa films that had a couple or so extra frames at the end – such joy winding the frame to 38 or 40!

That was the bulk of my shooting then. No digital cameras yet. No cellphone cameras either. I shot film which regularly kicked me in the face with more than half a roll of garbage. But, I was not to be deterred. Or, maybe I was somehow deterred but stubbornly went back at it because I easily forget. But mostly, it was the thrill of shooting film though. The thrill in the hunt for the perfect capture.

See, during those times, photography classes and workshops were hard to come by. There were only a few people doing photography so I did not have photo buddies of any sort. My father taught me a few things and I had a single photography book to guide me through. Nothing more. So, most of my frames were estimates and experiments while trying to memorize the settings for different shooting conditions. One time, I had to list down the settings for every frame as a guide. But still, nobody really knew what was to finally come up on the negatives.

Street Photography Tips

According to Wikipedia, street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.

Street photography uses the techniques of straight photography in that it shows a pure vision of something, like holding up a mirror to society. Street photography often tends to be ironic and can be distanced from its subject matter, and often concentrates on a single human moment, caught at a decisive or poignant moment.

Now, walking down the street and shooting with a camera in tow is already street photography by any means. But, the challenge is to raise the bar and create art pieces that matter. For last Saturday’s Tagbilaran Group Worldwide Photowalk, we walked the streets of Tagbilaran from the plaza to the K of C wharf. For the local walkers, especially the first-timers, it was a real challenge to take.