Verbalizing lapses in the brain

Cebu was lovely.  I was there for a week to celebrate Sinulog.  But I’m not posting festival photos.  I’m sure, with the hundreds of people present (and snapping photos) at the festival, you won’t miss out anything if I don’t post any.  I’m posting photos of Colon instead.  Colon is that market in Cebu where people are most scared to take their cellphones out because snatching was not theft but art.  Don’t get me wrong.  It is a lovely place to be however if you are one helluva-paranoid, I suggest you take your xanax before visiting the place.

People are not scared to get close (but HK people are winners in privacy invasion. They breathe in your neck without batting an eyelash–as if it’s the most natural thing to  do) and vendors likes to engage in cheerful conversations.

Karen was supposed to take me somewhere to see the parade but I tugged her to go back to the market after we passed by it.  I was skipping and singing–and yes, harassing people (they could always harass back) and even popped by the flower section of the market.  I may be the more feminine looking between the two of us (with my b/w geometric dress versus karen’s shorts and rubber shoes) but it is Karen who likes to adore and sniff effin flowers.  Note to everyone, if you send me flowers, I will tolerate it (I am, in many ways, polite) but I sure won’t be sending you a thank you note.

Send me broccoli instead (I can’t eat ice cream for now as I am in a rigid detox program –sucks right?) and I will scribble your name in my secret diary with an elephant drawing beside it.

Source of the River Sorgue, Fontaine de Vaucluse
is the biggest spring in France.

So maybe I am feeling nostalgic today.

I woke up to a foggy day.  Something to do with things being white and blurry that makes you recede back in your thoughts.  The mind is a dangerous place to explore on your own…It’s how people commit suicides without them meaning to –it’s as if they just got carried away only to find that they either come back limping for the rest or their lives of they give their earthly space for the living.  The earth is suffering from overpopulation too, they might as well do the right thing and fade away.

Not that I feel like taking my own life.  I care (well not enough anyway) neither for the growing population nor climate change, I am hanging on to dear life.  I am selfish like that.  And yes, I silently cuss and mutely ask for death when I walk on the effin cobblestones they have here in Lacoste but so does everybody.  If God was so obliging, he could have gotten rid of us, but pathological shallowness does not count as a reason to obliterate.

And so I limp my day back and forth, safely, sometimes listening to careless conversations from somebody else’s window, sometimes getting awed at the fanstastic view I wake up to everyday.  But me and my little bed, we have a relationship.  We do everything together.  I have this romantic craving to curl in it if I am not doing anything.  I don’t sleep.  I just lounge, sometimes with a book or with anything I can use as an excuse to be in it.

My close friends hate this.  They have a gnawing urge to go out sometimes while I am content to be in that little warm corner pretending to not pay attention to them even though I am watching them fidget.  Sometimes, their eyes would twitch.  It’s funny, how they try to find the words to tell me that they want to go out–and could we possibly go and meet people outside the characters of the book I am holding?  They also tend to pace, like a caged animal or a theater actress nervous to be on stage.  If I am feeling nice, I’d laugh and tell them we’d get ice cream, then we end up doing whatever it is they want to do.  They would gravitate towards watching a movie or dinner, sometimes, they aimlessly walk around the mall…and the Philippine malls are effin huge.  They make you go around in circles as well.  They convince you to pay for things you think you need.  Then you go home, look at your purchases and figured that only one or two makes sense.  The rest are nothing but beautiful packages.

I know, I know, I should be writing about Lacoste and my experiences here.  Well nothing much is happening, I think.  Not much to me anyway.  I think there were three girls from school who flew back to the States because their boyfriends got insecure and left them because they were in France??? And so they went back to America to soothe their partner’s nervous egos…I’m sure I am making it sound bad, I don’t know.  Maybe they got homesick and found the thick walls and cobblestones oppressive.  Maybe they found the medieval plumbing disgusting and the lack of people disconcerting.  Maybe they got scared of the loud silence (oh this one, I’m not making up!–  I would have to turn on my fan just to hear it whirrr otherwise the lack of noise is deafening).  No matter what their reason for leaving, they left early enough before anybody could scrutinize them properly.  Nobody will ever know now if they snore in their sleep or not.

Oh but the Lacoste off-campus program is deceiving too.  It makes you feel like you’re on vacation and then bam! they hit you with assignments enough to cripple you for life.  Hookay I am exaggerating. But it kinda feels that way sometimes.  One time, I got so stressed with homework that I got back into the habit of unconsciously scratching myself–this time in the head (the last time was my left hand).  Well, hookay, that one was my fault.  My professor asked for us to submit our project proposal.  I thought he meant the long proposal when he just wanted a one page paper stating what we want to do for the quarter.  I handed him a 7-page paper that starts with a title page and ends with a bibliography– accomplished in two days of frantic research and panic.  As a result, I ended up with a bloody infection that required me to visit the doctor in Bonnieux to which he shoved 4 different kinds of medicine for me to take for a week.  Infection is gone and in its place is a round bald spot (but hey I finished my homework –supposed to be due end of quarter *rolls eyes).

Someone save me, I am my own demise.

I’ve picked up my pen and watercolors again and here is what I just finished today.  I have not drawn for years and it feels liberating to be able to mix up some color again to create something nice and fun.

Photography has taken a big space in my life right now and it feels good to have a temporary  break from it.  To be able to create something with my hands and to be able to manually control the shades and palettes used…not that I’m great at controlling watercolor paint either *tee hee ^.^

Everything is relative.  My philosophy teachers in college made sure I understood that.  Like if I receive a D grade –it is not an isolated random act of hatred on their part but because I turned in a crappy paper because I was too lazy to read a two page-article that I know is hard enough that I would need three days to digest it, but dumbly skimmed it in three hours hoping for a strike of genius to hit me square in the forehead while my eyes glazed over the words used in sentences I cannot, for the life of me, figure the meaning out. Ha! I wonder what hallucinogenic drugs these people were taking that made them write such effin convoluted articles. Read the rest of this post »

Landscape of Emotions | Kalasangi, South Cotabato

I’ve always admired Manny Librodo’s captures for its skin tone and colors.  Lusted after it for years now.  It was with great regret that I did not attend his first workshop in Davao three years ago.  So when I was tagged in Facebook for his workshop in Kalasangi, I did not think twice to sign up.

WHAT WAS THE WORKSHOP LIKE?
It was a two day workshop of exposure to Librodo’s artistry and craft.  First day, we saw how meticulous he was with props, colors, and poses.  It was easy to look and observe how he casually but sternly directs his model, Karu, to give him expressions that he needs to complete his capture.  Manny Librodo , in his tall frame of maybe six feet, surprisingly did not tower the shoot.  He splendidly blended with other photographers that his authority did not distract me to take photos that I, in another master’s presence, would be too conscious to divulge in.  His simple instructions to assure everyone gets a good chance in photographing the model are these: One, main photographers get to choose their spots, the one next in line can be behind them, and everybody waiting for their turn should be behind the cordon. Two, everybody can take photos, as long as you follow number one.

After giving us our numbers and partners for the day, a little instruction was given and off we go to the location area.  It was only 8.30 am.

The first shoot was somewhere near the pine trees.  We stopped around 11:00 am for the lecture, where Librodo showed us his works. I silently skimmed my camera and compared my shots and angling.  I find it very helpful to have shot first without his input and then hear him lecture with my shots in my hand.

I was able to compare my takes and his, and was able to process what’s in his photo that was not in mine.  I gently noticed the variations in my capture and  what kind of angles that I usually take photos of and what angles are his favorite.  In this manner, I was able to segregate and realize what my style is from his and was able to effectively incorporate his technique to my style when we did the second shoot.  Meaning, I became conscious of the differences and I was able to recognize the strong points in my style made stronger by his creative input.

Had we done the lecture first, I would have ended up mimicking him making it harder for me to really digest the lesson as I try to merge it with my photography style.  I’d be less authentic and I’d be warped up in copying his style that I might just end up with bad (and unoriginal) takes.  Because most likely, I’d try to imitate his shots forgetting to take my personal photography preferences into consideration.  Needless to say, I was happy it did not go that way.

We had three different sets.  Fresh, Colorful, and Avant Garde.  My favorite was the second one because the light was abundant and the colors were really attractive. The make-up was well done and because I love taking photos of women’s faces, it was such a bliss for me to gaze upon a face colored magnificently in beautiful shades.  This was also the set where I was not really taking a lot of photos.  I was looking so much at the model and was busy silently scheming what kind of photos that I’d like to take that I took less photos than other photographers.

We stopped past lunchtime and resumed to take photographs for the third set around three pm after we had lunch.  We wrapped it all up around 5pm.

The second day was post processing.  I was not very confident with my temperamental lappy, which turned on to my surprise after a few struggles with the power button (I kinda sorta broke the button months before and never really got to have it fixed as Long-long found a way to turn it on by using a fork hehe–but enough of the laptop saga).  And yes, I got what I wanted…I learned the technique to get that skin tone and texture that I’ve been lusting for years mwahahahahaha!

Before I attended the Many Librodo Workshop, I attended Lito Sy’s Maximizing Light Workshop. It was a workshop on taking portraits in different light settings.  In this workshop, Lito Sy taught us to take great portraiture that even under harsh light, we’d still come up with very smooth and even skin tone.   I used this technique in Kalasangi and I enhanced my photos using Librodo’s creative style…and needless to say, my trip to South Cotabato was sooo worth it.

**Photography workshop was organized by Omar Gallinero and his creative team.  For those who are interested to attend Manny Librodo’s workshop, his next workshop will be in Davao City on March 28, 2011. And in Corregidor on May 7-8.

I recently attended Discover Davao Photography Workshop by Jojie Alcantara and Rhonson Ng last March 19-20.  During the workshop Rhonson Ng showcased his photography works and one shot that captivated me was this photo of a person, on a sunset , blowing bubbles.  I said to myself that I would get one and opportunity came when my little brother invited me– well not really invited, but rather mandated me to take photos of his son graduating in – ehem – kindergarten.

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