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Finally on Tumblr

It’s official: I am finally on Tumblr! Can’t believe it took me three or so years to give in!

At the outset, you see, when I was looking for a blog platform to showcase/document my foray into photography and someone suggested Tumblr, I was quick to brush it off, saying, “I’m a writer, too, and I’ve got an awful lot to say—I simply can not do microblog, because what I need is to macroblog!”

As the years have gone by, though, I have come to realize that, hey, if I want to be serious about this whole photography thing, then I have to learn to how to separate that aspect from the writer part of me. Which brings us to right here and right now. Yes, this is the part of me that wants to pipe down!

Consider this Tumblr of mine as an exercise in restraint: I promise to upload only one to four photos per post, and to write fewer words. If you don’t like this new me, if you think STFU is not a good look on me, and if you like it better when I’m hyperventilating (let’s face it: some people like me better as a writer than a photographer), then you can always stick to this main blog of mine right here (or my “blogfolio,” as I like to call it) where it’s, like, 2,000 words per entry. To those who want to give this new me a chance, though, then, well, here it is: http://angelokangleon.tumblr.com/. Don’t forget to click on the Follow button!

For my first post I uploaded this photo that I took in Siargao Island some three months ago of a traveling surfer couple engaged to be married. I took this shot at five in the morning, just as the sun was about to rise, and they were heading out for an early morning surf. I know it’s kind of like an oxymoron, putting up this photo of two early birds to stand for my evidently late swoop into the Tumblr scene, but it speaks volumes about how I feel about new challenges: to borrow a line from Jon Kabat-Zinn, “You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.”

12-February-2013 | Categories: Personal | Tags: Announcements, Blogging, Personal, Tumblr | Leave A Comment »

Photographing the Photographer: Malou Pages

Malou Pages | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon | Hair and makeup by Owen Taboada

You’d think that after a certain period of being an apprentice you would, as a matter of course, move on to the next level, no questions asked. I’d begun my apprenticeship at Shutterfairy Photography in August 17, 2011, and so when August 17 of this year came I expected to receive an e-mail or letter from my boss/mentor Malou Pages declaring the end of my noviciate and telling me to get ready for the next chapter of my journey with her (like, as associate photographer, perhaps?). Alas, that e-mail or letter never came, and instead all I got from her that day was a comment on one of my posts on Instagram asking if I was ready to shoot her. Yes, her—I, the aspiring photographer, was going to shoot her, the established photographer, and that was going to serve as my “final exam” of sorts. “Are you being serious right now?” was my initial reaction, to which she made it very clear that, yes, she was being dead serious. Never one to recoil from a challenge, I, of course, said yes—but that isn’t to say the whole idea of it didn’t get my hands all clammy.

Most people will agree that photographers make for very challenging subjects—and even Malou herself has admitted this at one point or another, having been subjected to a similar situation in the past—because there will always be that tendency for them to espy (and call out) the things you’re doing badly, to dictate your creative process, and to measure your methods/output against their own style. Said differently, “photographing the photographer” (or, as Malou’s contemporary Josephine Sicad likes to put it, “shooting the shooter”) is not an activity for all tastes, and is definitely not for the faint-hearted. To me, it’s, like, ask me to shoot a band standing next to a fiercely burning fire and I’d gladly breeze through that without breaking out in a sweat, but ask me to take a picture of a photographer—and my boss at that!—and I might require a little towel to dab the beads in my forehead with. I mean, hello, I am fairly new to this craft, and even if some of my favorite anecdotes to draw inspiration from concern artists sitting for other artists (example: Irving Penn photographing Richard Avedon back in 1993), inspiration doesn’t always translate to howling courage.

Malou was quick to assure me she was going to be the opposite of everything that I’d had qualms about, promising to behave like the “ideal subject,” and to let me have my way with zero “backseat driving” from her. “Your equipment, your style of shooting, your style of editing,” she swore. But even with that concern out of the way, I still had another dilemma in my hands: How to approach this whole thing? My first impulse was to make it documentary-style—i.e., follow her around on a working day, and take photos of her as she took photos of actual clients. I scratched that, of course, once I realized that that would be like interfering with her business. I then considered approaching it like I would any other shoot—i.e., a styled session where I could dress her up and she could do some role-playing. But then I was afraid that that was going to make me focus more on the styling aspect and less on the photographing part, and that would be totally missing the point of this exercise, right?

Ultimately I decided to make it a personal style portrait session—her wearing pieces (up to 5 outfits) from her own closet, à la, well, personal style blogger, and tinkering with the stuff that she surrounds herself with. Perfect, right, since this would take styling out of the equation, and so I would have all the room in the world to mind my composition, white balance, aperture, and all that other good stuff!

I really like Malou’s style, although she would be the first to tell you that she doesn’t have any style to speak of, and that she’s “more of a tomboy” who would “rather go biking” than mind what she shoves into—or pulls out of—her closet. (When I came back from my summer vacation this year and I handed her a floral bodycon dress that I’d bought for her in California she gave me a funny look, like she would rather have received a Lance Armstrong book or something!) Funny how she doesn’t see that she can go on and on about having no stomach for shopping or clothing, but the way she puts herself together will always contradict her claim. On the day of the shoot I told her something to the effect of, “How could you say you have no style, when in fact you even have two?” There was the Malou that I saw everyday, whose deal was the warm-weather/California boho style—airy tunics or bright kaftans bloused up over vintage denim cut-offs, statement necklaces, and strappy flat sandals, plus the occasional straw sun hats, multicolor beach hobo bags, etc. And then now, after taking a peak in her closet and browsing through her picks for the shoot, it became evident that she had another side, one that had a thing for old, offbeat and fun pieces, like chunky grandmother cardigans, wool blend jackets in quirky floral patterns, bright colored skirts with applique detailing. After I deduced this she would admit that, yes, she did have a penchant for old stuff, and that she considered herself a kind of modern-vintage character born a couple of decades too late. So she was one of those who had developed her personal style subconsciously rather than studiously. Trust me when I say that’s the more interesting kind of personal style!

OK, I guess it’s time to brush the topic on clothes aside and back up a bit to how the actual exercise went. First of all, I appreciated that Malou kept her word that she was going to stay out of my hair and be really laissez-faire about the whole activity. This made me very happy because it allowed me to strike a balance between the techniques she had taught me over the past year and those I’d worked to develop on my own. It helped, too, that she turned out to be such a natural in front of the camera as she was behind it—I would later find out that she’d attended a couple of modeling workshops in her youth (it was the makeup artist Owen Taboada who disclosed this little tidbit, and I’m pretty sure Malou is going to hate me for putting this on record) and that she’d had some modeling experience (she was the original face for local accessories brand Gracie Q before Fretzel Buenconsejo came into the picture). I also loved how I finally got to see her home, and survey not just the stuff that she surrounded herself with but how she’d organized her workspace as well. This helped me a great deal because, as those close to me might know, I tend to be a first-class slob, and so seeing how Malou had arranged her tools, equipment, research material, and files forced me to reexamine my own system (or the lack of it), and made me realize that if you want to be serious about the business aspect of photography you’ve got to learn to de-clutter and get rid of the things you don’t need. (Some two weeks following this shoot I would find myself setting up a home office patterned after hers—with a little help from all that IKEA that I’d gotten from California, of course.)

But my absolute, absolute favorite part of this shoot was that I finally got to try my hand at shooting film. Yes, you read that right: I got to shoot film! In the days leading to this session, you see, Malou had asked me if there was anything more about this craft that I wanted to pursue, a “new thing” that I was dying to explore. I’d told her I could not think of anything except that “new old thing” called film—yes, I’d wanted to go back to basics, for the most part because I’d felt it was time to really tap into my father’s legacy. She’d proceeded to ask her film camera enthusiast friend Christian Enricuso to tag along with us, and that’s how I ended up with two cameras dangling from my neck that day: my DSLR, and a circa mid-‘80s Nikon FG-20 35mm (50mm f/1.4). I used a roll of Konica Centuria 400 film. I haven’t seen the outcome yet because that roll is still in Manila being developed as I am writing this, but I promise to post them on here if they turn out to be decent!

So now you understand how strongly I feel about this woman as my mentor. As much as she’s intent on instilling in me some of that signature Shutterfairy stamp, she is also keen on encouraging me to define my own style and carve my own path. I don’t say this enough, but everyday I thank my lucky stars for that one fateful day last year that she decided to take me under her wing (I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but did you know that, before Malou came along, a lot of doors were slammed on my face?). I have learned so much from her, and grown so much under her tutelage. To say that I owe so much to her is an understatement. Right now, at this point in my career, I’m not exactly sure where I’m headed—but at least I know I’m going somewhere, and that’s thanks to her. If you ask me now if I’ve worked out some sort of long-term plan, I’d say no. But I can tell you that I’d love to stay with Malou (as associate or assistant or whatever you call it) for the next 2-3 years—that is, granting that I pass this test!

Maria Luisa “Malou” Pages | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon in Cebu City, Cebu, on September 23, 2012 | Hair and makeup by Owen Taboada | Special thanks to Christian and Mela Enricuso

20-October-2012 | Categories: Personal, Personal Style, Portraits | Tags: Accessories, Apprenticeship, Books, California Style, Cebu, Details, Friends, Garden, Gracie Q, Home, Interiors, Kitchen, Malou Pages, Owen Taboada, Personal, Personal Style, Photographer, Photography, Portraits, Resort Wear, Shutterfairy, Still Life, Sting | 3 Comments »

Let’s Hear it for America’s Sweetheart: Baby Mikaela

Baby Mikaela | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon

There is one thing I love more than California, and that’s my little niece Mikaela, who happens to be, well, made in California! To say that I’ve adored her since she was born is kind of an understatement—truth is, I’ve been head over heels with her even before she could pop out of her mommy’s belly! My sister and I were taking a stroll down the Venice Beach Boardwalk one excruciatingly hot afternoon in the summer of 2010, and that was when she first announced to me that she was preggo. So there I was soaking up the scenery, thinking of Tom Kapinos’s Californication because this was the very place where many of my favorite scenes from that series had been shot, especially that one scene some 8 minutes into the second episode of the fourth season where Madeleine Martin’s character little Becca Moody plays her electric guitar at the Boardwalk for some cash—and here was my sister telling me she was expecting, and that it was probably going to be a girl! Suddenly my mind was running wild with thoughts of what this baby girl was going to turn out like. Was she going to be the quintessential California girl, à la Lauren Conrad—you know, a sucker for the beach, adored dogs, obsessed with shopping and makeup, and with a megawatt smile that looked like it had a thousand summers written on it? That would be nice, I thought. But then as I walked further down the Boardwalk, past the Schwarzenegger types pumping iron at the Muscle Beach Gym, past the turban-sporting electric guitarist on roller skates, past the ageing hipsters taking a nap under palm trees (or holding up placards that advertised “Shitty Advice for $1!”), I realized that deep inside I didn’t want a California sweetheart for a niece—I wanted one who was hardcore, someone who got mad guitar skills, just like Becca Moody! And so for months that was the stuff my daydreams were made of: my niece playing her electric guitar for passersby at the Boardwalk—and it would be a song with a killer guitar solo, too, like, say, “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd, or “Yellow Ledbetter” by Pearl Jam—and me sitting on the bench behind her with a proud, arrogant smile on my face. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

What I failed to consider was that babies don’t just turn into guitar-toting teenagers overnight—they actually have to go through a phase called, well, babyhood, where all they like to do is coo, crawl, and cuddle. (Hey, we’ve all had poor sense of time at one point or another, right? LOL!) Not to say that this disappointed me, of course. When I returned to L.A. this year and saw this little munchkin waiting for me at the airport, my heart melted all the same. I mean, come on, look at those chubby cheeks! And those big, round eyes! And those plump legs! She had just turned one, so her coos were a little loud now, and she was slowly transitioning from crawling to walking now—the cuddling part didn’t come until a little later (she would not come anywhere near me during the first couple of days), but when it did I found it very hard to stop!

I thought it was kind of cute how she didn’t have a lot of hair on her yet. At first I found this a little alarming, but then my mom told us that that had been us, too—”It wasn’t until you turned 2 or so that you began to grow a full head of hair.” It was just amusing and awkward at the same time how people would come up to Mikee (that’s how we call her) and say, “What an adorable little boy!” and so I had to explain, every single time, that “She’s actually a girl!” It didn’t help that, every time we tied a bow around her head or made her wear headbands with girly girl detail (rosettes, lace trimmings, etc.), she’d only put them on for a few minutes before taking them off and tearing them apart! Such a monster when it comes to those head adornments, I kid you not—she thinks of them as the enemy!

She’s also a monster when it comes to French fries, and by that I mean she devours them like there is no tomorrow. Some folks’ brows are going to raise, because you really aren’t supposed to expose babies to that kind of stuff, but can you help it if it’s the only thing that makes their eyes light up and their mouths water? I’m not sure how it started, but we were at the Hollywood In-N-Out one afternoon, and while the rest of us were busy surreptitiously taking photos of Derek Hough (of Dancing with the Stars) and Maria Menounos (of Extra, formerly of Access Hollywood), she remained oblivious to the celluloid-crazy world around her and carried on with her fries, leaving none for us! Yes, she is very, very territorial about them—she will gladly share everything else, like her Apple Jacks or her Pinkberry or her Wetzel’s Pretzels, but she will never share her fries, thank you very much!

But dislike of headbands and French fry hoarding aside, she really was just a sweet little thing. Funny that she turned out to be the California sweetheart that I had initially wanted to take a pass on, yet I was enjoying it immensely. For one, I love that she turned out to be a water baby, squealing with delight every time we brought her to the beach, or some pool, or even if it was just the bathtub—and she could rock the bikini like no other, too! She also had a soft spot for dogs, and this one time she stopped a middle-aged dog walker dead in his tracks on the corner of Hollywood and N Orange so she could make friends with his chichi Chihuahuas. She also loved it whenever we took her shopping—which was 80% of the time—and even if she wasn’t old enough yet to choose her own clothes (of course) she was always willing to try on every single thing we picked for her, and she enjoyed rummaging through our shopping bags, too. Another thing she loved rummaging through was her mom’s makeup kit—my sister would leave the whole thing unattended, and five minutes later there’s lipstick and eyeliner and compact powder all over the place! And then there’s her smile—I don’t really need to describe it because you can see it in these photos, but if I really must then I will need to borrow a line from that one Collective Soul song: it’s got that “sunshine bright-eyed California cotton candy taste!”

So I never got the Becca Moody that I’d hoped for, and instead I got a little Lauren Conrad, but that’s totally fine. The Becca Moody phase will manifest sooner or later. Happy to report that her musical inclination is starting to kick in already! Just a couple of weeks back my brother-in-law (her dad) expressed that he wanted to get her a present, but was torn between a puppy and a guitar—he’d seen how much she adored dogs (the Chihuahua encounter in Hollywood), but could not discount the fact that every time he picked up his guitar she would stare dreamily and even try her hand at strumming. This problem was solved a few days later when he got her a guitar in the shape of a hound dog (by B. Toys) from Target! And speaking of Target, I must not discredit the fact that, during my last few days in L.A. and we would find ourselves in a Target to shop for camera accessories, she would gravitate towards the musical instruments department, pick up some drum sticks, and just start banging away at every surface in sight (we even got into trouble at one of the Culver City Targets when the salesperson approached us and asked us to “please watch your baby because these are very expensive drum sticks”)! And when we took her to Griffith Park so she could play in the grass she was quick to pick up two dead twigs the size and shape of, well, drum sticks, and that was all she played with the whole time! And when we took her for a stroll down the Venice Beach Boardwalk she was first to spot this miniature piano (that belonged to a piano-playing Malti-Poo called Coco), and rushing towards the thing was the first time she’s ever ran so fast in her life!

So now I don’t know: Is she going to grow up to be a guitarist, or a drummer, or a keyboardist? One thing is for sure: She is going to go places. And she is going to rock people’s worlds. I mean, she’s already got a head start—she’s already rocking mine!

Mikaela K. Arradaza | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Los Angeles, CA, on April 2012, and in San Diego, CA, and Van Nuys, CA, on May 2012

25-August-2012 | Categories: Family, Personal, Portraits, Travel | Tags: Babies, Beach, Becca Moody, California, California Girls, California Style, Californication, Children, Dogs, Family, Father, Getty, Guitar, Hollywood, Lake Balboa, Lauren Conrad, Life, Los Angeles, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mother, Mother and Daughter, Pearl Jam, Personal, Photography, Pinkberry, Pool, Portraits, San Diego, Santa Monica, Santa Monica Pier, Travel, Van Nuys, Venice, Venice Beach, Venice Beach Boardwalk | 1 Comment »

Work Horses and Show Ponies: My Month in Instagrams | November 2011

Only a few months into this whole blogging thing, and already I’ve been a delinquent. Yes, some of you might have noticed that I didn’t have a journal entry for last month (October). And I’d promised I was going to do it every month! Shame. I can assure you, though, that it wasn’t out of plain laziness. If anything, it was quite the opposite. It was a very busy month at the office, and so I had to give two hundred percent at work.

Yes, as few of you might know, I do have a 9 to 5. This whole photography and styling thing, I only do during weekends. It’s tough having two jobs. My friends ridicule me for always being busy: “Two jobs, but no social life? No thanks!” one of them quipped at one point. But I love being busy! It kind of gets boring—nay, nauseating—when I’m idle. And it’s not even about the money, too. Always I tell, say, my brother, you know, that money is good, but at the end of the day it’s good old-fashioned hard work that makes you to sleep like a baby at night.

I am in love with both jobs. A little too much, in fact, that I had no trouble saying goodbye to my social life in favor of them! But between the two I have to prioritize my 9 to 5—it is, after all, what puts food on the table, and it is what sends my brother to school everyday. So you have to forgive me if I become delinquent in updating this blog right here—it only means everything’s in full swing at my other job. I may be a show pony when it comes to photo shoots and all, but I’m a work horse when it comes to my 9 to 5.

* * * * * * * * *

Speaking of ponies and horses, I was lucky enough to be part of two shoots that involved a couple of them this month.

My mentors Malou Pages-Solomon (of Shutterfairy Photography, where I am currently apprenticing) and Paul and Charisse Calo (of Calography) were commissioned to do the engagement photos of Carl Bual and RJ Serafin (01-05), and they asked me to style the thing. Of course, I said yes! Especially after they mentioned horses.

The groom-to-be is a veterinary sales rep, and grew up in Bukidnon surrounded by horses, and so it was only natural that he would ask for an equine-related concept for their engagement shoot. The original plan was to do it in some ranch in his hometown of Bukidnon, but it couldn’t be done due to scheduling conflicts. And so we had to settle for something closer. Thankfully, Carl’s veterinarian friend Marlo Causin (02, 03), who also happens to be an equestrian, allowed us to shoot at his fishing pond in Barili (some hour and a half southwest of Cebu City) which also served as a ranch that housed three of his babies: Sabina (01, 02), named such because she looked like a sabino-white, her daughter Venus, and a strapping stallion named Bravo (03).

We could only use Sabina for the photos because Venus was kind of in a foul mood and thus had to be kept at bay, and Bravo had a nasty cut in his right pastern, but that was alright because Sabina by herself was already very, um, majestic. I made the couple wear shades of pink for their set with Sabina to make them stand out (01), only to realize later that the mare would end up being the star anyway no matter what I made them wear—what a beauty! So well-behaved, too, as if she knew she was being photographed.

I also loved how there was horse fencing along the road that lead to the Causin property (04, 05). I had to ask for a set to be done in that area, to make everything look authentic! Save for the palm trees, the whole scene took me back to my visits to Kentucky in the last couple of years. Nice to know there’s charming country roads in this part of the world!

Malou has not uploaded her photos from that session yet, but, here, you may view Paul and Charisse’s set by visiting the Calography Facebook page.

The second shoot that involved horses was something that I did solo. After more than a year of promising my cousin Amanda Liok that I was going to visit her in her new home in Palompon, Leyte, and photograph her and her daughter and, well, their horses, I finally got around to do it last Sunday, November 27 (06-10).

Up until that day, I’d never seen their horses in the flesh, although I’d memorized their names by heart. Always I’d been obsessed with horse names, and Amanda had given some of the prettiest to her, um, brood: Salsa (08), Moondance (10), Chili, Ginger, Ola, Baila and Sol (09). It was so nice to be finally able to put faces to these charming names!

It was Moondance that we used for the shoot because she was the most mild-mannered of them all that day. Amanda also favored her because she knew her strawberry roan would look gorgeous in pictures, and was she right—against the vegetation her chestnut coat looked dazzling.

For her daughter Mia’s photos Amanda chose to include the newest addition to their family: an adorable miniature horse named Iris (06). All these years she’d been wanting to get Mia a mini, and it had finally materialized! (Actually, the little girl got not just one but two minis—the other was named Barrack, although we couldn’t take pictures of him because he was in a funk that day).

Can you imagine how much fun this all was for me? For months I’d been praying to be able to photograph horses up close, and here I was actually doing it! Right now, of course, the photos are still in my hard drive, waiting to be retouched, but I’m hoping to find the time to put a preview up real soon! I’m telling you, it’s good stuff—made the two-hour bus ride from Ormoc to Palompon all worth it!

Out-of-town shoots are not uncommon these days. The beginning of this month (actually, the tail end of last month) saw us driving 3 ½ hours up north to Bogo/Medellin for Rey Dauz and Sheryl Guzman’s engagement session (11-13). By us, I mean the Shutterfairy team and the Calography team, plus the videographer Marlowe Guinto and his staff. I love it when it’s a big crew working on a project. Before that day, you see, I’d been made to believe that “the fewer people, the better, because that way you get to keep your focus,” but that day happened and I realized it was so much funner if you were part of a big group—to quote Alicia Silverstone’s Cher from Clueless, “But by the end of the day it was, like, the more the merrier!” Of course, there were a couple of minor setbacks, like Malou’s bright yellow camera bag stepping into your frame, or Marlowe’s heavy duty equipment, or Paul’s head (LOL), but those sorts of things only make the whole thing amusing, you know? And there’s nothing like the free-flowing exchange of ideas that takes place when you’re having fun—I mean, when the mood is too serious, everyone shuts their mouths, and so very little sharing happens. It was definitely a plus having a videographer around, ‘cause then I got to learn a lot of new things, like different angles that I’d never thought were possible, and panning, and the value of moving around.

Rey and Sheryl’s theme was “vintage travel.” Which was why we had to go all the way to Bogo/Medellin, because they had rail tracks and vintage locomotives (albeit in various states of disrepair) over there (once owned by an institution called Bogo-Medellin Milling Company). The inspiration was this one portfolio that Annie Leibovitz did for the February 2010 issue of American Vogue called “Brief Encounter,” starring Diddy and the model Natalia Vodianova, inspired by the rapper’s most recent album Last Train to Paris.

This session was special to me because this was the first time I tried my hand at set decorating—I was able to set up a vanity table diorama (13), among others, in the middle of a grassy field. It was also the first time I went all out in sourcing for props. It took me a good two weeks pulling strings for me to get my hands on vintage suitcases. I was beginning to run out of hope when I remembered to consider the novelty shop Casa Mella, and with one phone call they let me borrow these gorgeous wooden suitcases (11)!

This train/railroad set (12) was just the first of many that we had in our boards. We couldn’t fit everything into one session, so we would have a second session a week later to accommodate the rest of the sets—a boating/shipyard set, an airfield/hangar set (14), and a scooter set (15).

I didn’t take a lot of pictures during these sessions because I was busy with the clothes and the props, but, here, feel free to visit the Shutterfairy blogsite to view Malou’s photos from both sessions (click here for her photos from the first session, and here for photos from the second), or the Calography Facebook page for Paul’s set. (I haven’t seen Marlowe’s video yet, but I’ll be sure to share it with you guys as soon as he makes it available online).

Remember Mickey (17), my friend Meyen’s 14-year-old niece who likes to tag along during shoots ‘cause she’s an aspiring makeup artist and stylist (I mentioned her in a previous post a couple of months back)? Well, she’s back. This time to help me style a Lapu-Lapu-based couple’s (Chito and Tuesday Delavin, 18) engagement shoot, particularly in the legwear and footwear department (19)—she grew up in a household where leggings and stockings and shoes were aplenty, so her advice proved to be invaluable. In between sets she would also help scour the locations for great spots, and observe the makeup artist Owen Taboada and the hairstylist Nan Castillo as they did their magic (20).

Mickey wasn’t the only kid who was with us that day. Malou’s 10-year-old son Matthieu also tagged along (16), and his mom handed him an instant camera so he could try his hand at taking pictures. I think it’s a great idea to have young ones with you during shoots, even if it’s just every once in a while. It helps spark their creativity, encourages them to use the right side of their brain. You don’t necessarily have to force them to like what you’re doing and/or to follow your footsteps—Matthieu here, for example, is bent on becoming a pilot one day, and Malou has no plans of taking that dream away from him. Still, it doesn’t hurt to instill in them a little sense of creativity—I mean, one way or another, at some point in their lives, they’re going to be faced with a life-changing decision that involves visuals, or images, or aesthetics, and that’s when a little imagination will come in handy. Of course, infinitely more important is showing them the value of hard work, and of being passionate about your job, whether it entails creativity or not.

I myself am starting to take my youngest brother with me to shoots, and I plan to do the same to my nieces and my nephews as they get older. I feel like it’s my obligation to pass it on, you know? I mean, when I was a kid I would go with my grandfather as he taught music to other kids, and look at what that has done for me!

This month I had the pleasure of working with the entrepreneur/designer Grace Querickiol-Nigel (22) when I was commissioned to style a catalog shoot for her fashion accessories line Gracie Q. She is set to participate in a trade show in Europe some time next year, you see, and it turns out you can only bring so much to those kinds of things, so she decided to produce a catalog so she could take everything with her without having to take everything, if you get what I mean. Aside from that, she’d also been toying with the idea of redesigning the Gracie Q website, and so new photos would come in very handy. Malou was photographing, and it was her who’d recommended me to Grace, perhaps leveraging the catalog work that I’d done for Mark Tenchavez’s shoe line Shandar.

During our first meeting Grace made it very clear that she didn’t want the whole thing to look high fashion-y or cutting-edge or anything like that. She wanted something that was “modern but simple, and world-class but still very much Cebuano.” In the past, whenever she’d sold her pieces to buyers abroad, she’d found herself telling them the stories behind each piece, and not just about the design and the materials, but also about what had inspired her to create them. “And almost always it’s something that’s uniquely Cebuano, like the [hanging rice], for example,” she added. This was what she wanted her catalog to accomplish: “I want it to be able to tell stories—I want something that showcases not just the products, but the beauty of Cebuanos and the beauty of the island of Cebu, as well.” And, as if sensing that Malou and I needed a little help in wrapping our heads around the concept, she handed us a copy of Tour du Monde (21), German outdoor furniture brand DEDON’s bible-thick catalog showcasing their 2011 collections, featuring photographs (by Oliver Helbig and Rainer Hosch) of their stuff shot in different places around the globe—from Chang Mai to Shompole, Cape Town to Seychelles—and with different faces.

Products, people, places—turned out to be a very effective formula, and it resulted in a visual smorgasbord that told very compelling stories. Unquestionably more refreshing than the usual still life (i.e., just products). What I’d done for Shandar had almost achieved this, with Mark’s shoes worn by the women that had inspired him to create them—but the place element had taken a backseat, and most of the time only served as secondary character. This time, Malou and I made a mental note to make the place element ride shotgun with the rest of the ingredients. It got us real excited thinking up locations for the shoot. Not that Grace asked for an “around the world” sort of thing a la the DEDON catalog—she wanted to keep it local for now. Which, if you come to think of it, isn’t exactly a bad thing—sometimes it’s fun when you get to play tourist in your own hometown.

I love it when books, magazines, catalogs—or just about any form of publication—are handed to me by clients in an effort to communicate their vision. In my line of work, keeping a compendium of references is critical, but between my left and right hands I can only amass so much, so I appreciate it when others take the time out to contribute. Mood boards are funner to build when there are more than two hands working on them.

Another inspiring slab that fell on my lap courtesy of Grace was Coming Home (23), a limited edition coffee table book featuring the work that the legendary American fashion photographer/filmmaker Bruce Weber did for, well, a DEDON ad campaign last year. What an astonishingly exquisite collection of images! The premise was simple: Build a multi-storey tree house among the branches of a giant tree, fill it with beautiful DEDON masterpieces, some personal effects and furnishings (from the photographer’s own home), couples, dancing boys, dancing girls, even a garage rock band, and you have the makings of a perfect outdoor living fantasy. I’d been a huge follower of Weber’s work, and for more than 10 years images from his 1999 book The Chop Suey Club had haunted me. Now that I have discovered Coming Home I guess I am covered for the next 10 years!

Needless to say, Coming Home quickly became one of my inspirations for one of the two solo shoots I did this month (by solo shoot, I mean just me, not as assistant to Malou). Five days ago I packed my bags for Ormoc to photograph an interior decorator/retailer and her two daughters (24-28). Lots of fun because this client had a lot of tasteful little bric-a-brac lying around her house, it was like being lost in a quaint little home furnishings consignment shop! For once, I didn’t have to borrow from someone else’s house (or take anything from our own house—well, except for my Diana Vreeland book). Of course, I didn’t build a tree house—I mean, hey, I don’t have a staff the size of Bruce Weber’s (in fact, I was a one-man team that day: not only did I shoot, I styled and set decorated too)! But I was happy with the al fresco living room that I was able to rustle up (25, 26, 28)—carved hardwood settee, patchwork quilt for that touch of shabby chic, plump pillows in needlepoint and damask, a porcelain doll, couple of watercolor paintings, and an antique-looking chest to serve as coffee table! Rita Konig would approve! The whole thing was so charming and so inviting that I wanted to stop shooting and, you know, just sit there. I can’t wait to start editing the photos!

Of the seven shoots I worked on this past month (5 as assistant, 2 solo), I have to say the one we did for Gracie Q was the highlight of them all. Why, you ask? Well, because it reunited me with someone I’d grown up with in this field but had somehow lost touch with in recent years.

Yes, the model Fretzel Buenconsejo (29-38) and I go way back. It was I who’d cast her for her first ever shoot, back in 1999, and she remembered this: “It was a chocolate brown jersey dress by Oj Hofer that you made me wear,” she recounted. Since then she had become part of some of the more important shoots of my career, including that one assignment with the great Wig Tysmans for the now-defunct CeBu! Magazine that I keep on talking about on here (30, 31)—one of the photos from that session (30) even made it to the book Filipina: A Tribute to the Filipino Woman (published 2004)!

She would move to Manila sometime in the mid-2000s, and it was there that her modeling career would really take off—suddenly she was appearing in high-profile ad campaigns for Nescafé, Gatorade, McDonald’s, Paradise Mango Rum Liqueur, and Pampers, among others. I remember standing at the Buendia station and then getting goosebumps as the MRT train pulled up in front of me—there she was, larger than life, with a cup of coffee against her face, plastered on the side of the train. I’d always known she would make it big, but not this big, you know?

She has since moved back to Cebu, and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. When the Gracie Q team said that they wanted “a very Filipina face” to grace their catalog, I knew I had to look no further. I arranged a sit down dinner for them to meet Fretzel, and they were floored. Grace and Malou said, almost in unison, that she was exactly what they’d been looking for.

She did me proud on the day of the shoot, too (29, 32)! She was work horse and show pony at the exact same time: arrived 30 minutes prior to call time, moved at a bullet-like pace, breezed through 15 or 16 outfits in less than 7 hours, helped with the styling, treaded barefoot on dirty pavements and rough terrain—all this while managing to tell jokes to keep the mood light. Grace and Malou fell absolutely in love with her professionalism, her attitude towards work, and her goofiness. So wonderful to see that, despite the places she’d been to in her career, she was still the same hard-working, down-to-earth girl I’d worked with more than a decade ago.

* * * * * * * * *

Only a slightly bigger treat than being reunited with Fretzel was what came after the shoot wrapped: a thank you card from Grace (33). How very sporadic it is to get a thank you card these days! Well, of course, I get a lot of thank you e-mails, or thank you phone calls—but I must say nothing beats the feeling of receiving a thank you in stationery, and in long hand. This makes Grace a very rare creature in the industry these days. The very essence of a classy modern woman.

30-November-2011 | Categories: Journal, Personal | Tags: Accessories, Airfield, Apprenticeship, Barili, Behind-the-Scenes, Blogging, Bogo, Books, Bruce Weber, Calography, Catalog, Cebu, Cebu Designers, Cebu Models, Children, Commercial, Couples, DEDON, Engagements, Family, Fretzel Buenconsejo, Grace Querickiol, Gracie Q, Hangar, Horses, Instagram, Kentucky, Lapu-Lapu, Life, Malou Pages, Mark Tenchavez, Marlowe Guinto, Medellin, Mood Board, Mother and Daughter, Ormoc, Owen Taboada, Palompon, Personal, Photography, Railroad, Rita Konig, Road Trip, Set Decorating, Shandar, Shutterfairy, Train | 9 Comments »

My Friends Are Prettier Than Yours

Seems like only yesterday that they said goodbye. Sharon was first to leave, for California, to settle down. And then Kathleen, for Doha, as if predicting that Arabian Nights chic was going to be the next big thing (true enough, the Persian Gulf would prove to be an irresistible lure to the Sex and the City girls a few years later). And then Anne, to go to New York, to fulfill her rock ‘n’ roll dreams of seeing Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, among others, live (and at the exact same time that The City had to steal Whitney Port from The Hills). And then Aya and Katrina, for Singapore. And then Meyen, for Manila. Swear to God, it got to a point where I was pretty much convinced that everyone’s favorite thing to do was walking out of my life!

But, as it turns out, there is some beauty in goodbye. I mean, without it, what would happen to send-off parties? Not to mention, of course, the infinitely funner homecoming parties—you know, for when they come back, because they always come back. And those things, they could get pretty crazy. Distance and time have a way of making you grow wiser, get smarter—but apparently not wise and smart enough to make you forget that there was a time you once played it dumb and made some pretty foolish choices with the friends you grew up with! Those are what make the ecstatic high points of reunions—the ability to look back on the stupid things that you did together, and to just laugh about it, even toast to it!

I was lucky enough to have been part of such rowdiness just a couple of days back, when Sharon, Kathleen, Anne, Aya, Katrina and Meyen came back. Yes, by some weird twist of fate and wicked stroke of luck, all of them came back at the exact same time! Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined this would happen! Like, might as well ask the world to stop turning, or the sun to stop shining!

Well, no, I wasn’t about to ask for the sun to stop shining, especially since a boating trip was in order. Yes, that was all they’d asked for, and perhaps appropriately. You know, to prove that “you can take the girl away from the island, but you can’t take the island away from the girl.” Well, that, plus they’d wanted an excuse to scamper around in their new kaftans and bikinis and maillots (for these girls are nothing without their “cruise clothes” and swimwear; Meyen alone has a swimwear closet that could dress an entire island). So a private banca was commandeered, a huge lechón from Lapu-Lapu’s finest (not disclosing; they’re our best-kept secret) and buckets of freshly cooked crustaceans were reeled in, bottles cling-clanged as coolers were dragged, and off we sailed to what could possibly be the most riotous excursion of our adult lives!

As far as “girls gone wild” go, this bunch are pretty awe-inspiring. Don’t let the first couple of minutes fool you—they’re gonna come off as mellow and all, appear deep thought-thinking and pensive, even start talking about how their lives in their new cities have “changed” them. When they do this, they’re really just sleepy. Aya knew better, of course, and all she had to do was bring out the mixologist in her, whipping up some pretty lethal concoctions, and in no time everyone showed their true colors! I’m telling you, these girls, they make talking about the past real fun. My jaws threatened to lock when we remembered, for example, the ex-crush who’d thought he was too cool for school—until he’d fallen into a manhole! Or, the countless brawls with girls who dressed bad! And even our own embarrassing errors in fashion judgment! Listening to ourselves exchange stories of yesteryears was like listening to a really good mixtape—you know, when, to borrow a line from Butch Walker, “even all the bad songs ain’t so bad.” Whether or not these mistakes had helped shape our lives, I couldn’t tell—but they sure had a hand in shaping our laughs, and that’s all that mattered.

Of course, nearly as entertaining as listening to them talk was photographing them. These girls had been “camwhores” even before that term had been invented, so to not anticipate a photoshoot to be inserted into the agenda would be rather foolish. It was hard not to gasp or almost drop my camera as their silly, unchoreographed antics spread out before my eyes. Luckily for them, because I love them to bits and pieces (and how else are you supposed to?), I’m gonna pretend I never took those, um, unbecoming shots, and just post the more adorable ones on here. Not saving anything for blackmail purposes, either—I would never, ever, do that to these girls.

Funny thing, ‘cause just a couple of weeks ago one of my detractors wrote something about how lucky she was because she was “always surrounded by friends,” insinuating that I was a loser ‘cause I was almost always on my own these days. Well, now you know, my dear, that the only reason I’m not “surrounded by friends” 24/7 is because my real friends don’t live here anymore—they are citizens of the world! Yes, they may not be with me all the time, but at least on the days that they are they make sure they do something stylish with me. And at least they’re confident enough to whip out their bikinis when it’s time to hit the beach (which is not something you can say about your girlfriends, what with their penchant for wetsuits and men’s surf jams even when they’re just hitting the pool). Said differently: At least my friends don’t have anything to hide! We embrace each other’s imperfections, and even have the guts to laugh them off! So, by all means, keep on hating! I would understand.

In related news, my friends are also prettier than yours. I mean, look: Sharon looks like Jessica Alba, Katrina looks like Audrina Patridge, Meyen looks like Katie Holmes, and Anne is a dead ringer for Olivia Palermo. Of course, I do not think I need to tell you who I look like. Everybody knows I am Lauren Conrad. LMFAO.

Photographed by Angelo Kangleon in Pandanon Island, Bohol, and the Cebu Strait on October 16, 2011

1-November-2011 | Categories: Personal, Portraits | Tags: Beach, Cebu, Friends, Lapu-Lapu, Life, Nautical, Pandanon Island, Personal, Photography, Portraits, Resort Wear, Sangria, Yoga, Yogi | 13 Comments »

The September Issues: My Month in Instagrams | September 2011

Never jump to conclusions. That’s one of the more important things I learned this past month. When my first two sittings (back in August) as apprentice at Shutterfairy Photography had turned out to be engagement sessions, you see, I’d thought, Oh, this is all we’re going to be doing, couples and stuff. (Not that I’d thought that was going to be a bad thing.) So imagine my surprise when Shutterfairy’s Malou “Mai” Pages-Solomon sent me a Tweet saying she was going to be photographing the singer/songwriter Cattski Espina (01, 03) for the album cover of her forthcoming release, and that she wanted me to do the styling! I was literally jumping up and down! This was massive for me, in part because it was an opportunity to think outside the engagements/couples box, but for the most part because it was a chance to rekindle old ties. Yes, Cattski and I, although that may sound to some like an unlikely combination, we go waaay back. (Don’t you just love how it’s a small world, after all? Mai is best friends with former Y101 anchorwoman Imma Fermin-Ongteco, who is best friends with Cattski; and both Imma and Cattski are best friends with one of my best friends Deo Urquiaga, who was responsible for hooking me up with this apprenticeship gig with Mai. Did I just use “best friends” four times in one sentence?)

It’s true for me, so I just assume it’s true for everyone: It’s nice to be reunited with someone you haven’t been in touch with for a long, long time. When Cattksi and I sat down for a pre-shoot meeting of sorts at the tail end of August, it turned out to be 70% catching up and laughing, and only 30% business—hey, I hadn’t seen this girl in 7 years! Funny thing, really, ‘cause it’s not like she had moved to a different place, or it was me who’d moved away—we’d been living in the same city the whole time, thank you very much. But, well, as she puts it now, “life got in the way.” I love that this woman has amazing recall of all level of detail—makes missing out a whole lot easier to endure. I was floored, for example, when she remembered how, back when I’d been editor for the (now-defunct) local counterculture e-zine Neoground.com, I’d proceeded to declare her “my own personal PJ Harvey.”

Well, now it looked like all she was going to be was my own personal dress up doll (she’s not going to like that term, though)! At first I’d thought that she wouldn’t be open to the idea of styling—I mean, it’s a fact that not a lot of local musicians are into that kind of thing (heaven knows the kinds of beef I got into when I tried to style musicians who were either performers or presenters during the first two installments of the San Miguel Beer Cebu Music Awards some ten years back). To my amazement, she was 100% down for it—and she pretty much gave me the free hand, too!

I’m sure most of you have seen Mai’s photos already (if you haven’t yet, click here). Killer, right? I’m tempted to talk right here and right now about how I came up with the styling, but I think it’s wiser to save it for when I am to post my own shots from that session (yes, I took a couple of photos, too). At least judging from Mai’s photos (and these behind-the-scenes shots) you will be able to tell that, yes, my inspiration was pretty much “ebony and ivory” (02), and that I used a couple of mannish items, like a Protacio smoking jacket (01). My own Bed Stü work boots (05) even made a special guest appearance!

Some of you might be wondering where we did the shoot. If that edifice behind Cattski in photo number (04) doesn’t look familiar, well, I can tell you now that is actually the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu. Yes, we shot at the hotel’s Grand Balcony, from where we had an amazing view of the Cebu skyline below. This choice of location was Cattski’s idea, after she’d been here one day at twilight and she’d had an epiphany of sorts while staring at the city as it had changed its face with every passing minute until it had become dusk. She told me the story of how, from that moment on, she’d become more contemplative, resulting in an inexhaustible kind of songwriting. That explained how it had only taken her less than two years to come up with this new album, her fourth (quite a feat, considering that it had taken her a good six years between her second and her third). It’s amazing to realize that inspiration can come from the places you least expect to find it—in this case, home.

I’m excited about this album. I’m excited to find out which of Mai’s photos are gonna end up in the album cover. Most of all, I’m excited for Cattski, and her fans. The inspiration maybe dusk, but I can only predict a bright outcome.

Those closest to me can attest that, yes, I do have “girl crushes.” For example, I am kind of crazy about Love Marie Ongpauco a.k.a. Heart Evangelista—for six or so months now, my Sunday evenings have been spent sitting in front of the computer and staring at her face in the short film Muse (created by actor-turned-director Albert Martinez for the designer Inno Sotto’s 30th anniversary gala). I am also kind of turned on by Zoë Kravitz, or at least by her role in Californication. And then, of course, there is Lauren Conrad. But, you see, these are only my fairly recent obsessions. The one that’s been the object of my fantasies for more than 15 years now is none other than the great Kate Moss.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had an obsession as intense as my fascination with the truly amazing creature that is Katherine Moss. I remember using her Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Obsession for Men ads as wallpaper for my dorm room. While everyone else was lusting after Leonardo DiCaprio, I was decidedly all about Johnny Depp, just because he was dating Ms. Moss at the time. I remember hating on my cousin, just because he was the first to have a bottle of CK One, and to my mind that had brought him closer to Kate than I ever could be. When I was 17 or 18 and could not afford a coffee table book, I would spend 2-3 hours every Sunday sprawled on the floor of my favorite bookstore, ceremoniously devouring every single page of Kate: The Kate Moss Book—or just staring at the cover and praying, “Oh, God, please make me have those freckles!”

Yes, my girl friends were going crazy penciling on fake moles above their lips, in an attempt to copy Cindy Crawford’s “beauty mark,” but I was all about freckles. I guess that was what endeared Kate to me. She was perfectly imperfect. I had had enough of the impossible smiles, the vermillion lips, the unattainable curves, the outlandish gowns, the whimsical locations. Escapism was good, but didn’t quite go well with the soundtrack of the times. Grunge was on a rise like a bat out of hell, and it needed a muse to conquer the world with. The world needed, as how British curator Iwona Blazwick put it, “a truth located in the artless, the unstaged, the semiconscious, the sexually indeterminate and the pubescent.” And Kate gave us that kind of truth. Here was someone who was not afraid to slap on a silly grin, to not put makeup on, to eschew technical perfection, to misplace optimism, and to date Edward Scissorhands. In other words, she made fashion real and attainable. For you and for me. And that’s why she will always have a special place in my heart.

So please forgive me when I say that this month I broke a very important promise that I had made to myself—that is, the promise to buy more books, and no more magazines. I’d pretty much been able to stay true to that promise in the last couple of months, but I just had to make an exception this month. Why? Well, ‘cause it’s Kate Moss on the cover of the September issue of American Vogue (06)! And this isn’t just your regular Kate Moss cover—it comes with an exclusive coverage of her wedding to The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince!

I almost died for this copy. I went to Fully Booked on September 5, and they told me they didn’t have it yet. I came back September 11, still they didn’t have it. I was on the verge of throwing a bitch fit when I returned on September 15 and was told they still didn’t have it! How ridiculous is that, right? In the U.S. the September issues hit the newsstands and bookstores as early as mid-August! Ah, the pain of living in a…I shouldn’t finish that statement. On my fourth trip back to the bookstore on September 18, the girl behind the counter gave me a nasty look. “We [already] have the September issue, but you can’t have it yet—we haven’t unboxed any of our new arrivals.” Can you believe her? I was going to cause a scene, but thankfully this guy named Abner came to the rescue and offered to unbox the new magazines right there and then so I could have my copy. Thanks, Abner! You are super awesome!

Anyway, back to the magazine: I don’t think I’ve ever held a September issue that’s this heavy (then again, I haven’t seen the past 4 or so September issues, so what do I know). Perhaps the reason this one feels particularly weighty is ‘cause the cover story was written by my favorite writer Hamish Bowles, and shot by my favorite photographer Mario Testino. The beauty of Bowles’s text, alongside Testino’s dazzling images—I do not think a more formidable pairing exists. Their genius certainly gave justice to a truly momentous, one-of-a-kind event. I even love the little inset photo of wedding guest Naomi Campbell, and the funny little anecdote that tells of Naomi being fashionably late and Kate saying to her, “Trying to upstage me, bitch?”—to me, a celebration of friendship like no other.

My favorite photo of all, I must say, is that of Kate surrounded by her young bridesmaids, flower girls and pageboys, although I am also inexplicably drawn to this one black-and-white number of her and her daughter Lila Grace (07), done in the style of the ‘90s Calvin Klein campaigns that propelled Kate to superstardom. Needless to say, I am going to be putting these photos up a pedestal. Who knows? I might be asked to do a mother-and-daughter session one day—at least I will have something to look back on and slap against the mood board when that day comes.

* * * * * * * * *

Another September issue I just had to get my hands on was that of local fashion glossy Preview (actress Anne Curtis on the cover, making her the celebrity with the most Preview covers to date, this one being her sixth). I’d always been a fan of the magazine, but I kind of stopped reading them in 2007, or 2008—can’t remember why exactly. The reason I picked up this issue, though, is’ cause my photo of Shandar’s Urgello wedges (inspired by Gayle Urgello) made it to their Fashion News section (08), to supplement a sidebar on Shandar designer Mark Tenchavez. Nothing huge, really—it’s all but a little 3.25” x 2”—but it’s huge to me considering this might be the only time a photo by me is ever going to appear in a fashion magazine. They forgot to credit me, though, not even in marginalia, but that’s alright. I’m just happy that Manila editors are starting to take notice of deign talent from this part of the country. I am so proud of Mark and of where he’s taken his little shoe line—everyone’s buzzin’ about Shandar Shoes, and it’s only been three months since he launched the whole thing! I told him to be prepared—now that Preview has ran a story on him, other fashion/lifestyle magazines are bound to follow suit.

* * * * * * * * *

Of course, my itsy-bitsy photo is not the only reason I’ll be holding on to this copy of Preview for years to come—I also am happy to have stumbled upon this glorious print-on-print editorial called “Fly on the Wall” (09), photographed by Jeanne Young, modeled by Sanya Smith (Pepe Smith’s daughter), and styled by the fabulous Daryl Chang. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from the ever-innovative Chang: brave, fierce, and game-changing. She is always first to do what other stylists are too afraid of doing. I, for one, have been too timid to try mixing patterns. God knows how many times I’ve toyed with the idea, but I always end up dropping it cold turkey before I can even get to work. I keep thinking about rules, you see—like, should I mind the scales and sizes of the prints, so that teeny florals should be matched with, say, large stripes? or, should I stick to just two different patterns in one outfit? This editorial by Chang, though, has made me realize that I shouldn’t be caring about rules when it comes to this department. The very reason we do print-on-print is because we want to make a bold statement, right? And so, in the end, it really is a fearless approach—and a little bit of rule-breaking—that is going to do the trick. Total mood board material right here!

* * * * * * * * *

From “girl crushes” we move on to “man crushes.” Laugh all you want, but, yes, I squealed like a little girl when I saw this photo of my “man crush” Carlos Concepcion (with Georgina Wilson) in the BOB of this month’s Preview (10). It’s not even that kind of crush, OK? Carlos here, although most of you might know this already, is a designer and a stylist, and has done a lot of great work for The Philippine Star’s youth lifestyle section, as well as for glossy titles like Garage and Preview Men. I admire him for the most part because of what he’s doing to change the way we look at men’s fashion in this part of the world—it takes a whole lot of balls to do what he’s doing. I mean, cropped jackets and above-the-knee skirts on men? I’m sorry, but he’s my hero. So it’s not that kind of crush, but maybe it’s the Single White Female kind of crush—i.e., I wanna be him. I don’t know if I am ever going to meet him in this lifetime, but if, by some wicked stroke of luck, I end up bumping into him, you know I am going to drop to my knees and plant a kiss on his feet. And I don’t even have a foot fetish. But I do have a shoe fetish, and the guy has some seriously pretty shoes, so there.

* * * * * * * * *

Meanwhile, there was that one September issue I wished I could have but just couldn’t—I’m talking about that of French Vogue. Huge deal to me because this was Emmanuelle Alt’s first September issue as editor-in-chief, after she’d supplanted Carine Roitfeld in February of this year. Of course, I’d always adored Roitfeld (I’d give her a bear hug if I could); just that it had gotten to a point when I could no longer get her—I mean, she’d let Tom Ford guest edit the title’s December 2010/January 2011 issue, and allowed him to use 10-years-old girls and a geriatric couple as models! I’d read somewhere that Alt, who’d been under Roitfeld’s French Vogue wing as fashion director since 2000, was so far doing a great job breathing new life into the title by taking things more lightly, injecting a little “humor” and “positivity” into the scene—and what better way to see this for myself, right, than by getting her first September issue? But, alas, French Vogue wasn’t something you could easily find in this part of the world—hey, it had even taken three weeks for the American edition to hit our bookstores! Luckily, I was able to get my hands on a copy at the designer Protacio’s atelier a couple of days ago! My jaw dropped as I was scanning his magazine shelf and—wham!—there it was, Charlotte Casiraghi on the cover staring back at me with smoky eyes (11). “How is it even possible that you have this?” I asked Protacio as I clutched the copy against my chest. Although, of course, I’d known a long time he was fond of collecting all sorts of hard-to-find foreign titles. (Exactly the reason why I love visiting his shop in the first place, because it’s like a little fashion library to me—he even has a copy of the aforementioned controversial Tom Ford-edited December 2010/January 2011 issue [see same Instagram, 11, behind the Charlotte Casiraghi, with Ford and Daphne Groeneveld on the cover].) Indeed, Alt’s French Vogue was a joy to flip through. Still had that requisite European quirkiness and modernism, but presented in a whole new light—blithe, if you will, and not at all menacing. Just like that, two or so of the inside photos of Casiraghi went straight up my mental mood board. Yes, mes amis, it is that relatable now, even if you don’t speak or understand a word of French (I know I don’t)! Thank you, Protacio, for sharing! I will be back for more inspiration soon!

So I woke up in the afternoon (hey, I work afternoons/evenings Mondays to Fridays) of September 8 wondering why this blog was getting so many hits. Turned out earlier that day Mai had written a little something about me in her own blog (12), and that’s where all the traffic had come from! What a surprise! I know her site has a good number of followers; such an honor for some of them to be trickling down into mine. Now I gotta pay attention to what I’m posting on here, because I don’t just represent me now, I also represent Shutterfairy. And so I have to behave accordingly and try not to do anything foolish.

She wrote about how she doesn’t want to call me her apprentice, but, really, that is all I am for now. Until such a time that I’m confident enough with my own skills and with my application of all the things I’m learning from her, I don’t mind being the guy in the backseat, taking orders, taking down notes, even talking to clients pre-shoot. Which brings us to the something extra that I do for Shutterfairy: Mai, via the same blog post, has made it official that I am resident stylist. Which means that, yes, if you need help in that department, I’m the guy who’s going to sit down with you (Mai may or may not be present during these meetings) days or weeks before your session in front of the camera to help you out with your clothes and accessories (and even makeup and props).

So, OK, if it was the Shutterfairy blogsite that led you here, let me break it down for you: If you’re interested in a styled session with the Shutterfairy (engagement, portrait, family, etc.), simply shoot her an e-mail at mail@shutterfairy.net. She will then contact you to discuss scheduling and all the other high-level stuff. After which your contact details will be forwarded to me, and that’s how I get in touch with you for the pre-shoot styling/mood board development meeting. At the meeting, you will simply need to let me in on your, um, theme, your desired shooting locations, etc., and I will then proceed to build a mood board or two for you. I do house calls, too, just so you know—easier for me to look at items that you already have.

By the way, because I’m only apprenticing for right now, there is no separate fee for the styling. You just have to pay for the photo session, and that’s about it. So, what are you waiting for? Contact Shutterfairy now and let’s get to work!

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Some three weeks after I’d found out that my photo of Shandar’s Urgello shoes made it to this month’s issue of Preview, their “online counterpart” StyleBible.ph put up a gallery of my shots of all the other shoes from the shoe line’s premier collection (13). This gallery, and the accompanying article, marks the addition of Shandar designer Mark Tenchavez to StyleBible.ph’s venerable Designer Directory and Designer Spotlight, placing him side-by-side with the likes of such Filipino design greats as JC Buendia, Patrice Ramos-Diaz, Jun Escario and others. Click here to view the gallery, and here to read the article.

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Exactly how long can one be obsessed with something? In my case, more than 20 years. Yes, the video for Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” turned 21-years-old this past month (14). Shot in September of 1990, I watch it today and it looks like it was only shot yesterday. Thank you, Herb Ritts, for leaving us with such an amazing piece of art.

My fourth sitting with the Shutterfairy was for another non-couple session (15-19). When Mai told me she was going to be photographing a single mother of two boys, I said, OK, I gotta see this—I’d always wondered how she did things like this, you see, where there were children involved. Up to that point the only children I’d ever gotten myself to photograph were my own nieces and nephews, and even with that sort of kindred I’d never been able to make them behave during sittings.

Turned out that the reason Mai was so good at it was ‘cause, well, she was a mother herself! She knew how to command kids’ attention in a manner that was very natural, not at all domineering, and had little to no bribery involved. I am never going to be a mother (duh), but I picked up one thing that could come in handy when I am to photograph kids/families in the future: When doing pre-shoot research, don’t focus too much on the adults; take the time out to learn what the kids love doing and figure out a way to inject it into the sitting. For this shoot right here, Mai had found out that the little boy loved to play soccer, so when she saw that he was a little uncomfortable standing in front of the camera she asked him to take out the soccer ball and just have fun with it. Needless to say, the resulting photos were gorgeous. Click here to see Mai’s set from that session.

Couple of other things I learned that day:

I know it all sounds very elementary, but, honestly, these are things I never learned from other photographers that I talked to, or read about in basic photography books. Indeed, there are some aspects of the craft that you can grasp faster as an assistant.

It was my mom’s 52nd birthday last September 10. Because she lives in Ormoc with my grandfather (her father) and our youngest, I hadn’t had the chance to celebrate her birthday with her for the past seven or so years. I didn’t want to miss out anymore, so I asked her to come to Cebu and blow this year’s candles here with us (20, 24).

I love the birthday cake I got her (20, 21). I wanted something light and sort of pastel, and with candy-colored sprinkles, like the gorgeous lemon cupcakes that I’d fallen in love with at Magnolia Bakery some two years back—no chocolate, no devil’s food, nothing dark. It was my friend Rhia de Pablo who made it (she makes the meanest, moistest chiffon cake, and she got the lemon meringue buttercream right). You can’t see it, but the top of the cake says, “YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO.”

We also had habichuelas con chorizo de Bilbao (22). Earlier in the month I’d engaged in an online discussion with my good friend Kenneth Enecio, who comes from a family of cooks (mom Laura is a pâtissier, brother Eric is a chef), and the venerable Annabelle Tan-Amor (mom of my former co-editor Ina Amor, so I really should be calling her Tita) about what makes a good habichuelas. While Annabelle liked hers authentic, and served in stoneware (puchero de barro, if you will?) “to keep it piping hot,” Kenneth liked to be “adventurous,” adding in stuff like a little ginger and saffron “to give it a little color and aroma,” and even a little potatoes. In the end, we’d come to an agreement that, however you liked it, it was a must to add Bilbao chorizo. Now, I do not know where to get the authentic ones (and I wish I knew how to track down the guy who used to cook all these delish kinds of Spanish dishes for the Sunday brunches of my childhood at my great-grandmother’s), but the canned ones by Purefoods are pretty decent and are a good substitute. Whatever you do, do not use Macao chorizo. Someone I know updated his Facebook status once (or was it twice) to say he was “cooking habichuelas con chorizo de Macao.” OK, first of all, you do not say “chorizo de Macao” with the “de” because we all know that is not a type of Spanish sausage. Second of all, what was he thinking? I don’t know where Macao chorizos are from, but just in case they’re Chinese, then I do not need to explain how it’s all levels of wrong to add them to a Spanish dish. It’s like you’re watching, say, Abre los ojos and then it’s Zhang Ziyi as Sofía instead of Penelope Cruz!

Anyways, backpedaling to my mom’s birthday, yes, I made California-style sangria, too (23)! Sangria is really easy to make. For a recipe, see below.

So, OK, I know I’ve been going around telling people I no longer drink, and that’s still true. What I mean when I say I no longer drink is I no longer go out to bars or clubs and drown myself in shots, shots, shots, shots. It just isn’t for me anymore—the idea of walking around drunk (or, worse, of losing an entire morning the next day due to any level of hangover) frightens me now. I mean, sure, I’d still go to these places, if it were the only way to, say, catch up with long-lost friends; but the only thing you’ll ever see me cradling is a glass of Coke, or maybe orange juice.

I do allow myself the occasional relapse, though. And by occasional I mean a maximum of once a month, and only when there’s something extra special to celebrate. And nothing hardcore. Just sangria. And it has to be sangria made by me (29). That way I don’t get to leave the house and I’m not tipsy or anything in public.

I fell in love with sangria some two years back, when my best friend Chiklet dragged me to the Do-Over, and at the time the whole thing was still held at Crane’s Hollywood Tavern down El Centro where they made sangria of the killer kind. I’d had sangria before, but it wasn’t until here that I was, like, Whoa! Since then it became sort of my official California drink, and everywhere we went—Bar Centro by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel, Lizarran in the O.C.—that was all we got.

Well, Bar Centro’s version is really of the blanca kind—still pretty good, but I like my sangria blood red (precisely why it’s called such, no?), never mind if it threatens to leave a deadly stain or two in your clothes.

If you wanna try making your own sangria, here’s how:

Take a large carafe and mix 1 bottle of dry red wine, half a cup of brandy, half a cup of triple sec, and a thirds of a cup of simple syrup (1 part sugar to 1 part water).
Juice one large orange, two or three medium-sized lemons, and add the juices to the wine mixture.
You will need another orange (28) and another two or three lemons (25), all sliced into rounds; float these slices into the mixture. You may also use lime, but the green kind of bothers me.
Most people like to add maraschino cherries, but I go for seedless grapes instead (27).
Let the whole thing sit in the fridge overnight.
Add two cups of tonic water/club soda (26) just before serving—you know, for that fizzy effect.
Enjoy!

If you’re pressed for time, you may skip the wine/brandy/triple sec/simple syrup mixture and go for ready-to-drink bottled sangria. Doesn’t taste as good, though, I have to warn you. Boone’s Sangria is pretty decent (and already fizzy so you can skip adding the club soda, too). Whatever you do, stay away from that brand called Eva.

Why are all the Nikkis leaving me for California? First it was my sister, three years ago, to marry her long-time boyfriend. Now it was Nikki Paden (31), just three days ago, to be with her father. She’d called me up beginning of this month to tell me that she was kind of sad about leaving, and so I’d asked her to join me at the Cattski album cover shoot (01-05) so she could help me style—and so I could convince her that it wasn’t exactly a bad thing to be moving to California. We’d spent hours after the shoot just talking about Melrose and Malibu, PCH and Pinkberry, etc. Apparently it worked because during the days leading to her flight out and as she was packing she was nothing but stoked—had reservations about leaving some of her stuff behind, but I told her, hey, a new city called for new style, so, by all means, yes, “leave it all behind.”

It got me kind of depressed looking at photos of her layover in HKG. Happy for her, of course (in just a couple of hours she was going to be hopping off the plane at LAX!), but sad for me. You see, if things had gone as planned, I would’ve been on the same planes and layovers. Yes, I was supposed to leave for L.A. three days ago. Well, the original plan had been for me to leave in May, but then I’d been asked to move the trip to September. And then September came, and they asked me to move it again. So hard to go on vacation these days!

Up to this day I am still in all sorts of pain. I’m looking at all these photos from happier times and all I can think of is, man, the things I’d give up to, say, be riding shotgun through the Santa Monica Freeway right now (34). Or, to be standing before Chris Burden’s Urban Light outside LACMA (32). Or, to be watching the sunset from Venice Beach (33).

Of course, all those are nothing compared to the biggest thing I am missing out on—I’m talking about the chance to see and hold my adorable niece Mikee (30) while she is still a baby. I mean, look at her! Isn’t she a darling? If things had gone as planned, she would’ve been in my arms by now.

My friends are, like, “It’s not the end of the world! Just go early next year!” If I have to be honest, though, I’m actually sick of people telling me that. Yes, I know, it’s so easy to move vacation dates, rebook airline tickets, etc. But has it ever occurred to them you can’t stop a child from growing? By January or February she’s going to start growing milk teeth, and that’s when babies start to lose weight. I’m sorry, but it would’ve been so much nicer to hold her now while she still has 10,000 creases in her arms and legs, you know? But, oh, well, it sucks to be me!

One of the most unexpected blasts of fresh air to hit Cebu this past month? A fashion school opening!

Fashion Institute of Design and Arts (FIDA) Cebu opened its doors last September 16, and I was lucky to have been there to witness the unveiling. It was the designer Dexter Alazas (36) who’d asked me to be his plus one, and, of course, I’d had to say yes—this was not your ordinary fashion event; this was a milestone!

Full disclosure: Growing up, I’d always wanted to go to design school. I’d had no plans of becoming a fashion designer, of course, but always I’d been curious about how things work in the creative industries. But, alas, my family had had other plans for me—and even if I’d had it my way there was no way it could’ve happened because nothing had been accessible at the time. So I’d ended up in med school, although the dream had never died—I’d catch myself fantasizing about going to Central Saint Martins in London, or Parsons in New York. Meeting people like, say, Stephanie dela Cruz, my art director at Zee Quarterly and a Parsons alum, had only fanned the flames—hearing their stories about their amazing teachers and internships, and, most importantly, seeing how precise and innovative they were with their work, their astounding facility of visuals, and their acumen in creative decision-making, I’d become more appreciative of design education.

At the launch, which also served as an open house/mixer to give prospective students a chance to ask questions about the school’s programs and curriculums, I remember looking at the young ones and saying to Dexter, “How lucky are these kids! They get to be of college age at a time when schools like this are becoming accessible!”

I got to have a brief chat with FIDA founder and headmistress Christine Funda (38), an alum of Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in L.A., and it was refreshing to hear her talk more passion than business. Always she’d considered Cebuano design talent to be topnotch, and for years it had been her dream to make quality fashion and design education available to Cebuanos. “I was just talking to a [prospective student] who said she’d always wanted to study fashion design, but she just couldn’t leave Cebu to go to Manila because she has to raise her young family,” she shared. It gave her utmost joy knowing she was bridging the gap between people like this and their dreams.

Nestled in the heart of the city, at the corner of Escario and Clavano (42), a stone’s throw away from Dexter Alazas’s atelier, FIDA’s pilot programs of study include a 2-year Diploma in Fashion Design and Merchandising, a 1-year Diploma in Fashion Design and Apparel Tech, a 6-month Certificate in Fashion Merchandising, a 3-month Introduction to Fashion Business short course. They’ve also enlisted an impressive lineup to comprise the faculty: Project Runway Philippines season one first runner-up Philipp Tampus (39) is set to teach industry sewing five hours a week; and Lord Maturan (41), winner of the Third Cebu Young Designers Competition, is set to teach fashion illustration. Ms. Munda stated they also intend to offer short courses in advanced makeup, hairstyling, fashion styling, and, yes, fashion photography. (Do I foresee a tie-up between the school and Dexter’s Stylissimo Sessions in the future?)

My stylist friend Mikey Sanchez, upon seeing these photos of mine from the launch, asked if I had plans of taking some classes. I wish I could! I wanted to ask Ms. Munda about one of their 1-year programs, but I had to stop myself. Not that I am not open to the idea of going back to school—it’s just that I have so much going on right now. But, who knows, in two or three years’ time, perhaps? Right now I’m just happy to have walked the halls that are to house the dreams of the future stars of Cebu fashion.

30-September-2011 | Categories: Journal, Personal | Tags: 90s, Accessories, Album Cover, Apprenticeship, Babies, Behind-the-Scenes, Blogging, Cakes, California, Carlos Concepcion, Catalog, Cattski, Cebu, Cebu Designers, Cebu Music, Children, Christine Munda, Commercial, Daryl Chang, Dexter Alazas, Do-Over, Emmanuelle Alt, Entertaining, Family, Fashion School, FIDA Cebu, Grunge, Grunge Fashion, Hamish Bowles, Herb Ritts, Instagram, Janet Jackson, Jun Escario, Kate Moss, Life, Lord Maturan, Los Angeles, Magnolia Bakery, Malou Pages, Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, Mario Testino, Mark Tenchavez, Mood Board, Mother, Neoground.com, Nineties, Personal, Philipp Tampus, Photography, Preview Magazine, Project Runway Philippines, Protacio Empaces, Rock, Sangria, Santa Monica, Shandar, Shoes, Shutterfairy, Stephanie dela Cruz, StyleBible.ph | 1 Comment »

Empire State of, Um, Month: My Month in Instagrams | August 2011

Am I boring you yet? You know, with all these journal-type posts? That question, of course, goes to those who know me personally—friend or foe, I must say—because I just know that a couple of brows are going to raise, and they’d be, like, “Tell us something we don’t know,” or, “Show us something we haven’t seen!”

I can’t exactly blame them. It’s no secret that when I put up this blog a little over two months ago I declared that I was going to be using it as a vehicle for my foray into photography. An inconvenient truth, as it turns out now, but it’s the truth anyhow. It’s only natural that people are expecting this to be more of a photoblog than anything else.

But you gotta cut me some slack. One thing I can tell you right now is that, being new to this whole blogging thing and all (I’m not even sure if I can spell blogosphere correctly—did I get that right?), I’m not sure if it comes with a set of rules, and if it does, where to get a reliable handbook. You must remember that, in the beginning, I wasn’t exactly sold to the idea of blogging. I’d never thought I’d live to see the day that I would be putting up a blogsite. For eons my friends had been badgering me to start a blog, and always I’d rebuffed them by saying, “I’m a writer, not a blogger.” My contention was that to those of us who had seen our work on newsprint or some other sort of physical medium a little over a hundred times pre-Internet era, the idea of intangibility was frightening, not to mention the notion of self-publishing a little unceremonious, slapdash and narcissistic. And so when that day came when I had to erect this whole thing, I didn’t have a single clue what I was doing, much less if I was doing it right. Safe to say that until this very day I’m still clueless! Which is why I rely on friends who’ve been doing this a long time to give me some direction (one of them my writer friend Debbie Rojonan, who maintains two blogs—including Balaki Ko, which aims to encourage penning poetry in the vernacular—and whose Tweet from months ago that said “Where in the social media engagement pyramid are you? Still a lurker? Move up. Share, comment, produce, curate. It’s the information age” was what had given me that much needed thrust).

To cut to the chase, the consensus was that, no matter what your reasons for putting up a blog, it has to show the world your character, a dose of your personality, and ensure that your identity doesn’t get “lost in translation” in the process. This tenet is especially crucial for someone like me, a startup photographer, because it offers people who have not met me or heard of me yet a window into what it’s going to be like working with me. I’ve decided the best way to do it is through snippets from my journal—not only does this give my audience a peek into my progress in learning the craft, it also shows what inspires me, in the hopes of perhaps catching the eye of those who are inspired by the same things, and of eventually paving the way to winning collaborations.

That being said, you’re going to have to get used to this, because from here on out, at least once a month, this is what you’re going to be getting from me. What it is is I’ve elected to tap into Instagram to help me carry this whole thing out. (I’m sure all of you know what Instagram is, but to those of you who don’t, it’s the free app for iPhones that lets you take snapshots, apply filters to them, and then instantly share them with friends.) And so, you see, it’s not going to be all writing, and somehow I’ve managed to figure out a way to carry on in the same lane! Instant photos are still photos, whether you like it or not!

One day I will eventually get to that point where I get to do what most seasoned photographers do—that is, just STFU, post the damn photos and then let them do the talking. Wouldn’t that be nice? But I know I got an awful lot of work to do before I can turn up at such plateau. In the meantime, I’m just glad I can share with you the little things that make this work in progress an exciting one and this journey worth the while.

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The beginning of this month saw me getting the New York blues. I was browsing through my good friend Kathleen’s Facebook photo album of her trip to the City that Never Sleeps, feeling sorry that I wasn’t in any of the pictures. I was supposed to go with her on this trip, you see. We’d talked about it for a year—the plan was for me to leave for L.A. late May, and then meet her in the Big Apple a month later—but, as luck would have it, her vacations dates were approved, while mine got the red light. To say that I wallowed in pain would be saying the least. My brother would find me crouched in the breakfast nook, just staring blankly at my I Heart NY keychain and the MTA subway/commuter railroad map (01) from my first trip. I even hung my $3 I Heart NY souvenir shirt in my bedroom window (06) just so I could stare at it before falling asleep. It all turned out fine, though, because while I couldn’t go to New York, it was New York that found its way to me!

Yes, my friend Anne Alegrado and her family (04, 05), my gracious hosts during my first NY trip some two years back, came to Cebu for a quick vacation early this month. It was nice to be within hugging distance with her again, and with her daughter Ellis (02). Remember Ellis from my previous post? The little girl who took me to the Brooklyn Bridge—or, as she called it, “the bridge from the princess movie” (she was talking about Enchanted)? Yes, that girl. She remembers me as “the uncle who slept in our couch and walked me to school couple of times.” Last time I saw her she was into, well, “princess movies” and mathematics. Now she’s into ballet and yoga (03). Proud mother Anne was happy to report that the little girl was learning to play the guitar, too! “[Her Dad] Jovi bought her a Beatles guitar chord songbook,” Anne shared, and then Ellis wasted no time in singing to me her favorite Beatles song, “Here Comes the Sun” from Abbey Road (07). She knew all the words, and sang in perfect tune! It makes me happy seeing my friends’ kids grow up like this—I’m never going to have kids of my own, so moments like this are the closest I can get to feeling like a proud parent. Our reunion had to be cut short ‘cause they had lots of other people to see—and plus they couldn’t stay long in Cebu ‘cause they had a European trip to embark on (as of this writing they’re in Madrid, I guess). For days I couldn’t get Ellis’s rendition of “Here Comes the Sun” out of my head. It inspired me to take this snapshot of a sunrise one morning (08). To me, the song represents her future, one that’s definitely going to be bright. I hope I live to see the day when she gets there—remind me to bring sunglasses!

Not really big on taking photos of flowers, but I was inspired by Hans Christian Andersen (it was the 136th anniversary of his death the beginning of this month) and the stories I’d grown up with—particularly that one that told of a butterfly looking for a flower to become his bride, and it was a daisy named Marguerite he first approached for guidance as she was “the wisest one.” I’m not really sure these were daisies (09, 10), but they were gorgeous.

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My favorite pieces from fashion designer Dexter Alazas’s most recent collection (12)—he calls it the “peacock collection.” Always I’ve been a sucker for tasteful melees of ornamentation, and these pieces are testimony to Dexter’s mastery in this department. I would love to be able to use them for a shoot one day—that is, if no one beats me to it and I can find a client who can fit into them! I love visiting my friends’ ateliers and browsing through the racks. Dexter’s atelier (11, 12) is special because not only does he put on display his newest creations, pieces from his past collections are within reach, too—and these things, they have a way of taking you back (I think he still has this one gala gown that was used during a shoot I had with the photographer Wig Tysmans and the model Melanie Ediza for CeBu! Magazine some 10 years back.) Rumor has it that for his 15th anniversary two years from now Dexter will be putting up a retrospective. If there’s any truth to that at all, then I’m not the least worried—his archives are carefully arranged, and so curating is going to be a no-brainer.

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The indefatigable Ms. Marlene fitting me into a Dexter Alazas barong Tagalog (13, 14). This was my first time ever to slip into a barong. Always I’d been a suit person. My sister saw these snapshots and exclaimed, “Never thought I’d see the day!” I mean, I still remain partial to suits, but this time I had to make an exception—I was about to attend one of the most important wedding of my life, and the dress code called for traditional Filipino for the gents. The things you would do for a best friend getting married are nothing compared to the things you would do for two best friends getting married to each other! Well, that, plus the fact that, as you get older, you strive to be more polite in social functions—and that includes playing close attention to the dress codes. Turned out wearing a barong wasn’t too bad after all—the only downside is that you can’t smoke a lot or be around smokers ‘cause one flick of ash on the material and then you’re dunzo.

But enough about barongs and dress codes and stuff. Let’s talk about Ms. Marlene. Most of you don’t know her, but I have so much respect for her. She’s, like, the Cebu fashion industry’s best kept secret. She’s non-exclusive; she works for quite a handful of local design houses. The reason she is indispensable is that she sees eye-to-eye with these designers. A designer gives her a sketch, or an idea, and she executes it flawlessly. She is very diligent, too—working long hours, especially when it’s show season. She and I go way back—always at my side whenever I was commissioned to style a Kate Torralba fashion show, and always ready with her quick fix kit for instances that required last-minute alterations and I refused to let pins and binder clips do the trick. I look up to people like Ms. Marlene—the people who work behind-the-scenes tirelessly and fervently to bring beautiful clothes to life.

New York just wouldn’t stop coming to me. This time it was in the form of Nila Romano and Dr. John Seno, who flew into town early this month so they could get married in front of family and friends (17-28). Well, technically they’re not from New York but from New Jersey, but they live in a town called West New York, which is nestled right by the Hudson River and is considered a part of the New York metropolitan area—you can see the Upper West Side of Manhattan if you face east—so, yeah, they’re still New Yorkers to me. (Nila was also one of the few people who showed me around the Big Apple when I was there during my first visit two years ago.) This wedding was special to me—I’d waited for it like it was my own. I’d been with this couple, you see, since the beginning, since the courtship stages, and I’d witnessed the whole thing blossom into a beautiful, strong bond. Fifteen years! That’s how long they’d been together! Very few relationships get to stand the test of time. It’s a connection cemented by his unwavering faithfulness and her eternal optimism. Nila’s older sister Dory Cusi, who’d flown in from SoCal, would later toast to many of John’s finest qualities and heroic deeds, including how, when Nila couldn’t fly to the Unites States yet, he single-handedly chaperoned Dorly’s little children across the Pacific so they could finally be reunited with their parents—“and that’s when I knew he was the right guy for my sister.” They tied the knot at the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral (21-23)—it was my first time to step inside that church, and it was glorious. The bride wore a dazzling floor-sweeping strapless sweetheart-neckline gown that they’d snatched in Manhattan. John’s mother had commissioned a choir to sing “Ave Maria” as Nila’s walk-down-the-aisle song. The whole thing was so surreal I was brought to tears. A great bonus was that I got to be reunited with my some of my closest friends from college, and with the rest of the Seno family, especially John’s brothers Joey (25, delivering his best man’s speech) and Rico (26), both of whom I had become close to as John and I had lost touch.

Just a couple of photos from a recent engagement session that I did (29-32). This one took two days because we had to go up the mountains! Yes, it was grueling! The pictures came out pretty good, though, thanks to the fact that this was the first engagement shoot wherein I had absolutely nothing to do with the styling—i.e., someone else took care of the clothes, leaving me with nothing else to attend to but my camera! I should do this more often—you know, just take pictures and leave all the other aspects like the styling and the props to others. It gets you focused like that. I am unable to upload that set on here just yet ‘cause I am not allowed to publish the photos until the days leading to the wedding, so you will have to stay tuned.

Every Wednesday morning my friend Jeff and I make it a point to visit the Carmelite Monastery down Mabolo (just a good 10 minutes’ walk from our office) to light a few candles and say a little prayer (33-35). (By the way, last week, August 24, was the 48th anniversary of the consecration of the Monastery.) I can tell you that not one prayer has been unanswered. More often than not I pray for good health for me and my family. Sometimes I pray for good shoot weather, and I almost always get it! Of course, I go to the Redemptorist Church, too (36)—I live right next door!

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So a friend brought me to a place that specialized in bespoke menswear (37). I can’t disclose the name of the institution ‘cause I’ve kind of been sworn into silence, but they’ve been making bespoke suits and barong Tagalogs for a privileged group of Cebuanos for years, relying mostly on astute word of mouth. I ran my hands through some of the suit jackets laid on the dress forms and was amazed by the precision and the sharpness—what great handiwork! I hope to make an appointment soon.

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That’s a tally of my daily cigarette consumption right there (38). I was really sick beginning of this month, and when the doctor asked me “How many sticks do you smoke in one day?” I could not answer her. And so she told me that I “better start keeping track.” And so here we are. Turns out I am a pack-a-day smoker. Yikes. The good thing about keeping a record, though, is that it kind of disgusts you every time you look at it, and so it kind of keeps you in check. I am not in a struggle to quit or anything—I just really want to minimize my burning up is what it is. Smoker’s cough is not exactly music to anyone’s ears—even to the smoker himself.

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One of my best friends from high school, Rhoderick (39), blew another birthday candle this month. While I could count the candles, what I couldn’t count was how many times this person had been there for me and my family throughout the years, so I knew it was time to give back. I threw a little birthday dinner for him at my place, and we had habichuelas (his favorite), among others, and I made Do-Over-style sangria, too! I’m happy to report I’m getting good at this thing—that is, cooking and entertaining at home. Sure, it’s labor-intensive and time-consuming, but it gives little celebrations a great punch of importance and a touch of individuality, as opposed to, say, just dragging someone to the usual restaurants. Just a little something I picked up from my recent obsession with Rita Konig (I talked about this briefly in my previous post). It is not my intention to do this more and more, but to do it more often than not, maybe at least once a month. You see, there was a time I could not cook, even if it meant saving my life. To borrow a line from Carrie Bradshaw, “The only thing that I have ever successfully made in the kitchen is a mess.” But I’m not twenty-something anymore, and now that I am running my own household I am somehow responsible for injecting a little, um, wisdom into it. Those closest to me will laugh when they read this because they know I am a first-class slob. But, hey, I am working on that, too. One step at a time! This year it’s all about cooking for me, and maybe next year it will be cleaning (LOL). Here’s a serving of the vegetable/seafood pesto pasta that I whipped up some two weeks ago (40). Yes, my brother loved it, and I’m making it again this week.

One of my all-time favorite shirts: a black and white “she-Che” raglan (41) from Cecile Zamora’s Defect that my best friend Yna Varias gave to me for Christmas ’99—yes, it is 12-years-old, and I still wear it like I only got it yesterday!

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Herb Ritts is, like, my all-time favorite photographer. As a young boy growing up in a small town, I would flip through my Mom’s and my aunts’ old Vogues and be mesmerized by his work. The first time I knew I was going to make fashion a huge part of my life was when I saw the cover of American Vogue’s April 1993 issue—Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Stephanie Seymour all playful, wearing candy-striped crop tops by Marc Jacobs paired with white Daisy Dukes, photographed by Herb Ritts. I would later find out it was him who’d directed two of my all-time favorite music videos, too: Madonna’s “Cherish” from 1989, and Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” from 1990. Ever since then I’d become obsessed with his style, his penchant for black-and-white and the way he’d approached chiaroscuros. I remember crying so hard when he died in December of 2002. Three weeks ago, on the week of his birthday (August 13, he would’ve turned 59), I paid tribute by setting my favorite Herb Ritts photograph (“Versace Dress, Back View, El Mirage, 1990″) as wallpaper on my phone (42, 43). Around the same time, the Getty announced that they had just acquired 69 Herb Ritts photographs, and that they were planning to put up a retrospective in the spring of next year—God, I hope I’ll be in L.A. in time for that!

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Another person whose demise brought me to my knees: the Filipino actor Rico Yan. I was watching Got 2 Believe, his last movie, in which he’d played a wedding photographer. I had to grab my phone and take pictures of freeze-frames (46, 47) of him crying. He was most beautiful when he cried.

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So, remember last month when I talked about how I stockpile on Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime Green in Lemon Jasmine? I got an e-mail from someone who blogs about teas asking why I loved them when there were a lot of better tasting sleep-inducing teas out there. Here’s my answer: They come in string-less, tag-less, staple-less pillow-style teabags (44)—in short, they are environment-friendly.

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Another e-mail I got was from someone who wanted to know how the oversize mustard grandfather cardigan that I let a client wear for a nautical-themed set qualified as, well, nautical. My answer: I know that when we say “nautical fashion” we are quick to think blue-and-white stripes, and then a little red highlights here are there, but what some of you don’t know is that yellow is part of the basic sailorman palette, too—owing to the yellow slickers that sailors use (I did a little bit of research and found out that the yellow “resulted from treating canvas with linseed oil to make it waterproof”). Also, I did take a closer inspection at the buttons of that cardigan: they were gold-colored, like those of the traditional Service Dress Blue uniforms, and they had these embossed yacht anchor details, too (48)—you can’t get any more nautical than that.

This past month was special for a lot of different reasons, but this one right here could be the biggest highlight of them all: A little over two weeks ago I started my apprenticeship at Shutterfairy Photography. Single-handedly run by the beautiful and brilliant Malou “Mai” Pages-Solomon (49, 50), Shutterfairy is one of the best-known boutique wedding/lifestyle photography firms in this part of the country. I had been an avid follower of her work, even before I could get a camera of my own. It was a bold step in my part deciding to pursue this apprenticeship. Towards the end of June, after five or so solo shoots, I’d felt I’d needed to push myself some more, and that all this business about being self-taught was getting old. I’d read somewhere about Victor Demarchelier, Patrick Demarchelier’s son, being his father’s principal assistant. “There are [other aspects of photography] that you can grasp faster as an assistant,” he had been quoted as saying. How cool is a father-and-son team? But my father was no longer here to teach me, so I had to look outside the family circle. I pulled a couple of strings, managed to get good viva-voce recommendations, sent a letter of application, and in no time found myself under Mai’s wings.

My first session with her was for an engagement shoot. We were going to be shooting at a farm up the mountains in Carmen, some two or so hours northeast of Cebu. As luck would have it, the couple we were going to be shooting were from New York—I swear to God, the New York streak just kept on coming! Cherry, who has roots from Cebu, was about to marry her fiancé Christian (56) in less than a week. I asked why they decided not to have their engagement photos taken in their new hometown of New York, and she said it was Christian’s idea for them to be taken here, in this very farm, ‘cause he’d fallen in love with this place when they’d first visited about a year ago. What was not love? I looked around me and I couldn’t keep my jaw from dropping—everywhere you turned it was picturesque (49-56). The place is called Noah’s Farm, and it is owned by Cherry’s sister, Toni Grace “TG” Villamor, who likes to take her family up there once in a while when they want to shy away from the city life.

What I did was mostly help the couple with their outfits and scout for settings, but I did take a couple of pictures, too, ‘cause Mai would be, like, “Where’s your camera? Why aren’t you taking pictures?” I can’t post any of my photos from that day on here yet, ‘cause I have yet to get approval from Mai and, well, the clients, but, here, feel free to go to the Shutterfairy blogsite to view Mai’s gorgeous set from that day.

Remember two months ago when I inaugurated this blog and I talked about how photographers these days, in an effort to stand out and be cut above the rest, “hold back on the sharing?” Well, I take that back now, because Mai here was just amazing. She answered all my questions, even those that I did not ask out loud (it was as if she was reading my mind!), and she was always pushing me to get to the work at hand. I will write more on the things I’ve learned from her in my future posts. Right now let me just soak up in the awesomeness of how lucky I am to have found a mentor who is as generous as she is talented.

I have quite a number of Nike Dunks, but this pair right here (57), I must say, is my favorite. The sangria/saffron combo always does it for me.

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OK, so I’d been hearing through the grapevine that there was this store in Cebu that sold items from IKEA, but I’d never really paid attention to the buzz. And then I chanced upon the store myself. The store is called Förskö (60), and they are located at the second level of the Banilad Town Centre. I must’ve foamed in the mouth a little when in the corner of my eye I saw the IKEA logo. Never in my wildest dreams had I seen this coming! Not a lot of stock in there, though, and their space isn’t large enough to accommodate the showroom types of displays that IKEA is known for, but they do have a couple of winners, including the LACK side tables (the solid painted versions and the clear lacquered birch effect versions), the silver TERTIAL work lamp, and the MAKROS pendant lamp (58) that I loved from the 2011 catalog. They also have the KNAPPA pendant lamp (59) which I don’t remember from the 2011 catalog, so presumably it’s from a newer line. If you can’t find anything you love, that’s alright—just flip through the pages of the catalog, point at something, and they’ll place the order for shipment later! I’m thinking of getting the NASUM storage baskets (in clear lacquered banana fiber weave). We’ll see.

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The fresh carabao’s milk pastillas (64) from Carigara, Leyte, are simply the best. You should try them.

I forgot to mention my apprenticeship at Shutterfairy comes with a huge bonus: For package deals—e.g., engagement session plus day-of-the-wedding coverage—Mai works with a husband-and-wife team, Paul and Charisse Calo (71), a.k.a. Calography. I met Charisse (66) during the previously mentioned first session with Mai, and I would get to work with both her and her better half a couple of days later during my second session. Both teams were commissioned to do the engagement photos of visiting Zamboaga-based couple Al and Pie (67, 68, 69, 72) who were going to be married in two months. It was fun for the most part because Paul turned out to be the adventurous, adrenaline-driven type, and there was never a dull moment because we were always moving from one location to another. Even more amazing was the camaraderie between the two teams, and that they saw eye to eye and there was never a conflict of ideas. That day I learned some of the technicalities of shooting under harsh lighting conditions, like minding my ISO and all that other good stuff. It’s so cool that I get to pick at not just one brain but three! I cannot wait to work with them again. Click here for a couple of Paul’s and Charisse’s shots from that session.

Proud of myself because this month I kept true to my promise of buying more books and fewer magazines! In fact, no magazine purchases at all this month! (Well, next month is a going to be a different story altogether, as I am determined to grab the September issue of Vogue—Kate Moss on the cover, my dears, and an exclusive coverage of her wedding to Jamie Hince!) So my brother Jake came across this bookstore that sold hard-to-find volumes at steeply discounted prices, and I wasted no time in checking it out. The photography shelf was what I checked out first (73), but it turned out all it contained were books on graphic design and illustration—the salesperson told me they were running low on photography titles, but I enlightened her that maybe all they needed was a little rearranging, because I did find this one baby, Forever Young: Photographs of Bob Dylan by Douglas R. Gilbert (with text from music journalist Dave Marsh and a foreword by The Lovin’ Spoonful’s John Sebastian), in the shelf labeled Fashion. I couldn’t believe they were selling this book for, like, less than Php 200. I loved all the photos in it, but my favorite was this one photo of Dylan singing to the poet Allen Ginsberg in some kitchen while Sally Grossman (better known as the lady in red on the cover of Dylan’s 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home) looked on (74). As I did more digging I was able to unearth a copy of Vivienne Tam’s China Chic (75). For years I had been looking for this title, and finally here I was holding a copy of it with my bare hands. My first impulse was to add it to my cart, but then after leafing through the first few pages I decided it wasn’t for me. No disrespect—Vivienne Tam is one person I look up to, along with other Asian and Asian-American designers like Anna Sui, Vera Wang, Jason Wu, and Alexander Wang. But this book was just not me at all—best left to Winnie Narazeths of the world. Perhaps Anna Sui by Andrew Bolton would be more in my lane, what with her rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic and all. So, no, I do not regret not buying this one. One thing I do regret not getting was this huge Collector’s Library Edition volume of Oscar Wilde’s works (76). I’d turned away from it in favor of a book on the makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin. Asinine move in my part, really, and I should’ve listened to my writer friend Xiomara Demeterio-Glindmeyer when she said, “I would grab Wilde in a heartbeat.” I was tempted, you see, by the immediate practicality the Aucoin book had offered—like, hey, I was going to be doing shoots for a living, so best to grab the one that would teach me a thing or two about makeup, a very important aspect of every shoot. I realize now, of course, that the Wilde book would’ve been the more practical choice—the Aucoin book, easy to find, whereas the chances or finding another Wilde book in this part of the world, close to impossible. Oh, well, you live, you learn.

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Just a couple of days ago I was reunited with someone I hadn’t talked to or seen in a very long time—I’m talking about the singer/songwriter Cattski Espina (77, 78). She had just finished titling and tracklisting her new album (to be released really soon!), and now it was time to get to work on the album cover. She had commissioned Shutterfairy to do her portraits, and since Mai was in Manila for a family thing I took the liberty of setting up the pre-shoot meeting myself. What was supposed to be a quick discussion turned into 3- or 4-hour meeting, ‘cause there was a lot of catching up to do in my part. I confessed that the last album I’d heard about was Vacuum My Inside (released late 2003), the follow-up to their 2001 debut Cattski EP. Turned out that I’d missed out on a third album (a 2009 release called Sound Minds Speak Volumes) because this thing she was about to launch was her fourth. I also learned that she was on her own now—this new release was going to be the first from Cattski the solo artist; Cattski the band was no more. “Which is why I’ve decided to call it Zero,” she shared, “because it’s like I’ve gone back to zero.” I’m not allowed to let anyone in on the details just yet, but suffice to say that, like the album title, the recording is going to feature a pared-down sound—a departure from the heavier sounds in her previous works. “More electronica than rock,” she pointed out. This called for a brand spanking new look. We got to work, and I was happy with the styling concept we were able to come up with. The shoot’s this weekend, and I’m excited. I can’t wait to see how it’s all gonna turn out.

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Cattski couldn’t help but notice the wallpaper on my phone. I told her that this was my own little way of paying tribute to someone. Couple of weeks ago it was Herb Ritts (42, 43), and these days it was Aaliyah (79, 80). It was the 10th anniversary of Aaliyah’s death last August 25. Can you believe it’s been 10 years? Feels like it was only yesterday that I cried myself to sleep, after seeing the news on the plane crash that killed her. In her song “Try Again” from the soundtrack to Romeo Must Die, Timbaland ad libs, “It’s been a long time/ We shouldn’t have left you/ Without a dope beat to step to.” Well, at least Aaliyah didn’t leave us without a dope beat to step to. Up to this very day I still dance to “Back and Forth” in my room, the same way I used to do it back in ’94, and it’s something I’m not ashamed of. Nothing wrong about getting up and letting “this funky mellow groove get you in the mood”—yes, “you know it’s alright.”

30-August-2011 | Categories: Journal, Personal | Tags: 90s, Aaliyah, Apprenticeship, Beatles, Behind-the-Scenes, Blogging, Bob Dylan, Books, Calography, Carmelite, Cattski, Cebu, Cebu Designers, Cebu Music, Cecile Zamora, Children, Couples, Dexter Alazas, Engagements, Entertaining, Flowers, Getty, Herb Ritts, IKEA, Instagram, Kate Torralba, Kevyn Aucoin, Life, Malou Pages, Nautical, New York, Nineties, Personal, Photography, Rico Yan, Rita Konig, Shoes, Shutterfairy, Tea, Teatime, Weddings | 8 Comments »

Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture 2

Just when you think I’m done with this crap, here I am again with another set of Poladroids.

Blame it on design It Girl Rita Konig. I was at three different bookstores this month looking for a copy of her book Domestic Bliss but couldn’t find one (don’t they stockpile on anything other than teenage vampire horseshit these days?), so I was forced to dig up the archives at NYTimes.com to revisit her old columns (she no longer writes for them, by the way; I think she has since moved to the Wall Street Journal). For once, I was beginning to obsess about decorating, and not spending too much time looking at photoblogs. I read about her penchant for charming pieces of tobacciana (a pink glass ashtray that gets to go with her wherever she goes, cute little glass match strikers, etc.), and her quirky yet practical method of entertaining (“I don’t have a dining table, but I do have a coffee table, a newly upholstered sofa and a kitchen large enough to cook in, so dinner is eaten off of large art books on laps, or sitting cross-legged at the coffee table”). But what really struck a chord with me was her article on “sticking photos straight up on the wall,” pointing out “how unfashionable it has become to put framed photographs on tables,” and so what she does is she puts up a Polaroid wall in her kitchen. What a novel idea! Not to mention practical and stylish!

Well, the practical part is almost debatable. For one, nobody could figure out where my Dad had kept his old Polaroid Sun 600s (if he’d even kept them at all), and even if we knew, it would be fiendishly difficult to obtain instant film in this part of the world. But, hey, there’s always Poladroid, right?

Here are some of the Poladroids that I am considering printing and putting up against my kitchen wall, again, created using random snapshots from my trips from the last three years. Of course, this means I’m going to have to print some of the ones that I made last month, too. They won’t look like actual Polaroids when they’re printed, but they will, from afar (I love that I kind of have that Rita Konig kind of thinking now!).

You guys have a good weekend now! Remember, inspiration is everywhere—even in the things that you settle for when you still haven’t found what you’re looking for (am I even making any sense here?).

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#46 and #47: At the Brooklyn Bridge with my friend Anne Alegrado’s daughter Ellis, a.k.a. my uptown girl. This was my first morning in New York, and they took me to the Brooklyn Bridge. I’d always wanted to see the Brooklyn Bridge. I’d always thought, Oh, that’s where you fall in love all over again. Thanks to that one pivotal scene an hour and 59 minutes into the first Sex and the City movie wherein Miranda and Steve decide to let back together and leave the past behind, with Al Green’s “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” playing in the background. “Very logical, yet poetic,” Carrie had said about the choice of rendezvous. So when I got there, I expected it to hit me—I thought of those who’d broken my heart, or those I’d hurt, and waited for a little voice inside of me to say, “Hold on.” But then the only little voice I heard was Ellis’s, who was quick to quip, “Hey! This is the bridge from the princess movie!” And then I realized she was talking about a scene from Enchanted, in which Princess Giselle was finally reunited with her Prince Edward—which she’d thought was all she’d ever wanted—until, walking side-by-side with him on this very bridge, she realized it wasn’t the Prince she was in love with, it was McDreamy. And so I stood there and got into thinking: Do I hold on, or do I let go? In life, it’s easy to get stuck between two places—in this case, it was literally, between Manhattan and Brooklyn—or in a place that means two completely different things. And that can be a pretty sticky situation. It can cause you sleepless nights. Luckily, for some of us, we can just shake it off, and do something stylish. It’s OK to lose sleep, anyhow—especially when you’re in the city that never sleeps.

#48: The rooftop at Anne’s Upper East Side apartment (the Wellesley on E 72nd, between 2nd and 3rd Ave., a red-brick 35-story tower). I’d be up here every morning, barely out of REM sleep and not having had coffee yet, just soaking up the sun and the incredible view of the neighboring skyscrapers. Her family have since moved to Brooklyn so Anne could fulfill her dream of sitting on the apotheosis of domestic bliss (well, I kind of like the sound of “Brooklynite gardener,” too), so it’s safe to say I won’t be seeing this rooftop ever again. At least I have pictures that I can look back on.

#49: I hadn’t seen this girl Liz Marsh in, like, 10 years—so you can imagine my surprise when she called and said she had to kidnap me for a day! Always nice to be reunited with old best friends. It’s amazing how she’d managed to stay the same after all those years—same hair, same eye makeup, same laugh, same everything—while I’d become 60 lbs. heavier! Well, her taste in music had changed a bit, but in a good way. Nothing beats driving around West L.A. with Deftones blasting from the car stereo. Speaking of driving, another thing that hadn’t changed about her was, well, her driving! That girl could bust a U-turn (and I don’t mean a legal one) like a gangsta! Luckily, we didn’t get into an accident like that one we got into some 10 years back at the DTM /Reclamation area. I almost got killed, though, when she tried to stuff me with Brazilian barbecue (carneiro, picanha ao alho) at Pampas Grill and “Around the World” combos at Sushi A Go Go—as if I wasn’t fat enough already.

#53: That’s Kloodie, one of my best friends, on her wedding day late last year. I just had to squeeze this photo in. Her wedding dress was the most divine thing I’d ever seen—I mean, look at that! It’s a Jun Escario, by the way, in case you’re wondering.

#56: My friend Janice Larrazabal took me to the Getty to see Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties. It meant so much to me being there and standing face-to-face with the works of the likes of Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey, and Philip Jones Griffiths. Griffiths was my father’s favorite photographer, you see, so, yeah, it meant the world to me. Click here to read more about that experience.

#58: Four months after Michael Jackson’s passing, Angelenos and tourists alike flock to the Staples Center/Nokia Theatre L.A. Live area to pay tribute by dancing to “Thriller.”

#61: On my fourth day in New York I met up with some of my best girl friends from college, Nila Seno, Jam Montecillo and Charmaine Nadela.

#62: After a grueling trip to see Carrie Bradshaw’s brownstone in the Greenwich Village the girls and I rewarded ourselves with these divine cupcakes from the world-famous Magnolia Bakery on Bleecker and W 11th. Divine!

#64: I’d wanted to go back to the beginning, so off we went to the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District at the site of the city’s original settlement (downtown, right by the Union Station and the City Hall). I’d been in this area back in 2008, but never got the chance to see the mural of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles, so I made sure there was no missing it this time around. I said a little prayer, and then went on to explore the colorful Olvera Street. We were right for going on a weekday; we didn’t have to squeeze through crowds of tourists. It was a nice experience: The sound of Mexican guitar and people pronouncing it “Loce Ang-hel-es.”

#64: San Francisco’s J. Boogie on the ones and twos at the Do-Over. A must-do when you’re in L.A. between mid-May and early November, the Do-Over is a Sunday afternoon “backyard barbecue-style” party (they used to throw it over at Crane’s Hollywood Tavern down N El Centro, between Hollywood and Selma, a stone’s throw away from Roscoe’s on Gower, and now the whole thing’s been moved to the Cabana Club a little off Sunset, right by the Arclight). They call it the Do-Over—because, well, as one of the bouncers put it when I asked, “do it once and you’ll want to do it over and over again!” My first Do-Over experience was the bomb, thanks to J. Boogie right here. Famous for his blend of roots reggae, dancehall, Latin hip hop, jazz rap, soul, and new jack swing, he got the crowd swinging nonstop, from Max Romeo’s “Chase the Devil,” to The Fugees’ “Ready or Not,” to Buju Banton’s “Mr. Nine,” to Richie Spice’s “Youth Dem Cold,” to Rich Boy’s “Throw Some D’s,” to Lady G’s “Nuff Respect,” to Tony Rebel’s “Know Jah,” to Q-Tip’s “Breathe and Stop,” to Bill Withers’s “Lovely Day,” to Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together,” to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” to Stevie Wonder’s “My Cherie Amour,” to Prince’s “If I Was Your Girlfriend.” Next in the lineup was King Britt from Philadelphia, who kept the classics coming. I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t danced to SWV’s “Right Here/Human Nature” in so long, and it felt pretty damn good to be able to do so again. I can’t believe they brought the Do-Over to Manila just last month (July 23)—I would’ve flown! Oh, well, I sent them a Tweet saying they should swing by Cebu the next time they visit this part of the world. Let’s see what happens (or maybe I should just let my event organizer friends to make it happen). #65: Oh, and did I mention the sangria at the-Dover was the shiznit? I could finish 5 carafes of that shit. Well, now I got a deadly stain on my white boat shoes, but I don’t care—I’d like to think of it as a remembrance of a West Coast life well lived.

#66: With my best friends Ronald Conopio and Julie Pongos enjoying supersized mojitos at The Abbey in West Hollywood. We’d dreamt of this very moment when we were kids—all three of us, together again, in the same ZIP Code, particularly one that starts with a 9 and a 0. And so there we were, picking up the pieces, from 90067 to 90069 to 90210. And the coolest thing about it was that none of this was planned! It just happened, just like that, like a comet, like laughter, like forgiveness, and all those other things you can’t explain—a lot like the day we first met some 20 years ago!

#67: It was dineL.A. Restaurant Week. My best friend Chiklet was in the mood for a little sophisticated Spanish, so she took me to The Bazaar by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel at Beverly Hills (no, we were not there to stalk Khloe Kardashian and Lamar Odom). Loved loved loved the Gazpacho estilo Algeciras, the Tortilla de Patatas, the Papas Canarias, the Jamón Serrano Fermin, the Buñuelos (codfish fritters, honey alioli), the Croquetas de Pollo, and the Beef Hanger Steak (cooked in its own fat and drenched in piquillo pepper sauce). Of course, you don’t need to ask if I liked the ambiance—everything was screaming Philippe Starck.

#69: My goddaughter Tabitha, cutest little thing on earth. This was taken last December when she and her mom Yna Varias came to visit me. I love that she loves to overaccessorize. She has those sunglasses in three different colors.

#72: Me and my best friend Julie with Chad Wolf, frontman of the band Carolina Liar. This was taken after the Rob Thomas/OneRepublic concert at the Gibson Amp, in which they were opening act. Ah, fucking crazy! I got to talk to him and lead guitarist Rickard Göransson and tell them about how their song “California Bound” was, like, my soundtrack for this trip—or, for all my Californian adventures, for that matter! “Well, thanks for finding us, man,” Chad told me as we were about to leave. You should’ve seen me. I was beaming the whole time. Another rock ‘n’ roll dream come true!

#77: One of my favorite couples, my cousin Randy and his beautiful wife Sue, who always make it a point to see me whenever I’m in California. Well, Randy is not really my cousin—our moms are just real good friends, so, there, we’re sorta cousins, which makes Sue my sorta cousin-in-law. LOL. I’d love to photograph them one day, just ‘cause their chemistry is amazing, not to mention they’re both very stylish. The plan is to do a session before their Cebu wedding (yes, they had a California wedding, but Sue wants to have a Cebu wedding soon). Well, Randy is a photographer himself (see samples of his work here), but he can’t do his own pre-second-wedding photos, can he? You guys, this is my sales pitch right here.

#80: My nephew Jamim. Well, his real name is Prince James, but we call him Jamim—a moniker that big sister Oona came up with when should could not pronounce James, and it stuck. He calls me Antle because he can’t pronounce uncle, but that’s alright with me because, really, if you come to think of it, it’s like a portmanteau of aunt and uncle. LOL. He knows alligators are green, and dragons are orange. He loves guitars and drums, and it is my intention to start him early. He smells like Irish Spring, which is why I like to hug him. A lot. He can be clumsy at times, and once he amputated my Deep Space Starscream, but I love him all the same. He is the only human being who sees the good in me, only calling me “Bad!” when I cut his spaghetti into small bits. How nice that somebody in this world is capable of looking at me with a fresh pair of eyes.

#84: My godson Ari is growing up too fast! One day he could barely crawl, and now he was running around The Grove my knees were shaking as I was chasing him around. His mom Cai had asked me to take pictures of him, but it was just diabolically difficult trying to make this one stand still. Note to self: When photographing a child, make sure you’re on Red Bull.

#85 and #86: Couple of photos from my visit to the Kentucky Horse Park. I had promised my cousin Amanda Liok, who loves horses to death, that I was gonna take a lot of photos for her. There’s a certain kind of magic when you look at horses. Maybe it’s their necks. Maybe it’s their manes. Or, could it be their rear ends that remind you of a woman’s behind when she is wearing the right stilettos? I don’t know. I just know it’s magical. But even more enchanting is when you get to know their names. One of the girls I talked to calls her horse Moonshine—who knows if she meant moonlight, or liquor, but this was Kentucky so it’s probably the latter—and that just took my breath away. Another girl calls her horse Alcatraz. Amanda has a couple of horses in her backyard, and all of them have beautiful names: Salsa, Moondance, Taco, Chili. I would love to be able to own a horse one day. Maybe I’ll call it Baroness, after my favorite G.I. Joe character. Or maybe I’ll call it Malibu, after my favorite beach city. Or maybe I’ll call it Lexington, after my favorite summer fling. Or maybe I’ll call it Ava Adore, after my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song. Whatever it is, it definitely won’t be “a horse with no name”—although I kind of love that song, too.

#88, #89 and #90: Who doesn’t love the Santa Monica Pier? I know I do. And not just because this was where Spencer Pratt proposed to Heidi Montag—hey, I was a Baywatch baby long before I became a The Hills hoe. But, of course, it wasn’t the David Charvet types I’d come here to ogle at. Sitting there and watching the birds crisscross the horizon, I thought to myself, “Wow, I would come here everyday if only I could.” There’s this incredibly talented singer-songwriter named Terry Prince (I just recently learned that he has Fililipino roots, too!) who performs there on a regular basis. That definitely added a nice bonus to our visit. I mean, California is the last place you’d expect to find an old soul when it comes to music, and yet here was one guy who was not afraid to share his stories of inspiration through his soulful voice and pared-down melodies. Everyone stopped and listened. My favorite song was “Imagine Love.” I regret not capturing it on video, but, here, someone else did: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WZoH2UP4PI. It’s even more beautiful when you’re actually there, I promise. The first few lines of the song goes: “Imagine love/ Imagine heaven here on earth…” I did not need to imagine heaven here on earth. Thanks to the birds, the horizon, and him, I was already standing on it.

28-August-2011 | Categories: Personal, Travel | Tags: Birds, Books, Brooklyn Bridge, California, Camotes Island, Carolina Liar, Cebu, Cebu Designers, Children, Cincinnati, Concerts, Cupcakes, Do-Over, Family, Getty, Horses, Jun Escario, Kentucky, Lexington, Life, Los Angeles, Louisville, Magnolia Bakery, Malibu, New York, Ormoc, PCH, Personal, Photography, Poladroid, Redondo Beach, Rita Konig, Santa Monica, Terry Prince, West Hollywood | 3 Comments »

Shake It Like a Polaroid Picture

You know the feeling when you’ve discovered something totally rad, and then you become so obsessed with it to a point you wish you never found out about it in the first place? Well, that’s kind of how I feel right now about the Poladroid (yes, you’re reading it right, with the extra D—how’s that for “throwing some Ds” on something?).

To those of you who’ve never heard of it (although I’m sort of convinced no one’s never heard of it ‘cause it’s been around for more than two years, and I’m last to find out about it ‘cause I’ve been living under a rock), the Poldaroid is, well, a Polaroid simulator that allows you to turn any photo into a digital Polaroid. You can download the application for free (for now, at least). The way it works is you launch the application by clicking on the desktop icon (duh), and a larger icon of a camera that looks like a Polaroid One600 Job Pro pops out; you then just drag and drop your JPEGs one by one into that camera icon, and—voilà!—it ejects your virtual Polaroid! Now, that’s not the finished product that you’re getting the moment it’s ejected—you have to shake it until it’s developed! Yes, just like the real thing, my friend!

It’s kind of fun at first, but after a while it just hurts like a bitch. If you don’t want to run the risk of getting Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, you can just wait a couple of minutes without doing anything, and it’ll develop eventually. But, really, why do nothing when shaking is so much fun! What I did was I put OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” on repeat in my iTunes—“Shake it like a Polaroid picture!”—and that was it, the whole thing was easier to endure! LOL.

Seriously, you guys, it’s kind of a fun way to make your old photos look new, or your new photos look old—whichever way you wanna look at it. Or, to make your sucky photos look awesome, or your awesome photos look sucky—whichever way you wanna look at it.

Here are some of the virtual Polaroids I created using Poladroid and random photos from my trips from the last three years. I’ve also included some snippets from my journal. Enjoy, and you guys have a good weekend!

* * * * * * * * *

#01: My first visit to L.A. was in the summer of 2008, and it was Yoda who showed me around town. My brother-in-law Chester collects toys (Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe, etc.), and while everything else sits in glass door cabinets at home, this Yoda gets to go everywhere by being a permanent fixture in his car. Very recently Chester became a father when my sister gave birth to a beautiful baby girl a couple of months ago. They named her Mikaela, after Megan Fox’s character in the Transformers movies. While I appreciate that they didn’t choose to name her after a female Star Wars character, I am glad that she gets to grow up in a room and in a car that screams “May the Force be with you.” I hope she doesn’t grow up too fast, though—I would love for her to be my cuddly Yoda the next time I visit.

#02 and #03: I love DTLA, especially that section of Broadway between Olympic and 3rd where the historic theaters stand tall in all their majesty. Next to Melrose, it is quintessential L.A. We couldn’t make it to the Million Dollar Theater, though, ‘cause they’d closed that area at the time, and there were artificial rain equipment everywhere—I think they were filming Inception or something (at least for a while there I was breathing the same air Leonardo DiCaprio was breathing).

#04: That’s me being silly somewhere in the outskirts of Chicago.

#05: My friend Rhino’s sister invited us to her home in Buena Park, CA, for a traditional Filipino dinner. The house cat kept staring at me like I was some sort of illegal alien.

#06: My friends wonder why I am always 10 or 15 lbs. heavier after a trip to California. Ben & Jerry’s for breakfast, every single day, that’s why.

#07: I am happy to report I buy more books now, and fewer magazines. This one right here—Billy Corgan’s collection of poetry—was a real find, and has so many gems that I keep coming back to (my favorite is “In the Wake of Poseidon”). I intend to pass it on to my nieces and nephews when they’re old enough to read.

#09: I can’t say I didn’t love Lexington the first time around. People had been telling me, “Ah, no outfit opportunities for you,” but they were wrong—with open fields and never-ending split-rail and horse fences everywhere, the mood was just right for “She could be a farmer in those clothes!” Yes, what was once derogatory can sometimes be flattering—especially if the backdrop is as picturesque as this.

#10, #11 and #12: Speaking of Billy Corgan, yes, I got to see the Smashing Pumpkins live in concert. I cried like a little girl when they played “Tonight, Tonight.” I’d been dreaming of that moment for so long, so, no, it’s not something I’m ashamed of—the crying part, I mean. I think I might have also shed a tear or two when they played “Again, Again, Again (The Crux)” (from their American Gothic EP) and “Bullet with Butterfly Wings.” At first I kept thinking it would’ve been cooler if it were the original lineup I’d come to see—you know, with D’arcy and James Iha—but Ginger Reyes and Jeff Schroeder undeniably exceeded my expectations. (I should say Ginger was hot, too! I almost turned lesbian!). They couldn’t have picked a better venue: the Louisville Palace was stunning! The outside was gorgeous, but not nearly as striking as the theater room inside, where there were cathedral-like fixtures, plush red seats, and a ceiling that was made to look like nighttime sky—it was as if I was in the set of the “Tonight, Tonight” video! My favorite part of the show was towards the end, when the band played “We Only Come Out at Night” and a cover of Mungo Jerry’s “In the Summertime” with kazoos! I thought it was cool, too, that Billy Corgan climbed back on stage a few minutes after the show to do a second curtain call—with Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top! F***ing awesome! Music’s two greatest Billys, in one stage, waving at us! Just like that, I knew I’d become a part of music history, and that I was gonna remember this night for the rest of my life.

#13, #14 and #15: One of the highlights of my 2009 Californian adventure was our trip to Laguna Beach. I’d been obsessed about this place ever since Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County came out in 2004. (I have this delusion that in a past life I was Lauren Conrad, or will be in a future life—I will always be head over heels in love with that girl, and not in that kind of way.) My best friend Elaine “Chiklet” Imperio, who lives some 35 minutes away from Laguna, drove to meet me there. It was a special kind of reunion because I hadn’t seen this girl in ages (almost 10 years!). She took me to this little nook tucked between the village shops and the galleries called Brown’s Park, where a dainty little walkway led to an overlook that offered the most breathtaking view of the Pacific and that had stained glass fence rails that bore exquisite verse: “In this fleeting moment/ what extravagant respite/ as booming surf speaks its/ mystical passage across/ the undreamed depths.” Along the walk there’s also this nondescript plaque that carries a poem by Joseph E. Brown, who bought this little spot circa World War II (his son Joe Brown would make the property open to the public some 50 years later). Here’s how it goes: “Let me live in a house/ by the side of the sea,/ Where men and women wander by/ Where there’s beauty and grace and excitement that’s free./ On the beach, in the sun let me lie./ Let me listen to the ocean’s melodious roar,/ and its rhythm, so soothing to hear,/ As the foam-covered waves/ seem to reach for the shore/ Under skies that are sunny and clear.” Up to that point I’d never thought I’d find a place so full of poetry—both figuratively and literally. Immediately I made a deal with my sister: When I die, this is where I want my ashes to be scattered.

#19, #20, and #21: One of my best friends Cryse left Cebu to move to California for good some time late last year—but not before he could take us to a series of roadtrips to his favorite Cebu beaches, beginning with Moalboal down south.

#20: I love this photo of my fellow stylist Meyen that I took. It inspired me to do this photo for Sheila Desquitado’s engagement session.

#22: The Ladies’ Pavilion at The Hernshead over at Central Park West. I’m sure most of you have never heard of this place before, but it’s where Carrie and Miranda, an hour and 56 minutes into first Sex and the City movie, sat down with pretty little Granary bread sandwiches and juices from Pret A Manger (they’re yummy, by the way) to discuss the issue of forgiveness, of putting things behind and letting the past be the past, with India.Arie’s cover of Don Henley’s “The Heart of the Matter” playing in the background. I just had to see it, and so I went on my last day in New York. And since nobody was there to take me (everyone I knew was at work!), I went alone, taking the 6 from my friend Anne’s neighborhood, and then the N, stopping at Columbus Circle for a while, and then the C to the W 72nd entrance to Central Park. I didn’t get lost and had no trouble finding my way. It was as if the place had been calling my name, beckoning. I couldn’t step inside the Pavilion ‘cause a group of people had arrived there before me, complete with champagne bottles and all, but at least I got to see it and stand in its presence. Ah, and the view of the Lake and of the Midtown skyscrapers looming behind the trees. For the first time in a long time, I was at peace. Laugh all you want, call it fanaticism. But you must also know that since that very day, as of the end of 2009, I had forgiven three people who’d crossed me, and been forgiven by two people I’d hurt. And that’s what every trip should be about: Going to a place, and then coming back with the will to leave the foolish choices of your past behind.

#26 and #27: Yes, I also got to see Nine Inch Nails live in concert! They were in Lexington for the 23rd leg of their Lights in the Sky: Over North America 2008 summer tour. I didn’t cry like I did at the Smashing Pumpkins concert in Louisville weeks back, but that’s not to say I wasn’t shaking the whole time. In fact, I think I might have broken into seizures when they performed “Closer” and “March of the Pigs.” I loved the Pumpkins concert, but I gotta say this right here was the icing on the cake for me. The sound was impeccable, the set list incredibly tight, the moving set and visual effects breathtaking—and the band were full of energy! It was so surreal, I didn’t want the night to ever end. It was just a different kind of high. That band is the perfect drug!

#28: Me with some random guy who obviously was on a mission to take guyliner to new heights. Kidding. This was during one summer night three years ago when The Rocky Horror Picture Show had just wrapped up at the Kentucky Theatre in downtown Lexington, and suddenly that part of Main St. between Martin Luther and Quality was awash with transvestites with feather boas in different shades of pink. It was a sight to behold. This guy wasn’t a tranny, no—100% straight, in fact—but he just had to be dressed for the occasion.

#31: The indefatigable Romero Vergara hard at work. He did the hair and makeup for Luna Van der Linden’s engagement shoot, which was the first ever engagement shoot I styled. I’ve worked with Romero for more than a decade. He’s been part of some of the more important shoots in my career as a stylist. I love that he is always in a pleasant mood, and that his work is impeccable. I feel truly blessed to be surrounded by works of genius.

#32: My friend’s daughter Mickey is an aspiring makeup artist. She’s always asking to tag along whenever I have a shoot so she can interview the makeup artists, pick at their brain, observe their craft. Here she asks for a photo with her idol, Romero. It’s so refreshing when there are kids like Mickey who are bent on laying down the bricks of their career path very early on.

#34, #35 and #36: My good friend Oscar Pascual asked me to visit him in Florida for a weekend. He lives in Fort Myers, but asked me to fly into Tampa. It was raining so hard when I got there—Hurricane Fay had come back for its third (or fourth) landfall in Florida. People had been warning me not to go, but I’d had to be brave. This was my one (and probably only) chance to see the Sunshine State, so I just had to go—even if it wasn’t gonna be all that sunshiny when I got there. Besides, I’d been needing a little bit of this—after having had two summers in one year! Oscar made sure I was going to have a grand time, though—nothing like drunken laughter over glasses of Malibu mojito (and a visit to a strip club) to keep you warm when your days are cold!

#37: The things I would do to have a Pinkberry right now. Pomegranate, topped with kiwi, blueberries and honey almond granola.

#38: I love, love, love the trannies in WeHo. They go all out, those girls! Here, I get up close and personal with the Balenciaga “Toy” shoe.

#40: This is how ours shadows look like in Disneyland.

#42: Barely an hour had passed since I’d touched down at JFK, and already I had a party to hustle my way into! It was so crazy, I was piss drunk in less than two hours! That’s me and my gracious hostess Anne Alegrado being derelict yet still stylish on a sidewalk in Meatpacking/Chelsea.

#43 and #44: Another rock ‘n’ roll dream come true: I got to see Alice in Chains live in concert! At first I was a little skeptical about the new vocalist William DuVall. Even after the two guys I was standing in line with had told me that the new guy was awesome, in my mind I was still thinking that nobody could ever replace Layne Staley, and that people had come here for the music, and not the vocals. And then DuVall opened his mouth, and that was the demise of my doubts. I closed my eyes through half of “No Excuses,” and all of “Angry Chair” (because I had to keep myself from crying), and I swear to God, it was as if it was Layne singing. I mean, yeah, if you squinted DuVall would look (and, at times, move) more like Lenny (Kravitz) than Layne, but you gotta look past the afro and the antics! He sounds just like Layne it’s amazing.

30-July-2011 | Categories: Personal, Travel | Tags: Alice in Chains, Beach, Billy Corgan, Books, California, Cebu, Central Park, Chicago, Concerts, DTLA, Family, Florida, Grunge, Kentucky, Laguna Beach, Lexington, Life, Los Angeles, Louisville, Moalboal, New York, Nine Inch Nails, Personal, Photography, Pinkberry, Poetry, Poladroid, Rock, Romero Vergara, Smashing Pumpkins, West Hollywood | 6 Comments »

Love in the Time of the Camera

My father was a photographer. Well, he was a lot of other things, too—farmer, businessman, practical shooter/handgun enthusiast, tennis player—but it’s the photographer part that’s etched deep in my mind and the first thing I remember whenever I think of him. Was he a professional? Did he have paying clientele? I don’t know. All I know is I grew up tiptoeing around a loft scattered with cameras of all shapes and sizes—Polaroid Sun 600s here, a couple of Leicas there, 35 mm Nikon SLRs everywhere—and other photographic equipment, including tripods, one of them I’m sure I used as hobby horse at one point. When it wasn’t makeshift hobby horse time or Lego time or Atari time I could be found sprawled on the family room hardwood floor, leafing through piles and piles of his prints—some of me and my brothers in various stages of infancy, mostly of my mother in various states of fancy (apparently that was how the courtship had went—my mom skipping and jumping and dancing and laughing and beaming and singing and breathing, and my dad documenting her every move in film). Easily my favorites were his double exposures, and this one print of a chubby-cheeked me as a rotary dial was my favorite thing to bring to show and tell—never failed to elicit ooohs and aaahs from classmates whose baby pictures were humdrum. Of course, toting an instant camera helped boost my schoolyard cred, too. Apart from my dad’s personal work, I was also surrounded by works of genius—he loved collecting documentary photography books, a good chunk of them on war photography, including the first edition of Philip Jones Griffiths’s Vietnam Inc. I suppose there was a darkroom somewhere, possibly tucked between the storage where our plastic model kits sat in various states of disrepair and this room where a small group of his workers packed all sorts of stuff (from chocolate tablets to banana chips), but in the time of A Nightmare on Elm Street you wouldn’t dare consider exploring rooms that were, well, dark, even with trusty old Atari joystick in hand. Thinking about it now, I wish I’d gone looking for it anyway, Freddy Krueger be damned. Oh, well, it bites that you can’t turn back time.

Around the time I turned ten or so I decided I was old enough to get into hobbies outside, well, hobby horses (and Galaga and Donkey Kong Jr.), and taking from my parents’ interests seemed the most practical. From my mom I took her love for music, and went on to learn the piano—the only thing that rivaled the photography books for shelf space was sheet music (her father was a music teacher). For some reason, though, it wasn’t taking pictures that I decided to take on from my dad—instead, I asked him to take me to tennis clinic. I don’t know, perhaps as early as then I’d seemed to know that the former was going to be expensive—a box of Polaroid film alone would cost more than an entire summer of tennis lessons, not to mention they were very hard to come by in the small town where we lived. Thinking about it now, I wish I’d gone for it anyway—if he could afford to buy me some swank racquets there was no reason he couldn’t afford to get me a good beginner’s camera. Oh, well, it bites that you can’t turn back time.

By the time I reached early teenagerhood I stopped playing the piano and dropped the tennis racquets and started toying with my maternal grandfather’s typewriter. I wrote furiously, neurotically, although no one really read my works, save for my maternal grandmother, who would nod in approval every time even when my syntax was flawed and my figures of speech all over the place. Yes, my early works, as you would’ve suspected, were just a tendril short of crap—how deluded was I when I attempted to create, for example, a local version of Sweet Valley High? It all got a little better in time, though, as I slowly outgrew my fondness for implausibly sunkissed blonde twins, and I got published for the very first time in The Philippine Star’s youth lifestyle section when I was 15. Three or so years later I became an editor at a local daily’s youth lifestyle section, and soon after became associate editor and youth section editor at a local magazine. Somewhere in the midst of all this frenzy, I became a stylist, too—I’d figured, to be a credible fashion journalist one had had to walk the talk. This was the time I got to work with some of the most amazing photographers I know. Jon Unson was an incredible to work with—not only did he encourage me to push the envelop in each and every shoot I styled, he also made sure each session was going to be educational (he was always explaining to me what he was doing and what he was aiming to achieve, was always eager to let me in on the planning and conceptualizing stages, and his vast collection of rare art and fashion magazines became my library for a year or so). And then there was Wig Tysmans, whom I’d been commissioned to work with for two fashion editorials for the now-defunct glossy CeBu!, who took us outdoors and gave us a crash course on light and luminance—I remember him talking about “the magical hour,” that sliver of time between when the sun starts to set and when it disappears completely, and I just stood there open-mouthed as it all unfolded, and as he seized ten different hues of a sunset in a single frame. During this period I was living alone, away from family, and being around these gifted and generous people who made work feel like it wasn’t work, and who taught me everything I’d failed to learn from my father, made me feel like I was home. My parents would visit from time to time, and I’d tell my dad about these extraordinarily talented people I was working with and their fascinating craft, and then he’d tell me, “Don’t say I never gave you a camera!” It appeared that he’d given me his Nikon N8008 when he’d arrived from a trip to Vegas in the early ‘90s, but I’d turned it down, saying all I’d wanted was a new typewriter. Thinking about it now, I wish I’d taken it anyway. Oh, well, again, it bites that you can’t turn back time.

It would take another couple of years for me to get my very first camera, a Nikon Zoom 500 or something that looked like it—yes, compact, and secondhand, because I was living from meager paycheck to meager paycheck at the time—which I lost four months later on a trip to Manila to stalk the boundary-pushing streetwear designer Cecile Zamora and the equally fierce stylist/DJ Angelo Villanueva. Two years later I got my first digital camera, a Kodak DC3200—again, compact, and secondhand, because it was all I could afford. Boxy, heavy (it required 4 AA batteries), and in the dullest shade of gray (the color of a battleship), it looked (and, I should add, sounded) more like a toy than a camera, but it did the job pretty well, save for the overactive flash, and so it stuck with me for a good four years—such a trouper, I know! I was gonna say the thing served its purpose as a good personal camera, but it would be remiss in my part if I said I never used it “professionally,” because the truth is I sort of have—in my one-year stint as lifestyle editor for a local weekly in my hometown, we used it for a good number of features that required accompanying portraits, even travelogues. Were they show-stopping images? Well, not quite. But I thought they were pretty decent—for newsprint, at least. And then my dad stepped into the picture. Yes, it was around this time that he started to pay attention to my work; normally, you see, he wouldn’t touch on the subject of my writing, but since this time around my work involved accompanying pictures he began to feel the need to pitch in. “You whites are burnt out—what are you doing about that?” “Watch your lines—composition is important.” “Your photos are almost always published in black and white, so understanding contrast is key.” “Practice a little bit of framing; it can be flattering.” For the first of these feedback sessions I kind of listened, but for what followed I took less and less to heart. Because this was a parent there was this childish tendency for me to suspect that he was just taking advantage of the situation to point out the things I was doing badly. Also, with the dearth of stuff to write about in a small town, I had to focus on digging for stories rather than spend time learning a new craft—besides, I would rationalize, people knew me as a writer, not as a photographer or art director, so they wouldn’t care if the visuals were mediocre as long as the writing was pretty damn good. Thinking about it now, I wish I’d paid close attention to what he’d had to say, hung on to every word, taken down notes. Oh, well, it bites that you can’t turn back time.

It wasn’t until the summer of 2008 that I learned to recognize the value of photography as a tool to help me see the world and tell stories in ways that could be markedly different from the written word. I was on my very first trip out of the country, and was therefore saddled with the task to document every little experience for those waiting at home. “Your camera ready?” my dad had asked days before my flight out. Naturally, I’d assured him, two cameras, in fact. “You sure you don’t need a new one?” he’d asked, and to this I’d shaken my head, and he’d said OK, fine—knowing me, he’d probably had a sneaking suspicion I’d only put them in my checklist to make sure something was there to document my outfit opportunities, anyways, so he’d fought the urge to push. And, true to form, during my first few days in Los Angeles, all I did was shop and have photos of me in my new clothes taken, under the false illusion that maybe a profile picture of me wearing some Urban Outfitters and against some kickass stencil graffiti down N La Brea would land me a spot in the MySpace Muses section of WhoWhatWear.com (and how depressing is that, right?). And then the day came when everyone I knew was too busy to show me around, and so I was left with no choice but to go around on my own, walking (yes, walking, a breach in convention by New Wave standards since Missing Persons had declared that “nobody walks in L.A.”) a half mile from my friend’s Wilshire Center neighborhood to Melrose, and another two miles down Melrose looking for the People’s Revolution offices to stalk Kelly Cutrone. With no one there to take pictures of me, for the first time in a long time my camera was turned away from, well, me and actually saw the world. Melrose, particularly that section between La Brea and Fairfax, was quintessential, dead-on L.A.—equal parts offbeat and classic, crass and urbane, languid and dynamic, cluttered and tidy, unworldly and worldly, it was like being caught between two places, definitely unlike anything I’d ever seen in the movies or television. Falling more and more in love with the city with every step I took, I yanked my camera out of my tote and just fired away, taking pictures of every nook and cranny, of every hustle and bustle, of every passerby suspecting or unsuspecting. I snapped and snapped, more obsessively by the minute, for the record, for me to look back on, for others who’d ever wondered. It was an epiphany of sorts: Here was a prompt, convenient, all-encapsulating way to document—a pen and journal, albeit brave, wouldn’t have sufficed. So I didn’t get to spot Ms. Cutrone, but I stumbled upon a new hobby—not bad at all. Instant-replaying my shots as I called it a day, waggling at the few hits and snorting at the hundreds of misses, I thought of how much painless all of this would’ve been had I taken my dad up on his offer to buy me a better camera. But, oh, well, I was here, and there was no turning back the hands of time.

One of the last conversations I had with my father was about cameras. I was home visiting, having just returned from the City of Angels, and was showing him my shots from Melrose, a.k.a. my feeble attempt at street/documentary photography. They were nowhere as good as his shots from Vegas/Reno from years back, of course—or any of his shots, for that matter—but he gave me his stamp of approval, and declared I was ready to graduate from point-and-shoot to SLR. At first the idea of a heavy black box that needed to have its own bag (or to be carried around your neck) and that required careful handling and that entailed a number of accessories frightened me, but then I figured, hey, if I had to jump at this I had to go all out. So I told him I was willing to take him up on his offer to get me a new camera this time, if it still stood, and, to my dismay, he said yes, but on one condition: it had to be film-based. “Do they even sell those still?” I whimpered. But then again I’d seen it coming. The thing about my dad was he kicked it old school, tenaciously, almost to a fault—never got tired of his Jeep CJ, for example, which he’d had since his adolescent years, in favor of compact cars or other more sophisticated forms of transportation. And so it was no surprise that he wasn’t a huge fan of digital photography. With film, he said, “you are forced to have this discipline, to exercise restraint, and it gives you room to really study your bad shots—unlike digital, where you can take a hundred shots of a single frame and just discard the 99 that are bad and keep the one that’s good.” He had a point, but I remained obstinate. “If you want to be good at this, you have to learn it the hard way,” he’d added. After much prodding, though, he agreed to meet me halfway—i.e., I was to get myself a DSLR body, and he would buy me all the lenses that I wanted. Sounded like a deal to me. I was excited that I was about to start a new creative journey. And he was kind of thrilled, too—if not at the idea that, finally, he and I had something in common (after failed attempts to get me interested long enough in tennis, or at all in trips to the farm, family business stuff, or pistols), then at least at the idea that his prodigal progeny was going to be needing to see him more frequently than the usual twice-a-year. Am I making this stuff up—the part about him being kind of thrilled? People are going to ask that, knowing my father was nothing if not hard to read. Well, the answer is no. Before we said goodbye, I asked for a photo with him, which my friend Carlo took. My dad, he was never fond of being in front of a camera, always preferred to stand behind it—he was never a smiley person, too, and was always stiff, even when the situation called for one to be tender. But he said yes to this one photo, and even managed to put on a half-smile.

Little did I know that that was going to be the last photo of me and my father. He would pass away, in a freak motor accident, a little over three months later, just three days shy of my thirtieth birthday, which was when I’d originally intended to get myself a present in the form of the camera body that we’d talked about. It’s sad when the cookie crumbles, but even more heartbreaking when your world falls apart. In the wake of his death it all hung like a dark cloud over me, the promises that never came to fruition—not just the more prosaic ones like the camera situation, but the graver things, too, like my promise to be a good son and a good brother, and everything else in between. I began to wonder how the feminist artist Kiki Smith, daughter of American modernist sculptor Tony Smith, must have felt when her works were put alongside a retrospective of her father’s, some twenty years after his passing—“I remember being embarrassed because he had a beard or drove strange cars,” she had been quoted as saying. In my eulogy for my dad I touched on the subject of my self-imposed semi-estrangement from him and the rest of my family. It was no secret that I had distanced myself from and turned my back on him in more ways than one, and I would reason that that was because I was trying to be my own person, but, really, the truth was I terrified that his idiosyncrasies would rub off on me—not knowing that the more I’d ran the more I’d taken parts of him with me, and I had only been wasting my time, throwing away what had promised to be a relationship inundated by creativity. Tearfully I expressed my regret in front of friends and family. But no amount of tears could turn back time. All that was left to do was to move forward, and hope that, no matter how tragic things had turned out, a wonderfully consoling outcome was waiting for me somewhere, somehow. The good son and good brother parts I am still working on up to this very day, as I am writing this. The camera, though, I got to pick up last year, some fourteen months after his passing, and it’s never left my side ever since—a part of my father that has stuck with me, and that is going to be stuck with me, hopefully for a very long time. Of course, the aforementioned last snapshot of me and him is stuck with me, too—as a soothing reminder that, while we are not able to turn back the hands of time, at least some things can be, well, frozen in time.

I guess that’s what’s good about love in the time of the camera.

It hasn’t been easy having to learn the ropes on my own. Sure, there are people around me who’ve been doing this a long time, but every time I push my luck a door is slammed on my face. No hard feelings, especially since I’ve come to understand that times have changed, and are changing—advancement in digital photography has made the craft accessible to almost everyone, and as the landscape becomes oversaturated people are looking for more and more ways to stand out and be cut above the rest, and unfortunately for some one way to do that is to hold back on the sharing. The deplorable part is when people accuse you of being a “copycat,” thinking they own the craft just because they happened to pick up a camera a few years before you could do so yourself. I was unlucky enough to have undergone such travail. There were days it would get so bad and I’d find myself giving up cold turkey. But somehow during these days memories of my father would manage to manifest, and so I’d pick my head up. Case in point: Just a couple of months ago I was in L.A. visiting my sister, and I was this close to selling my camera to a friend from college, but then I made a quick trip to the Getty, and at the time Engaged Observers: Documentary Photography since the Sixties was on exhibition, featuring the works of the likes of Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey, and Philip Jones Griffiths, and then I was brought face-to-face with a print of Griffiths’s seminal image of a Marine talking to a Vietnamese peasant girl in a paddy field, my dad’s favorite image from Vietnam Inc. And just like that I decided to keep the camera. It’s kind of a bittersweet thing, really, how he’s no longer here to teach or guide me, and yet it’s like he’s all around me, just pushing.

You might be wondering why I chose to tell this story to inaugurate my blog. Well, the principal reason is a rather simple one: Today is Father’s Day, and what better way to celebrate than by paying homage to my old man? There is a collateral reason, though, that I feel needs to go on record. You see, ever since I got a camera I have been getting a lot of flak from friend and foe alike, saying that I only got interested in photography because of a boy. While I will admit that, for a time there, I was head over heels with a guy who happens to be a photographer—and a very, very talented one at that—he wasn’t, isn’t and will never be the reason that I got myself into this. Does this boy inspire me? Well, yes. But then so do a lot of other stuff, like the Pacific Coast Highway, grunge, horse names, Beat poetry, birds, Catherine Deneuve, Hubert Selby Jr.’s Last Exit to Brooklyn. And that’s just talking about right now. Maybe tomorrow it’s going to be, well, “Maybe Tomorrow” by Stereophonics. My point being that, while inspiration is a critical part of every creative process, it is often fleeting, temporary, and can be substituted at a snap of your fingers. A birthright, however, is steadfast and headstrong, has no hiding place, and is not something you can just shake off or put away. Trust me, I am tempted to attribute this whole thing to affairs of the heart, but there’s no denying that there’s no affair quite like a family affair. And so, once and for all, to dispel the rumors and to disabuse some of you of that notion, let it be known that I’m doing this not because of a boy, but because of a man.

This blog is dedicated in loving memory of my father, Jose Francisco Serafica Kangleon. I am probably never going to be as good as him—or anyone in this field, for that matter. I am probably never going to get people to stop and say oooh and aaah. I am probably never going to get people to show some respect. But that doesn’t mean it’s not worth a try. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop soldiering on. Some people are going to do a cursory glance-over at my work, dismiss it as amateur, perhaps even make ominous forecasts about it, but that’s alright. Because maybe it is amateur, maybe terribly so even. I will come clean and admit that I’ve never attended a single photography workshop, that there’s no more technical know-how in me than in an intermediate-level child photographer (I mean, I look at my lens blower and I am baffled by it!), and that I do not have the discipline or patience to organize my camera bag or my mood boards or my shooting schedule. More often than not I rely on whim and not on white balance, forget to mind my composition in favor of caprice, attach importance to accidents vs., say, aperture. Pretty clumsy, you might say. Like on this one late afternoon two years ago, in the fall, I was walking towards the corner of Wilshire and S Manhattan Pl looking for The Wiltern (to see if I could score tickets to an Aimee Mann/Fountains of Wayne gig), and I stopped dead on my tracks and pointed my camera to the sky upon remembering it was my dad’s birthday, his first since his passing. The resulting picture was not of his face among the clouds, of course—it was of a flock of birds, gracefully gliding through rays of the California sunset, almost Hitchcockian, top-to-bottom surreal. Is that sort of stuff amateur? Maybe so. I don’t know. All I know is that it’s magical. And I have my old man to thank for it.