That Old Time Feeling: Lance and Myla
Aren’t they a gorgeous pair? Meet the beautiful Myla Barandog and the dashing Lance Shan, winners of Shutterfairy Photography’s first-ever styled engagement session giveaway (contest opened September last year; winners announced October)! I can’t remember exactly how many entries we got, only that there were quite a handful. I also can’t remember how my boss/mentor Malou Pages and I ended up picking this couple’s submission as the winning entry. What I do remember is that much of it had to do with the fact that theirs was the only entry that had been sent in by the fiancé (whereas everything else we got had been submitted by the fiancées)—I mean, how sweet is that, right, to have the guy participate in contests like this, when it’s usually the ladies who scramble to join in these sorts of things? To quote snippets from Lance’s e-mail entry: “My fiancée Myla has always loved [Shutterfairy Photography’s] style… She would always make me visit your Website… She already included you in our list of possible [vendors] for our upcoming wedding… Just a few days ago she learned about this contest, and she was very thrilled that she called me right away… I discouraged her from joining, and told her it would be impossible for us to win… But I want to surprise her, so I am writing this in the hopes of giving Myla her dream engagement session…” Who wouldn’t be floored after reading something like that? He even added: “She could be hardheaded at times, and so I’m expecting her to submit her own entry anytime soon.” Sure enough, we would receive an entry from Myla days later, but little did she know that her fiancé already beat her to it!
The Shutterfairy team flew to Davao (where Myla is based) to sit with the couple and discuss their desired concept/s and outcome/s. And they came to the meeting very prepared, it was as if they’d been planning this their whole lives! They showed us a few photos of couples clad in basic white-T-shirt-and-jeans combos (they liked the simplicity and cleanliness of this look), and of a room filled with balloons of all shapes and sizes. They also mentioned they liked the “vintage travel”-themed shoot that we did for one of our couples back in 2011 (especially the old trunks/suitcases). But the biggest thing that jumped at me about their mood boards was that they were chock-full of screencaps from the 2009 movie (500) Days of Summer. I asked why this was so, and Myla explained that they liked not just the “lightheartedness” of it all, but also how it looked timeless—i.e., you know it’s set in modern times because of how they talk, how they dress, the songs, etc., but there was something about the whole thing that lent an old-fashioned feel to the picture. I was quick to break it down for them, ‘cause it was exactly this element that made me fall in love with the film, too: the reason it worked was that there was a third character in play, and that was the architectural wonders of old L.A. , collectively—the Bradbury Building on Broadway (between W 3rd and W 4th, built in 1893), the Fine Arts Building on W 7th (between S Figueroa and S Flower, built in 1926), and the Eastern Columbia Building (built in 1930), to name a few. So I gave them an assignment: come up with a list of three or four of their favorite old (or old-looking) places, and that’s where we were going to be shooting!
I think it took them a little over a month to scout for places—they looked at a couple of places in Davao, and I think Lance did some research on a few historical spots in Cebu, too. Ultimately, they settled for Negros Oriental, not just because this was where Myla’s family has roots (in Dumaguete), but because it was home to three structures that she found to be very fascinating:
- An old bahay kubo-style fishing barn somewhere in Manjuyod (some 40 miles northwest of Dumaguete City), owned by the family of their wedding planner Grace Sycip-Romano (who herself had used the place as the site of her hacienda-themed wedding last year)
- The pretty Mojon Chapel in Bais City (some 29 miles northwest of Dumaguete, just before you get to Manjuyod), which some people erroneously cite as having Moorish architectural influence, but which actually borrows styles from Carpenter Gothic (no one can tell me when this structure was built, but my guess is it dates back to the early 1900s)
- The El Puerto Rico, a charming, privately-owned mansion that combines Baroque and Spanish Colonial (or hacienda) styles, located in Dumaguete’s El Pueblo Genovivo Subdivision (which the couple also booked for their wedding reception)
I’d only been to Dumaguete once (some two years ago, for the wedding of one of the first few couples I photographed), and I’d always known the place was rich with history, but I’d never imagined it would be this rich! After I got the e-mail from Myla containing pictures of the abovementioned locations, I wasted no time in asking her to book our plane tickets! From that moment on, I knew that this was going to be one of our best shoots this year!
Of course, at the same time, I knew that this was going to be one of the most challenging, as well, especially storyboard-wise: unlike most of our styled shoots, which are developed from a central idea, an overarching theme, this time we had to come up with a concept (or a string of concepts) based on our shooting locations. It’s hard when it’s a place/locale that serves as inspiration/starting point for a job, because then when you’re given a number of very disparate venues you’re not going to have it easy trying to piece the sequences together into something that makes sense! Thankfully I only had to look at the other variables in their initial mood boards and combine them with a number of inspirational elements already in my back pocket to help me build the scenes!
For the scenes that were to take place in the barn, I looked to the 1994 western movie 8 Seconds for some inspiration—except that, instead of having them don cowboy-inspired outfits (we’d already done that for another couple a few months back), I had them wear farmer-y clothes in denim and white, which was perfect because, as mentioned earlier, this very ensemble was a key feature in their mood boards. Myla’s outfit for this set was inspired by a photo of the actress Jessica Beil by Mario Testino in the February 2010 issue of Vogue, in which she wore oversize weathered denim overalls, and by a look in Ralph Lauren’s Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear. I may have also been thinking of that one scene from the ninth episode of Season 4 of Sex and the City (“Sex and the Country”) where Carrie Bradshaw ends up in a puddle of mud in her boyfriend Aidan’s country retreat in Suffern, and you can see her struggling for her life in her denim overalls and dark olive green wellies. I loved that when we got to the barn we did not have to do a lot of cleaning—there were wood shavings scattered everywhere, but I decided against sweeping them into a corner because I liked how they added a rustic feel to the pictures. I also asked the couple to bring with them some farming tools—I wanted a couple of photos of them carrying a rake and a spade (we couldn’t find a pitchfork, you see), as a nod to famous 1930 Grant Wood painting American Gothic. I had to be careful not to make the whole thing look too masculine, of course, so I asked Jenny Hortillosa, who assisted me with the set decoration, to throw some horticultural elements into the mix, like an eggshell garden, and a bottle garden (complete with plant markers that bore love quotes/phrases with green thumb-y references, like, say, “Romance in bloom,” or “Secret garden”). (I would have loved for a couple of farm animals to be in the picture, too—couple of goats, or maybe even a couple of piglets—but then this was a fishing barn smack in the middle of a pond, so you can’t really expect goat husbandry or pig farming to take place in such a spot, right?)
As a rule, I (or we at Shutterfairy Photography) try not to reuse themes of shoots past, so when Myla said she really liked the aforementioned “vintage travel” theme that we did for one of our couples some two years back I had to discourage her from going down that route. But she insisted that, for the photos that were to be taken at the old chapel in Bais, she really wanted to make use of these postcard-pretty vintage-looking suitcases that she found in Dumaguete, so I asked to see them. Sure enough, when I laid my eyes on them—a pair of decorative wood-and-faux-leather suitcases with Parisian iconography scribbled all over them—I figured that they didn’t deserve to be punished just because I was unwilling to repeat concepts! I allowed her to use them, on the condition that she was not going to be wearing anything era-specific (the original “vintage travel”-themed shoot that we’d done had featured a kind of ‘60s look). We went for a look that, again, combined elements from Ralph Lauren Spring 2010 Ready-to-Wear: denim slip dress that called to mind blue work shirts, brown oxfords, and a grandmother-style long cableknit sweater cardigan in luscious lion brown (from Charlotte Russe).
For the photos that were going to be shot at the El Puerto Rico mansion, I wanted something a bit played down, just to offset the grandiosity of the place. I followed both Myla and Lance on Instagram, and that was how I found out they both loved to have coffee/tea together, and they both loved breakfast food (e.g., sweet breads), so I figured that a breakfast scene was in order. To set the mood I updated our boards with a 2002 Fabrizio Ferri photograph of the English musician Sting wearing a Tom Ford for Gucci kimono, lounging with his dogs at his Figline Valdarno, Tuscany, home. The kimono look was a little too fancy for my taste, though—I wanted something basic, modest, snug. So I asked the couple to show up in cotton pajamas in earth tones. The idea was for them to look like they’d just hopped out of bed, but not quite ready to slip out of that comfort zone just yet. It was kind of dark inside the El Puerto Rico, but I managed to find a solitary corner that was gorgeously lit, and that was where I set up our make-believe breakfast nook. I greatly enjoyed doing the set decoration for this scene. Mind you, nothing about that task was haphazard—everything was carefully laid out, from the placement of the croissants, to the slightly askew placement of the crochet table runner. I got so caught up in the set decoration part that I kind of overlooked the styling aspect (i.e., I forgot to pass on Myla’s grey-and-hot-pink polka dot socks—well, it didn’t come out too unseemly, so we’re fine)!
I gave them a bonus (fourth) set, just so Myla could have an excuse to wear a long dress. I was tempted to give her the “room full of balloons” that she’d been dreaming of, but had to nix the idea when I realized a lot of people had done that sort of thing already. So I proposed a sea of tealights instead of balloons. I was thinking of Julian Broad’s 2002 photograph of the Irish singer Enya in a room full of candles. I might have also been thinking of a similar scene from the music video of Mr. Big’s 1991 hit “Just Take My Heart.” Thankfully the couple was sold to the idea! It was an arduous task, trying to light over a hundred tealights—imagine the drops of sweat rolling down our foreheads—but it was so worth it in the end! The tealights lent an ethereal look to the pictures! Before we wrapped I asked for a few photos of them standing in front of El Puerto Rico’s main double doors—not so much because this structure reminded me of the door to curator Astrud Crisologo’s Casa Amarilla, but because I felt like the weathered wood and the cascading vines suited overall feel that the couple was gunning for.
Lance and Myla were such a delight to work with, not only because of their good looks (I swear, that line from a song that goes “that laugh that wrinkles your nose” might have been written for Myla) or their irresistible chemistry that made them very photographable, but mainly because of how they were very committed to turning this shoot into a memorable affair for the two of them (well, for all of us, actually). Always I tell my clients, “Don’t stress too much about this: it’s only your engagement photos, not your wedding day,” but this couple right here begged to differ, and approached the whole thing no differently than how they would approach the planning of the actual wedding! Their exchange of comments on Instagram and Facebook made it very clear that they took pleasure in every moment they spent deciding on each detail of the shoot. Myla, in particular, was quite hardcore: when I asked for the possibility of a sit-down meeting to discuss last-minute details, she wasted no time in booking plane tickets to Cebu, just like that! Also, I would credit Jennifer as the sole props master for this assignment, but that would be doing a great disservice to Myla, who sourced majority of the props that you see in these pictures (most of these items, including the mason jars and the mugs, she got from her favorite online store Paper Chic Studio). Lance actually mentioned in his first e-mail that these were just few of the qualities that he loved most about his fiancée: “She’s very full of ideas, and very creative—and she’s good at budgeting, too!”
They are set to tie the knot later this month (May 25), at the Our Mother of Perpetual Help Redemptorist Church in Dumaguete. The reception, of course, is going to be held at the El Puerto Rico. I’m sure the wedding photos are going to be as lovely as the engagement pictures, if not lovelier! It’s going be a magical day, I just know it! I can already picture Myla giggling endlessly. As for Lance…well, as he mentioned in the e-mail that he sent to us before we even met them, “Nothing makes me happier than seeing her happy.”
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This engagement session was featured in the April 24, 2013, edition of Manila-based online bridal inspiration magazine BridalBook.ph, making it my second time to be featured last month (after the surfer-/beach culture-themed engagement session that I did in Siargao late last year was showcased in April 10), and my third time overall. I am truly honored and extremely humbled that respected arbiters such as this Summit Media/Summit Digital title have taken notice of my (our) work, and so, to that end, I would like to take this opportunity to give massive, massive thanks to Kristy Ann Texon and the rest of the editorial team at BridalBook.ph—thank you so much, you guys, for your tireless support!
Lance Conrad Shan and Myla Belle Barandog | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Bais City and Majuyod, Negros Oriental, on March 2, 2013, and in Dumaguete City on March 3, 2013 | Main photographer: Malou Pages for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Edrico Chua Palencia | Set decorators: Angelo Kangleon and Jennifer Hortillosa | Special thanks to Paper Chic Studio and Grace Sycip-Romano of Creative Concepts
Revenge of the Nerds: Sam and Joan
What gets me up in the morning? Full disclosure: I am the most motivated and diligent person you can imagine, and yet I still can’t help but give in to the temptation of just staying in bed and being comatose like that during the first few hours after waking up. And it’s not even a hoity-toity, I-don’t-wake-up-for-less-than-insert-amount-here kind of thing—if anything, it’s more of a comfort/leisure thing, no different from, say, getting a massage at the tail end of an extremely grueling day/week. At home I have set some ground rules, and one of them is for no one to disturb me in the morning, unless it’s an emergency. On working days I resist and desist from hitting the snooze button only when I know I have to catch an early morning call time or flight; otherwise, it’s my best friend. And I schedule all my sit-down meetings, personal shopping appointments and house calls in the afternoon. For Sam and Joan here, though, I had to make an exception—our first few meetings had to be held in the early morning! They’d just flown in from New Zealand, you see, where they were now based, which meant that 8 AM for us was already 1 PM for them! And I knew better than to not respect jet lag of any degree!
The issue of, um, messed-up body clocks aside, though, it was really the couple’s we-mean-business kind of air that had me scrambling to put my game face on before I could even have my breakfast. In all our initial correspondence with this couple, you see, they, especially Joan, had made it clear they were the meticulous and scrupulous types. Discussions around possible shooting locations, for example, had taken days; and for each minor detail I’d mentioned they would get back to me with a list of clarifying questions. Judging from all that, I knew I couldn’t afford to slack one damned bit when it came to this assignment. It was time to roll the sleeves up like I’d never rolled them up before!
Of course, by meticulous and scrupulous, I’m not saying that Sam and Joan were trying to be difficult, or that they wanted something complex for their engagement photos. As a matter of fact, they wanted to keep things simple! Both of them were techies, and both of them worked in IT (I think that’s how they met, if I am not mistaken), so they asked for a bright light to be shone on that aspect—they mentioned that the wedding invites were going to bear line art of a little boy and a little girl tinkering with computers, and so they wanted their pictures to be in keeping up with this theme. They also wanted to incorporate some of their old toys in the picture: Joan had an old teddy bear that she just couldn’t part with until this very day, and Sam was an avid collector of robot action figures (Voltron, Transformers, Gundam…you name it, he’s got it!). Pretty uncomplicated, right? Well, that was what I thought, too—until it was time to figure out how to put these things together into something that would make sense! How to mix the techie/nerdy/geeky motif with a child’s play theme? Should we roll them together into one picture, or keep them as two separate, distinct parts of a story? Also, how to expand the whole thing? Because, to me, just two elements/sets felt like we were falling short. There also was a debate on what kind of techie stuff/gadgets should be included the picture—I was partial to the idea of old, yellowed computers, while the couple favored the more modern, sophisticated devices, like iPads. More importantly, there was the styling aspect to give extra careful thought to: should we go for the nerdy/geeky clothes all the way, or should we make a little room for playful, feminine touches for Joan?
So, you see, it all didn’t turn out to be a walk in the park after all, and, boy, was I glad I’d conditioned myself for that from the get-go! In fact, the shoot had to be pushed back a couple of months—from July to December—because we felt we needed more time to deliberate and come up with really effective decisions. Ultimately we decided that it was wise for us to keep the computers in one picture and the toys in another; that the computers had to be the old, yellowed ones, and if we were to incorporate the iPads then they would have to be in a separate set; and that Joan should infuse a little “girliness” into her wardrobe to achieve a perfect balance between playful and romantic. It was looking for the perfect dresses that took time and that took quite a toll on us, actually: we had these very specific styles in mind—Peter Pan collar for one, sweetheart neckline for the other, and both had to have circle skirts that sat just right above the knee—but we just couldn’t find them here in Cebu, so Joan had to take this assignment with her to New Zealand, and after weeks upon weeks of scouring the shops (both physical and online) she was able to take these two gorgeous babies home with her! I have to mention that the blue dress didn’t really come with a Peter Pan collar when she bought it—she just layered a white Peter Pan-collared lace top underneath it to achieve the effect that we were gunning for! This just proved how conscientious and detail-oriented Joan was, and how inventive, too!
So happy with how everything fell into place on the day of the shoot. In the days leading to it, you see, I’d been poring over our list obsessively, thinking, What’s all this going to look like put together? Thankfully we didn’t end up with a big mess on our hands, and instead were able to produce pictures that were at turns whimsical and lighthearted; elaborate, but not to a point of being fussy; fun, but not to a point of being mischievous. There were times the setup looked theatrically artificial—CD-ROM-covered wall, anyone?—but Sam and Joan neutralized this by being strikingly natural in front of the camera! I was overwhelmed, too, by the feedback that the resulting photos got from the couple’s family and friends—everyone they knew was floored! But the biggest honor came from D.C.-based photographer and photo session cool hunter Maggie Winters when she featured this very session in her Website For Awesome People, commending us for the “crazy cool” concept and the “incredible styling.” Our work had been featured in a bunch of locally-based bridal/wedding inspiration Websites in the past, but this was the first time that someone from halfway across the world had taken notice—kind of a big deal for us at Shutterfairy Photography!
Not about to take all the credit, though, because, like I’ve mentioned, this wasn’t all our doing. Sam and Joan knew exactly how they wanted the photos to come out, showed no signs of being pushovers, and got involved in each and every little step of the creative process. Us and them, a match made in collaboration heaven! So, going back to the original question that I posed: What gets me up in the morning? It’s people who are as motivated and passionate about creative execution as I am, if not more! How do I get more clients like these in my life?
Samuel Cabasa and Mary Joan Desamparado | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City, Cebu, on December 17, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Jay Failanga | Set decorator: Jennifer Hortillosa | Special thanks to Joy Climaco of St.James Amusement Park and the staff of Anzani New Mediterranean Restaurant
Why Don’t We Paint the Town: The Malimbans
Here’s the family session that the folks at Shutterfairy Photography and I did early last month. Meet Eric and Annie Malimban, and their adorable son Eael. This young family had just transplanted themselves to Cebu from Manila just a little over a year ago. This shoot was actually a last-minute addition to our calendar—as early as October, Malou (my boss/mentor at Shutterfairy) and I had already closed our December calendars, agreeing to no longer accept bookings for that month since it had already been jam-packed with engagement sessions and weddings. When Annie mentioned, though, that having a family portrait session was kind of “a yearly thing” for them, and so she could not afford to move it to January since, well, that would be a completely different year altogether, and the thought of letting 2012 pass them by was crippling to them, we just had to say yes. Who were we to break the cycle of an inspired family tradition, right? That was just not our style.
I will admit it: I was pretty flustered the whole time I was working on this assignment, and that was because I knew I only had a a few days to plan and prepare for it! I’d used to think I was the kind of person who could work well under pressure, but apparently not! I had to apologize to Eric and Annie, explaining that I was so used to being given a month or two to prepare for a shoot, no matter how simple or complex. It offered very little comfort knowing that I was technically going to be a one-man show this time around—our resident set decorator had asked to sit this one out, since she’d already made arrangements to fly to Manila for a vacation! Fortunately Eric and Annie understood where I was coming from, and committed to help out with the props aspect of it.
As we were discussing possible concepts, Annie only had one request: by hook or by crook, we were to steer clear of anything that involved beaches, pools, or any body of water for that matter. And understandably so, because most of the pictures they’d had done in recent years had exhausted this theme to no end—they’d done the Plantation Bay Resort and Spa back in late 2011, and, if I’m not mistaken, even the Bellaroca Island Resort in Marinduque the year before that. Asked what she had in mind for this time, she mentioned that she kind of liked the “feel” of this one Guess ad she’d once come across, which involved “an old vehicle, a dirt road, and sunset.” She couldn’t remember where she’d seen this, though, and I could not for the life of me recall a Guess ad that had all the elements she cited—I was pretty much stumped at the ones starring Claudia Schiffer that incorporated a convertible and a Vespa-like scooter, or that one featuring Anna Nicole Smith as sexy chauffeur, but I was pretty sure these weren’t what Annie had in mind. Perhaps she was talking about a Guess Kids campaign? In which case I would be totally clueless! After two full days of hardcore research and I still couldn’t dig up the picture in her mental mood board, I showed her a photo of Jude Law, Sadie Frost and their children, shot by Steven Klein (for the July 2002 issue of American Vogue, if memory serves me right), which shows the family stranded on a dirt road on what looked like a fiendishly hot afternoon, and Law on his back pretend-fixing their beaten-up old yellow car. At the sight of this photo Annie’s face lit up. So this was the kind of “feel” she wanted for their photos: the grease monkey vibe!
I was about ready to phone people I knew who owned car repair shops in order to secure a location or borrow a beaten-up automobile when suddenly I was beset with a nagging feeling from inside of me telling me to rethink the whole thing: aside from the fact that we’d already used the car repair shop as backdrop before (and I knew Malou wasn’t a fan of “repeating themes”), I figured it was a little too “stiff” for a family session. I mean, sure, it worked for Jude Law and family, and that Steven Klein photo was beautiful, but that was for a fashion magazine—that kind of picture would definitely look odd hung on a family room wall! Also, I had to consider: Was the little boy going to have fun pretending to fix battered, rusty cars? Just like that I had to put the brakes on the whole thing, and decided to pitch a funner, literally more colorful concept: something that involved fingerpainting! I don’t know, I guess I was inspired by this one photo by Melbourne-based young photographer Nirrimi Hakanson of a little girl with paint all over her chubby cheeks and chest, which had been haunting me for months. At first Annie was a little apprehensive about the paint element (who wouldn’t be, especially if you think about the resulting mess?), but I explained: “Kids are difficult to photograph, especially if they know they’re getting nothing out of it. But if we make it fun for them, they’ll cooperate!” She still wasn’t convinced. But then her hubby turned to the little boy and asked, “What’s it gonna be, Eael? Fixing cars, or painting?” Without a moment’s hesitation, Eael replied, “Painting!” Just like that, the verdict was in. Love it when it’s a kid that gets to call the shots on these matters!
It’s easy to see why Eric and Annie pretty much allow their son to be the boss—such a standup guy, that little fellow! You won’t believe how hyperactive he was on the day of the shoot: the moment we arrived at our shooting location (the Celestial Gardens up the Banawa Hills), he couldn’t wait for the whole thing to start—and once we got it rolling, well, it began to look like he didn’t want it to ever end! Quite the role-player, too, I must say! Whatever expression or mood we asked him to take on, he was down for it, and executed it flawlessly. And did I mention extremely polite, and very keen on following instructions? As a matter of fact, the only instruction that he didn’t heed was the part where I asked him not to mix the paints—I seemed to know that if you mixed red, blue, yellow and green together it would come out really nasty, and true enough when he turned a deaf ear to my orders and proceeded to combine all four colors he ended up with grey goop all over!—but I knew better than to hold this against him, because what was important was that he was having a blast. What I loved most about him, though, was how he was incredibly articulate for his age. I can’t remember it all now, but I am pretty sure he used at least 20 or so big words that day. I’d asked Eric and Annie to pack with them some of the little boy’s favorite toys and books, and as he took each item out of the bag he would show it to me and tell me an interesting story about it—it was clear his favorite activity was show and tell! He made it very clear, though, that he was in no hurry to grow up when I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up and he snapped, “Can I have a little brother first?” Too adorable, I know! Made me wish my little nephews were as gabby as he!
Annie and Eric, thank you so much for allowing us to share this colorful day with your family! Most of all, thank you for bringing such an amazing child into this world! I hope you guys rewarded him for doing such an incredible job at our shoot—a new toy, a new book, whatever! And when you run out of toys and books to give him, maybe you will consider giving him that little brother that he’s been asking for!
Eric and Laarnie “Annie” Malimban and their son Eael | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on December 9, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Alex Nicole Lorenzana
Photographing the Photographer: Malou Pages
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
Almost Paradise: Ernest and Vanessa
These two lovebirds are tying the knot real soon—and by real soon I mean in two days! We had the privilege of doing their engagement photos some three months back. At the time they were already beginning to count the days: “Three months to go!” the groom-to-be had exclaimed more than once. How exciting it must be for them now that it’s only a few hours ‘til they seal the deal!
We shot these photos at the Amun Ini Beach Resort and Spa in Anda, a tiny, peaceful coastal town in the northeastern tip of the island of Bohol, some 55 miles from Tagbilaran City via the Tagbilaran East Road, or 65 miles from Tubigon via the Central Nautical Highway (for some reason it was the Cebu-Tubigon ferry that we’d booked, so it was the latter route that we took). I’m not a big fan of road trips that take more than an hour, especially in this part of the world where it can get pretty bumpy, but this drive right here was worth it. Once we arrived at the resort, like magic, all my back and neck pains just melted away. Yes, that’s how beautiful the place is. I remember the first thing I said to resort owner Federico “Freddie” Carmona as I shook his hand the minute he greeted us by the pool: “People who say ‘it’s the journey, not the destination’ were obviously not coming to this place!” Built on a 4-hectare private cove facing the vast blue Bohol sea, and jutting out of lush, untouched vegetation (an ancient banyan tree greets you at the entrance, which, as it turns out, served as muse for when they were architecting the place), it was unlike anything I’d ever laid my eyes on before. I’m gonna stop with the words right here because the truth is no amount of waxing poetic is ever going to do the place justice (even these photos don’t do it justice), but if you ever plan to visit that part of Bohol, look no further and just book a night or two at Amun Ini—trust me, you won’t regret it!
It was Ernest who’d made arrangements to shoot at this place, not so much because of his family’s close ties to the Carmonas but because he’d wanted for it to be sort of like a vacation for him and his bride-to-be at the same time. Vanessa is a flight attendant at Emirates, and she only had a couple of days off to do this shoot, and so the fiancé had to make sure the whole thing was going to be half-disguised as R&R. We respected this, of course, and made conscious efforts to work fast so that they could have some time for, say, little massages in between sets. And for sumptuous dinners by the beach, to which we got to tag along! I swear, our team slipped into a coma after being subjected to a feast of local seafood (courtesy of the mayor of Anda)—I’d never had crustaceans that huge (and that many) in my life! (And that’s not even counting the lavish breakfasts whipped up by Freddie’s Manila-trained, San Francisco-honed culinary whiz of a daughter—her stylized banana fritters are to die for!) I’d like to think we were successful in not making the couple feel like this was all work. It certainly helped that our main photographer Malou was one of their closest friends from back in college—I think more than 80% of their time was spent talking about the good old days!
I loved these sets that we did at Amun Ini, especially the pool set and that one we did down the shore with the little banca (named Los Angeles!), but we were scheduled to do a couple of sets at the world-famous “man-made forest” down Bilar, too, and that was what I’d been really looking forward to. It was Vanessa who’d wanted to shoot at that location because she loved trees (and Malou was all for it because of a prospect of a Twilight feel—yes, my boss is a huge Twilight fan!). But, alas, luck wasn’t on our side: after driving two or so hours from Anda, we were greeted by torrential rain! It got me a little cranky, because an hour into our drive the weather was completely fine, but the moment we entered the Loay Road (Chocolate Hills territory) that was going to lead us to Bilar it suddenly turned gloomy and then it began to rain really hard. We all prayed for it to stop by the time we got to the forest, but it didn’t—well, perhaps it did for a bit, but everything was drenched now, and it was pretty foggy (we’re talking zero visibility). Ever the troupers, Malou and makeup artist Owen insisted that we soldiered on, despite the fact that we had no lighting equipment with us, or even tripods. I felt bad, not so much because of the prospect that the clothes I had prepared for Vanessa were going to go to waste (I’d assembled two outfits inspired by the “Taylor Swift as Rodarte muse” look especially for these sets!), but because it became very clear we never going to give Vanessa the gorgeous photos that she’d long been dreaming of. Even with out ISOs hiked up to the 1000 mark my photos still didn’t come out right! If only it was my decision to make I’d let everyone wait one more day, but then the couple had a few pre-wedding business to attend to in Cebu, so we had to leave that night. I’m posting some of the photos I took on here, anyways, never mind that they’re too dark or too blurry—I just want Vanessa to see that we did get a little something out of it.
That’s the thing about natural light shoots—when the weather turns sour and the elements don’t work out to your favor, you either pack up and walk away frustrated, or carry on and hope for the best. I’m glad that we took the latter route. The weather may not have gotten better no matter how hard we crossed our fingers, but we did the job anyways. I only hope that when people see these photos they won’t see photos that are crappy, but instead be reminded of the power of persistence.
I am praying for spotless sunshine on their wedding day this weekend, but then again even if my prayers end up unanswered I’m sure no amount of rain is ever going to stop them from walking down that aisle and tying that knot!
Thank you, Ernest and Vanessa, for giving us this opportunity to take your engagement pictures, and best wishes to you both!
Ernesto Herrera III and Vanessa V. Villareal | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Anda, Bohol, and Bilar, Bohol, on June 30 and July 1, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Owen Taboada | Vanessa styled by Angelo Kangleon | Sittings assistant: Jennifer Hortillosa | Special thanks to Freddie Carmona and the staff of Amun Ini Beach Resort and Spa (for reservations: info@amun-ini.com)
A Trio Grows in Brooklyn: Anne, Ellis and Lucas
I was at a vintage/junk shop in Williamsburg helping a friend look for various curios/bric-à-brac for her redecorating project when I got stuck in a corner with piles and piles of antique chests and was reminded of my mom. She would’ve loved it here, I thought as I ran my fingers through the more gorgeous ones (especially those with intricate carvings, brass trimmings and bone inlays)—my mom has always had a thing for old chests and trunks. I inched away from that recess to rejoin my friend, only to bump into a wall of floor-to-ceiling vintage vinyl—David Bowie’s Low from 1977, The Clash’s London Calling from 1979, Michael Jackson’s Thriller from 1982, The Smiths’ eponymous debut album from 1984 and Meat is Murder from 1985, etc.—and the whole thing reminded me of, well, my mom again, her love of music, and how I’d been surrounded by her (and her father’s) collection of vinyl growing up. Well before I could explore the entire shop it occurred to me that it was going to be Mother’s Day in just a few days—and I was nowhere near my mother! I certainly picked the wrongest of times to put an ocean between us. (And my sister, who’d recently become a mother, I’d left in L.A.!) I was starting to feel bad about my choice of travel dates when I realized that, hey, I wasn’t exactly going to be mother-less (or sister-less) on Mother’s Day—although my mom was some 7,000 miles away (and my sister some 2,000), I still had someone to celebrate with here in New York, and she was right under my nose!
Anne Alegrado is one of my oldest and dearest friends, and is my perennial hostess in New York. It was her that I’d stayed with during my first visit to the Big Apple in the fall of 2009. At the time she and her little family had lived in a modest-size 24th-floor apartment off 3rd on the Upper East Side, just a mere four blocks away from Central Park’s E 72nd entrance. So I’d crashed in their couch, and that was when I had grown fond of her children, and witnessed firsthand how much of an amazing mother she was. I think I wrote about this in a previous post—about how Anne liked to grow her own vegetables in her Brooklyn backyard during the day (yes, they have since hightailed it from the Upper East), and then squeeze her way through throngs of sweaty rock fans at, say, Terminal 5 to watch Nine Inch Nails live in concert, after tucking her babies in bed. I don’t know about you, but I personally find this trait praiseworthy. This was actually the subject of conversation between a common friend and I, one rainy evening when Anne dragged us to a Chairlift concert at the Webster Hall—Anne was swaying her head to “Bruises,” and we stared at her admirably, agreeing that it was cool what she was doing, enjoying her big city life to the fullest without sacrificing her quality of motherhood. This was what prompted me to consider: Who better to celebrate my first Mother’s Day in New York with than this super cool mom right here?
Come to think of it, Anne reminded me of my mom in some ways, too. One thing I loved about my mom was that we shared the same taste in music, and that was me and Anne, too—we both loved the same rock bands, and we shared a concert bucket list (from which we’d just scratched the Smashing Pumpkins and Nine Inch Nails off of). And, like my mom, she, too, loved decorating and home improvement—in Anne’s case, it all started when she’d moved to that first apartment of theirs in the Upper East (apparently a first NYC apartment is like a milestone of sorts, and so you have to do it up, and do it up good), and then mushroomed when the move to Brooklyn had afforded her more room (and that’s literally speaking) to get creative. Now she was telling me about how she had every intention of going all-out Rita Konig—scouring the city for the best antique/junk shops, and even looking at design school catalogs to find out where the best short courses on interior design were being offered.
And so I told her I was spending Mother’s Day with her and her family, and that I had a Mother’s Day present for her in the form of a family photo session. It was a long overdue thing, anyway—when they’d visited Cebu a couple of months back I’d promised to take pictures of her and her kids, but then we’d had trouble reconciling our schedules so that plan had never materialized. I was afraid she would say no, thinking her husband Jovi and the kids had had something planned already. Turned out they had already made plans, alright, “but it’s just a simple Mother’s Day lunch at home, so, by all means, join us!” She said “simple,” yes, but I knew I was in for a real treat—never a dull moment when it’s her family we’re talking about!
Loved, loved, loved their new neighborhood. Can’t recall if it was Prospect Park South, or Kensington—it may have even been Greenwood, due to its close proximity to the Green-Wood Cemetery—but it was right by the Church Ave. station, somewhere in the right atrium of the heart of Brooklyn. I especially loved how the tree-lined streets and brick terrace homes—and the peace and quiet—lent the place a kind of suburban feel, very refreshing for me because all I’d ever seen in the past week or so were skyscrapers, high-rises, tower blocks, and the fast-paced life. It was like being handed a bunch of homemade cookies after days of having nothing but, say, tiered cakes! This cookie’s soft and gooey center I found once I walked up to Anne’s charming American foursquare, and there they were, her and hubby and their two kids, flocked in the kitchen making spaghetti with meatballs, and Devil’s food cake cupcakes. For the first time in a long time, I felt right at home.
My original plan was to take them outdoors for the shoot—I was thinking the Williamsburg waterfront, that area where the Domino Sugar plant stood like a beacon, because I wanted a kind of industrial feel to underscore Anne’s indie rock-loving persona; I even thought of Coney Island, inspired by that one pivotal scene from 2003’s Uptown Girls starring Brittany Murphy and Dakota Fanning (and so the kids could have a good time while I was photographing them)—but as I showed myself around their house, admiring every little detail, I began to feel it would be very remiss of me not to show this side of Anne, the young mother who worked very hard to create a lovely home for her family. Just like that, we decided to stay put. Most people cringe at the thought of being photographed in a domestic setting, but thank God Anne wasn’t like most people. I don’t know why people think being photographed at home is unglamorous. I mean, it’s all a matter of imagination! For her first set Anne and I decided to add a Bree Van de Kamp touch to it—you know, with one hand on the dishwasher, the other cradling a glass of Chardonnay. Needless to say, the photos came out gorgeous!
I was so happy I finally got the chance to photograph their daughter Ellis. Even if I hadn’t brought a camera and we’d made this nothing more than a “couch and a movie” kind of afternoon, I’d still be happy just being around the little girl. Two and a half years ago I’d waxed poetic about how Ellis was the most profound thing to ever happen to my first New York trip when she’d acted as my little tour guide and taught me to look at things through a little girl’s eyes—her referring to the Brooklyn Bridge as “the bridge from the princess movie” (Enchanted), her teaching me how to “do some mathematics” in your head to keep your mind off all that walking, and her showing me it was OK to take a power nap on your subway train from point A to point B, all these I’d kept very close to my heart, because these were the only ways I could have ever appreciated the real New York. It made my heart balloon that she still remembered me, but it delighted me even more to see how much she’d grown in just a few years. Thanks to a The Beatles songbook that she’d gotten from her mom, she was learning how to sing now; and thanks to an acoustic guitar that she’d gotten from her dad, she was learning to strum, too! And as if all that wasn’t enough, the folks had to get her a journal, too, and so now she was also getting her write stuff on! She showed me some of the stuff she’d written, and I’d never been prouder of a child in my life! She even wrote a little something about me as I was taking pictures of her in her bedroom! What a sweetheart! Asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, without hesitation she shared that she wanted to be a musician. I hope she ends up becoming a writer, though. Or, come to think of it, it wouldn’t be impossible for her to end up becoming both—not only was she being raised in such a nurturing and devoted home environment, she was also living in this incredible city where it was virtually impossible to be uninspired!
As for little Lucas, well, I wasn’t too sure where it was coming from, but he said he wanted to be a ninja when he grew up. You know, at first he didn’t even want to be part of the shoot—he saw me yank my camera out and then he ran as far away from me as possible—but then his mom tried to cajole him into it by telling him that “Uncle Angel here is a real ninja from California, don’t you know that?” Of course, the little boy didn’t believe her, even sized me up to see if there really was a single martial arts bone in my body (funny that whenever I am at the Narita or Nagoya airports people would come up to me and start talking to me in Japanese, but that there is no fooling a little boy). Ultimately it was Ellis who won the coaxing game by handing him a cup of yogurt. Yes, nothing like a little dairy product to make him weak in the knees, but don’t get him wrong: he really was serious about the whole ninja business. At one point I went down to their basement to check if there was anything in there that was photographable, but had to hurry back up because I could feel the asbestos falling from the ceiling, thanks to Lucas who wouldn’t stop practicing his flying kick on the floor directly above me! Happy to report, though, that he allowed me to take a few shots of him, and that no photographic equipment—or bones—were harmed in the process.
I’d never thought I’d enjoy photographing children this much. I’d never even thought I’d be photographing children, ever! I’d sworn to myself that I would never do anything that involved kids, thinking it would be too much of a pain in the backside to get them to sit still or whatever. But then I’d met my mentor Malou Pages (of Shutterfairy Photography), and she’d taught me how to “make a connection” with these little ones: “Just let them be,” she’d opined, “[because] if you ask them to pose or move [in a certain way] you won’t get to capture who they really are—it’s like you’re telling them to quit being children.” That was exactly the formula that I stuck to right here as I was photographing Ellis and Lucas. Ellis didn’t want to pretend like she was reading a certain book? Fine. Lucas didn’t want to put a shirt on? Fine! I just basically let them call the shots. And, you know what, it kind of worked! Because that way it became all about me trying to find that child-like wonder in order to level with them—not them trying to “grow up” to level with me! I hope these photos show that happening.
We were supposed to take the shoot outdoors after doing two sets indoors. Anne wanted to take me to the neighboring Green-Wood Cemetery because “the vibe there is so…ethereal.” Unfortunately, by the time we got there the property had already closed for the day. A common friend who tagged along with us for the afternoon quipped that she was kind of thankful the place was closed because “taking pictures in a cemetery is kind of creepy!” I wouldn’t have complained, though. I mean, to be able to shoot at a place where great people like the neo-expressionist artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and the composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein (West Side Story) have been laid to rest? That would’ve been something, right? Oh, well, there is always a next time. I was actually thankful we didn’t get to do it at the time—gave us the chance to just melt in the couch and pop in Justin Bieber: Never Say Never. I got to have my “couch and a movie” kind of afternoon, after all!
Thank you, Anne (and hubby Jovi!), for once again opening up your home to me, and for giving me a family away from home! One day I will find a way to repay you for your incredible hospitality. Until that day comes, let’s just settle for me documenting your little ones’ milestones as they journey through the years!
Roxanne Roldan-Alegrado and her children Ellis and Lucas | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon in Brooklyn, NY, on May 13, 2012
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Dedaces
Here’s the first shoot I did in California (actually, I should say “first and second,” because this one right here was like two shoots rolled into one—we did two sets on very different occasions).
Hadji and I, we go way back—we were classmates back in high school (in Ormoc) and college (Cebu Doctors’)—and he’s one of the few people that I make it a point to see whenever I am in L.A. because he rarely comes home (actually, I do not think he’s ever visited home since moving to the States almost a decade ago). I first met his wife Marie Antonette—or Yang, as she is fondly called by those close to her—in the summer of 2009, and at the time they only had one child, Iya, although they also had a bunch of puppies that they considered family (both of them are avid dog lovers).
Flash forward to 2011 and they welcomed another baby to the family. My heart ballooned when I met baby Nio for the first time—most babies don’t like me or are frightened by me on first meeting, but this little one right here proved to be quite the opposite, tugging at my pant leg, grinning from ear to ear, begging to be carried! Such a sweetheart! It’s insane that my friends won’t stop making adorable babies!
It was Yang’s idea to have a photo shoot. Initially she only wanted me to take photos of the kids—plans of throwing them a joint birthday party this August (Iya’s 4th and Nio’s first) were in the works, and the theme she and Hadji had in mind for this shindig was vintage circus/carnival, and so she wanted a styled sitting for the little ones so she could use the photos for the invites, thank you cards, etc. It was me who suggested: why not include the mom and dad in the pictures to make it a family session? The truth is that the idea of photographing kids alone frightened me—this was something I’d never done before, and so I just had to ask for adults to be in the picture. Thankfully, Yang said yes.
This was California, after all, so we decided to do the first set on a beach. So many to choose from, but thank God Yang’s first choice was Santa Monica—made perfect sense, because wasn’t our theme circus/carnival, and wasn’t the Santa Monica Pier home to Pacific Park, which carried that one regal ferris wheel and a roller coaster? What could possibly be more carnival than that? Shrewd that Yang chose a pared-down palette for their outfits, too—black, white and pink—because our backdrop was already colorful enough.
For the second set, which was going to feature the more colorful outfits (the vintage circus palette of red, blue and yellow), we wanted some greenery, so they chose Lake Balboa, which was only a 10-minute drive from their new home in Van Nuys. We picked a pretty little spot right by the lake, to ensure Iya wouldn’t complain about the heat. This was the tail end of spring, and summer was rearing its head, so it was starting to get real sweltering. “It’s really stunning here when it’s early spring, ‘cause that’s when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom,” they told me. But the place was still gorgeous even without all the flowers. I mean, who needs cherry blossoms when you had beautiful lighting in every corner? I had so much fun playing with flares! Besides, the pink wouldn’t have very gone very well with the red, blue and yellow. Just saying.
Loved the clothes that we were able to put together for this shoot. Not about to take credit for the styling, though, because, really, all I did was dispense a little style advise here and there (like, what color tank top would go well with Iya’s red, blue and yellow tiered skirt, etc.). A huge fan of everything handmade and vintage, it was Yang who really called the shots and who got down and dirty plotting their outfits, with most of the items sourced from Etsy, which was her obsession du jour (I think it’s all she ever looks at on her phone and on her iPad!). I particularly loved the tuxedo tee on Hadji for the first set, and the matching onesie on Nio. Needless to say, I liked both of Iya’s tightrope walker-inspired costumes—I couldn’t stop taking photos of her in them, even when it was break time!
Ah, here I am again spending too much time talking about the clothes. Did you know that someone actually left a comment on one of my previous blog post a few days ago saying, “You’re always talking about the clothes—talk about photography for once!” You didn’t get to see that comment because I chose to never let it see the light of day, but allow me this opportunity to counter: Of course, I am supposed to talk about clothes—please remember that I was, am, and always will be a stylist first! Clothes are an important part of my body of work, because, like props, they help tell a story. Another reason I will always care about what people choose to put on their backs is their transforming power—and by transforming I mean not just in the physical aspect but also in the emotional. Consider this: As we were getting ready to leave for the beach to do the first set, Iya was in such a foul mood that she wouldn’t stop crying, and even on the 30-minute drive to Santa Monica she wouldn’t stop pouting—and then we got to the beach, and when we handed her her tightrope walker costume and her Mary Jane tap shoes (yes, she wants to grow up to be a tap dancer), her face lit up, and suddenly she was in a very, very good mood. Please think about this little anecdote every time you feel clothes—or the idea of dressing up—are not important to you.
Anyways, backpedaling to the story: My sister, who tagged along with me to these sessions, asked me which set I liked best. I was tempted to say, “The second set, of course!” I mean, who doesn’t love bright colors? And pretty little props? Yang even bought a hanging circus canopy tent for the occasion, and I somehow managed to incorporate Iya’s copy of Dr. Seuss’s seminal Oh, the Places You’ll Go! in some of the pictures (my grownup cool kid idol Carlos Concepcion would approve). Not to mention we had a special guest star during that set in the form of the family pug Mrs. Noodles (let me tell you now, the only thing more challenging than photographing children is photographing a hyperactive dog)! So, yeah, the second set should be my favorite, right? But I’d be lying if I didn’t say I immensely enjoyed the one that we did in Santa Monica.
If you’ve been a follower of this little blog of mine you will know that the Santa Monica Pier (along with lookout at Laguna Beach’s Brown’s Park and the Ladies Pavilion in Central Park West) is one of my favorite places in the whole world. And not because this was where Spencer Pratt proposed to Heidi Montag, OK (just had to put that out there)? I will never get tired telling this story: When I first visited the place in the summer of 2009, there was this amazingly talented singer-songwriter named Terry Prince who performed there—not a legit concert or anything; he was just there playing for passers-by. He had such an incredible voice, and his songs were pure poetry. The song that he sang when we spotted him was called “Imagine Love,” and it goes a little something like this: “Imagine love/ Imagine heaven here on earth…” It was when he sang these lines that I looked around me, and without a moment’s hesitation I told my sister, “I don’t need to imagine heaven here on earth—I am already standing on it!” Always I’d been smitten with California, but that day at the Santa Monica Pier was the first time I fell absolutely head over heels.
Thank you, Hadji and Yang, for giving me this opportunity to take pictures of your beautiful family! Iya and Nio are too young to realize this now, of course, but I hope one day they will wake up and think of how lucky they are to be growing up in such an incredible place! No need to wait for the carnival to come to town, because it’s just right there—and it’s right on the beach, too!
Hadji and Marie Antonette Dedace and their children Isabella Andrea and Nio Anton | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Santa Monica, CA, on April 30, 2012, and in Van Nuys, CA, on May 19, 2012 | Hair and makeup by Mayce Aparis Arradaza
What a Day for a Daydream: Jerbie and Michelle
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this much hyperflorals in one closet!” That’s what I exclaimed as I was rummaging through Michelle Gutierrez’s closet during my house call to style her and her fiancé Jerbie Domingo for their engagement photos. “Or this much Forever 21!” When I’d said during our initial meetings that I’d wanted hyperflorals, you see, she’d offered, “You might want to take a look at my closet; I think I might have a little.” Well, I don’t know what her definition of little is, but one whole closet of hyperflorals is not a little to me! And about 90% of them from Forever 21! (She would later admit that she’s a sucker for anything Forever 21—at the time of my house call the store hadn’t even set up shop in Cebu yet, and so most of her items she’d gotten during “shopping trips” to Manila and elsewhere.)
I love it when my clients allow me to do house calls—not a lot of them do, you see, and that’s a shame—because it makes my job easier by giving me a strong starting point. People tend to say things like, “But I don’t have a lot of stuff in my closet!” or “I don’t own anything you’re gonna be remotely interested in!” But I always say, “Who knows?” You may be tired of looking at your own clothes, but with a fresh pair of eyes by your side there’s a huge chance that you’re gonna unearth hidden gems—after all, I would say 90% of a stylist’s job is to make you look at something in a way you’ve never looked at it before. Some of the best styling jobs I’ve done (like for Rey Dauz and Sheryl Guzman’s “vintage travel”-themed engagement session, for example) turned out the way they did because my clients opened up their homes—and their closet doors—to me, and so they became collaborative efforts, you know? It’s like the “Bend and Snap” from Legally Blonde: “It works every time.” You just have to trust me on this one. (Don’t worry, you won’t be obligated to cook for me. LOL.)
Anyways, backpedaling to the story: It was a “springtime picnic” kind of feel that we wanted Michelle and Jerbie’s engagement photos to evoke. The idea for the theme came to us when my mentor Malou Pages-Solomon (of Shutterfairy Photography, where I am currently apprenticing) took me for a drizzy Sunday afternoon stroll up the Banawa Hills’ Tanchan-owned Celestial Gardens, and I fell absolutely in love with the place. I always talk about how I am not a big fan of vegetation in this part of the world, but this place right here was a different story altogether—it was like we weren’t in Cebu! There were parts where the foliage were manicured, and parts where they had this unstudied, unkempt appeal, and when you put them together it’s just bewitching. (There’s even a sweet little spot in there that overlooks Cebu City, it reminds me of the Getty’s Lower Terrace Sculpture Garden that overlooks Los Angeles! Just breathtaking!) What’s more, it was discreet in architecture and artifice—it was, like, 85% nature. And even in the rain and the fog it was beautiful—how much more so when the sun was shining? I wasted no time in telling Malou that I wanted to have a shoot in that very place, something with a picnic theme, and that was when she suggested, “Why don’t we do that for Michelle and Jerbie’s session next week?” Just like that, we got to work. Luckily for me, the couple welcomed the idea. There were minor hitches in trying to book the venue at first, especially after two of the custodians said that photoshoots were “not allowed” in the area, but we were able to pull some strings, and so we made it happen.
During our initial discussions around wardrobe, Michelle had expressed interest in flowy, diaphanous dresses in white or off-white, kind of like the wedding dress that Amanda Seyfried’s character wore in the Mamma Mia! film, but Malou was quick to discourage us from pursuing this look, pronouncing that using white dresses in engagement photos was a tired, old rule that she wanted to steer clear of. The idea for bright hyperflorals (and patterns) came to me when I thought about the place we were going to be shooting at and what it lacked, and it occurred to me the Celestial Gardens were all green and had very little flowering plants. Why not let Michelle be the flower to lend a burst of color to the place? I thought. People often ask me what hyperfloral is, and how that’s different from the regular floral, and I wish I could do a better job at explaining things like this (yes, contrary to popular belief, I am not about to write a doctorate paper on styling), but all I’ve really got to say is it’s kind of like chintz—varying floral patterns rather than just one, and in a melee rather than in an orderly sequence. Think Peter Copping for Nina Ricci Spring 2012 Ready-to-Wear—or, better yet, think the works of textile designer and artist Zina de Plagny, who was the central inspiration for that collection.
Of course, I didn’t want it to be all-floral, so I decided to throw something with an ethic print into the mix—more specifically, a cobalt blue/orange-red Navajo-print dress. I don’t know, but at the time I kind of had a feeling ethnic prints were going to be huge in the coming seasons (flash forward to today, and, voila, we see a lot of Aztec prints in, say, Topshop’s new collection), and plus I’d always been fascinated with them (I have Navajo-print bedroom curtains, and a couple of tank tops in Ikat-inspired prints). A friend of mine who observed as I was I was putting together these outfits for Michelle commented that she was “relieved” that I was able to restrain myself from injecting a little grunge into the picture—“For once you’re doing something really girly!” she exclaimed—but that only goes to show she wasn’t paying close attention, because if you take a closer look you will see that the dresses I picked were all in babydoll silhouettes, that I managed to throw some leather jackets into the mix, and that for one of the sets I had Michelle ditch the ballet flats in favor of 1460 8-eye Doc Martens! Trust me to always have a little bit of grunge sneak up on you, even if the situation doesn’t call for it!
It was my idea to put a TV set and a couch in the middle of the frangipani garden (I love frangipani, especially when they’re in clusters—their knotty, spindly branches have a way of slicing sunlight into gorgeous little rays that add a dramatic dimension to your frame). Just because the theme was picnic didn’t mean they had to be sprawled on the ground the whole time, you know? Besides, an outdoor couch potato set was in order, especially since I wanted some of these photos to reflect Jerbie’s personality—for what was Jerbie without his TV (he’s a self-confessed TV and film buff; he works for SM Cinemas)? I would’ve wanted a vintage TV set, though—like something from the ’50s jet age—and a bigger couch, but, well, sometimes you gotta work with what you have.
As gorgeous as the photos turned out, I’m afraid they kind of do not do justice to the day they were taken. It was such a charming day, despite the fact that it was sweltering (I had to pile sunblock on three times!) and that we were up to the neck in enormous props. The atmosphere was serene; the grass so soft we couldn’t resist lying on it like cats; and there were birds that wouldn’t stop chirping! And how about that creamy sunset? The day had a certain feeling to it; it was the kind of day fashioned for a romance novel. Add to that Michelle and Jerbie’s playful, childlike chemistry, and you have the makings of a photo session that you don’t want to ever end (our timetable had called for us to wrap by 4PM, but we kept shooting well until 6PM, anyway)! It was as if we were in a daydream! I love it when all the elements of a shoot come together to create one big perfect moment. It makes me sigh dreamily and think to myself, There’s work, and then there’s this.
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I am currently in Los Angeles, CA, on vacation, so please forgive me if I am unable to update this blog over the next couple of weeks. To those who’ve been sending me messages asking me to style their sessions, please check with Malou Pages (mail@shutterfairy.net) for available dates (I will be back in Cebu soon).
Jerbie Domingo and Michelle Gutierrez | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on December 11, 2011 | Main photographers: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy, Paul Armand Calo for Calography (click here to view Malou’s set) | Hair and makeup by Owen Taboada | White hyperfloral babydoll dress, cobalt blue/orange-red Navajo-print dress, and Palatinate blue hyperfloral baby doll dress, all from Forever 21 | Blue cardigan, Primark/Atmosphere UK | Chamoisee biker jacket and desert sand bomber jacket, all from Forever 21 | Red cardigan, Charles 1/2, Urban Outfitters | International orange lightweight summer shirt, American Apparel | Multi-colored striped zip-front sweater, Esprit
How ‘Bout Them Cowgirls: Amanda and Mia
“If you could photograph only one thing in the world, what would it be?” A friend of mine once asked me this question almost out of the blue. She was half-expecting me to scream “Chris Burden’s Urban Light outside the LACMA!” or go all out and pick a really outrageous subject like, say, the divine Kate Moss, and so what rolled out of my tongue took her by surprise: “A horse.” And I wasn’t kidding, too—in fact, this was the most honest answer I’d ever given anyone. To which she intoned incredulously, “Why a horse?” I just laughed and said, you know, “Well, why the hell not?”
Said this a gazillion times before, and I’ll say it again now: To me, there is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing a horse throw its head up, arch its back, and whip its tail. Pure, unadulterated magic. Hundreds of other animals out there, I know, but, to me, none of them possess and harmonize two opposing qualities as effectively and effortlessly as a horse does—i.e., not everything that’s fluid can be strapping at the same time, and not everything that’s strapping can be fluid—which is almost always what makes something such a thrill to watch (the reason why we are so fascinated with ballerinas, or why we can’t stop watching those Herb Ritts music videos, no?) and, well, to photograph.
I’d been fascinated with horses since time immemorial (the first ever book I’d finished in one sitting was Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty; I’d held on to my My Little Pony blanket well until I was halfway through high school; and for a time there I’d actually considered getting that silhouette of a stallion in the lower right corner of the album cover of the Deftones’ White Pony tattooed on my wrist), but this epiphany—the joy in taking pictures of them—didn’t occur to me until a year and a half ago, when I visited the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, on a mission to take pictures of the place for my cousin Amanda Liok, who loved horses to death and had dreamt of visiting that very place one day, and I ended up spending four or so hours just clicking away at every singe horse I bumped into, living or statued. Andalusians, American Minis, Palominos, even Frieisians! Majestic equine bronze statues (Herbert Haseltine’s rendition of the legendary Man o’ War, couple of Gwen Reardons)! I even got to witness and shoot some show jumping! It was such an exhilarating experience—needless to say, I didn’t want it to ever end. Flash forward to a year later, back home in Cebu, I was starting to lament the lack of opportunities to watch or photograph these fine creatures in this part of the world when, slowly but surely, they found a way to creep up on to—or, should I say “gallop into”—my frame. For a shoot in Busay last July, I was surprised when the stylist was able to commission a pretty little riding mare named Athena to join in the sitting. And then the following month, during my first ever gig as apprentice to Malou Pages (of Shutterfairy Photography), which took us up the mountains of Carmen, my mentor had to shoot me reproving glances upon realizing I was spending more time taking pictures of this stallion named Ferrari than of our clients. And then came November, which found us driving two hours down south to Barili to do a cowboy-themed engagement session—and what’s a cowboy-themed sitting without a couple of horses, right?
Three shoots that involved horses, none of them planned or foreseen, all of them a coincidence. Glad they came along and found me, because they only gave me the chance to prepare for my biggest shoot that was to involve horses. Which brings us to this shoot right here.
For more than a year I’d been promising my cousin Amanda that I was going to find time in my frenzied schedule to visit her in her new hometown of Palompon, Leyte (some two hours west of Ormoc City), and photograph her and her daughter Mia, and, well, their horses. I hadn’t seen her in ages, and during that time our only form of interaction had been our exchange of e-mails whenever I’d found myself in Kentucky—“It’s you that’s supposed to be here,” I would write. “You are going to love this place to bits!” To me, Amanda was many things, but a lover of horses above all—naturally, no one else had come to mind whenever I’d found myself in the “horse capital of the world.” She would respond to my e-mails saying that, yes, it had been her and her husband’s dream to visit Lexington one day, and then she would send me photos of the horses in her own backyard. What beauties! She had taken her childhood fancies and whims, and then put them together to put up her own little band of horses. When I told her at one point that “it turns out naming your horses is almost like an art”—this after I’d met horse owners/equestrians at the Horse Park who’d baptized their beloved beasts with some of the most enchanting names I’d ever heard (my personal favorites: Alcatraz, Countess, and Moonshine, the latter probably after the liquor since this was the American South, after all)—she’d shared that, yes, she’d taken the naming game pretty seriously herself, and had given the most charming monikers to those in her brood. Finding out that she’d named one of her babies Moondance? Enough to make me want to meet the beauty and the rest of the family in the flesh, and that was how the idea for this shoot had been born.
So aside from Moondance there were Salsa, Chili, Ginger, Ola, Baila, and Sol. When Amanda asked me which one I wanted to include in the shoot, I picked Moondance, and she validated my choice by saying that the mare’s strawberry roan made it very photogenic—true enough, against the vast vegetation in their backyard, her chestnut coat looked so dazzling that I found it hard to stop taking pictures of her! She was the most mild-mannered of them all, too, and had a Zen aura about her. You know what they say about never approaching a horse “from the behind?” Well, I approached her a couple of times from the rear, and Moondance didn’t seem to mind. (She was the complete and utter opposite of the subject of Curley Fletcher’s poem-turned-ballad called, well, “The Strawberry Roan,” which talks of a wild bucking horse: “An’ fer throwin’ good riders he’s had lots uh luck/ An’ he sez that this pony has never been rode/ That the boys that gits on him is bound to git throwed.”) Did I mention she was very affectionate towards her master, too? Every chance she got she would stick her muzzle against Amanda’s cheeks! I thought that was just cute. I wanted to include Salsa in some of the frames, because I was in love with her smoky black coating, but the caretaker told me that that mare had to rest (apparently, horses have to take a break, too)—I did get a chance to take a few shots of her while she was taking an afternoon stroll, though, and that was enough for now (I’ll be back for you, Salsa!).
For Mia’s set, we decided to include the latest addition to their ever-growing family: a 4-year-old Miniature named Iris. Pretty awesome, because only a year ago, when I’d showed Amanda my photos of the American Minis I’d spotted at the Horse Park, she’d said that it had been her dream to get Mia a Mini, and now here we were face-to-face with a dream come true! Actually, the little girl didn’t get just one but two Minis! The other one, Barrack, we couldn’t ask to join in the photos because he was in a foul mood that day and thus had to be kept at bay. That was alright, because Iris by herself was gorgeous enough. I would’ve wanted for Mia to mount Iris for a couple of frames, but Iris was pregnant (another Mini on the way!), so we just forgot about it.
Horses weren’t the only, um, quadrupeds that made special guest appearances that day. Mia’s blue Australian Cattle Dog named, well, Blue also joined in the fun. Such a mischievous little creature, that fella—he was all over the place, darting from left to right, jumping up and down, always wanting to play catch—but when it was time for him to face the camera he was surprisingly tame and well-behaved! Suffice to say that that doggie stole the show—it was as if he was thinking, I am not going to let a bunch of horses upstage me!
It’s uncanny how much Mia looks like her mom. I was staring at the little girl’s face, and it took me back to years ago when Amanda and I were little kids, and we’d lock ourselves up in her bedroom to play with her Barbies (actually, she would take me to her bedroom so I could play with her Barbies, and then she’d rush back out to play with the boys). It got me feeling somewhat, um, melancholic thinking that Amanda finally had a “mini her,” while here I was without a “mini me!” When I asked Mia what she wanted to be when she grew up, she just shook her head, pressed a thumb against her nose (she loves to do that, so cute!), and said she didn’t know yet. One thing’s for sure, though: she’s gonna take after her mother’s love of horses. When Amanda showed me a photo album of their recent trip to Down Under, noting that some of the more beautiful photos had been taken by Mia, I said, “I hope she grows up to be a photographer!” Of course, wishful thinking in my part that, since I didn’t have a “mini me” of my own, Mia would take after a part of me, too. Wouldn’t that be nice, though?
I was happy that I got to exercise a teensy-weensy bit of styling during this session. You see, I’d had reservations at first, knowing that Amanda and I, although we’d practically grown up together, had completely opposing views when it came to clothes (didn’t I mention me playing with her Barbies and her running off to play with the boys?)—i.e., she was the T-shirt-and-jeans kind of girl, while I favored, well, everything impractical. I was also aware of the fact that she was making a conscious effort to raise her daughter in a certain way—i.e., she didn’t want Mia to grow up appearance-conscious—and I wanted to respect that more than anything. But thank God she trusted me enough to let me have my way that day, and she agreed to wear some of the items that I’d brought along with me. I was in for a pleasant surprise, though, when, upon inspecting their closet to look for other items we could use, I spotted these exquisite little pairs of two-tone top-stitched cowboy boots (Amanda’s in aquamarine and coffee, and Mia’s in cameo pink and camel)—turned out that, although function was their utmost priority, they knew a thing or two about injecting a little form and fancy into their wardrobe, after all.
OK, OK. I know you’ve been thinking it while looking at all these photos, so let’s just get it out of the way, shall we? These are some seriously good-looking cowgirls right here. Amanda is going to laugh at this little commentary, though, even call it absurd, because she’s down-to-earth like that. But the fact that they didn’t need makeup to look this good in photos (our makeup artist friend Sheila On, my go-to girl whenever I have shoots in Leyte, wasn’t available that day) is only testimony to how naturally beautiful they are. But make no mistake, behind those pretty faces are some, well, pretty tough interiors. Like the horse that marries good looks and might, these girls possess those two qualities not easily contained in one person. Amanda, for example, is not one you would want to mess with. One can imagine her bringing home trophies from practical shooting competitions in South Africa, or hunting kangaroos in the Australian Outback—all of which, and more, as it happens, she’s actually already done. She’s the kind of girl that, growing up, I’ve been wanting to be, but, well, just can’t. But while I’m terribly unlucky that I can’t be her, I’m still lucky in that not only is she my first cousin, she’s also my oldest best friend.
Amanda Kangleon-Liok and her daughter Amilia (and their mares Moondance, Iris and Salsa, and their dog Blue) | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Palompon, Leyte, on November 27, 2011 | Special thanks to Marnelli Uyguangco | Hyperfloral jersey babydoll dress, Topshop | Vintage wash denim jacket, stylist’s own | Chambray folk skirt, The Fab Grab
The Great Escape: Rey and Sheryl
“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.”
So wrote the celebrated American travel writer and fictionist Paul Theroux in The Washington Post (date unknown), in an effort to debunk the myth that the act of traveling was a sophisticated one—having journeyed through Asia by train for four or so months, and having lived to tell of it in his Dickensian account The Great Railway Bazaar: By Train Through Asia (1975), he was exactly in the position to dispense pragmatic advice on the matter, to put it on record that the act of traveling per se could sometimes turn out to be downright unpleasant, and that the whole thing was only delightful after the fact, when it was time to look back on it.
As a stylist, however, my worldview is somewhat limited to the business of image and image-making, and so I have a different way of interpreting that statement (which many now consider to be an adage)—I read it, and, to me, with apologies to Theroux, it means that travel was only chic back in the day. (Retrospect: Consideration of past times.) I mean, think Jackie Kennedy cruising down Lake Pichola in Udaipur, India (March of 1962) in an apricot silk zibeline dress with bow detail by Oleg Cassini, with white gloves and a three-tier pearl necklace; or, visiting the Parthenon in Athens (June of 1961) in a denim-blue linen sheath by Norman Norell, with a singular statement brooch on her left shoulder and, well, her signature pearl necklace. Who does that anymore? I look at all these modern celebrities’ travel/vacation photos, and, I don’t know, they’re just blah. I still cannot for the life of me figure out, say, that photo of Elton John at a beach in Nice, France, in which he’s wearing a swine-print T-shirt, hibiscus-print surf jams, and Adidas Superstars! Then again, maybe I’m just jaded. Or, perhaps I’m just partial to what elegance stood for in the past versus what it stands for now?
Not everyone, of course, is going to agree with me on that, and not all of those who do are going to want to demonstrate the idea with me—but I was lucky enough to have found two people who not only shared the same view as I did on the matter, but who were also willing to translate it into pictures!
When Sheryl Guzman and Rey Dauz told me that the overall theme they wanted for their engagement photo sitting was “vintage travel,” I was so psyched I almost fell off of my chair! I remember sending a text message to Malou Pages (of Shutterfairy, who was going to be the main photographer) that “You are going to love this!” I didn’t know what inspired the couple to come up with the concept, and didn’t even care to ask. Perhaps it was a compromise of sorts? Like, of Sheryl’s love of all things vintage and Rey’s love of travel, maybe? Who knew? All I knew was that it was unique, it didn’t make me want to roll my eyes and think, Paging Captain Obvious!, and it got me excited thinking that, again, I had been blessed with clients who were on the same page as I was!
If you’re still not convinced that the stars aligned nicely for me (and them!) that day of our first meeting, consider this: When Sheryl opened her mouth to tell me about how the fiancé had discovered a couple of spots in Bogo and Medellin (some 3 ½ hours north of Cebu City) where there were rail tracks and old locomotive parts scattered everywhere (albeit in various states of decrepitude, once part of an extensive private railway system that belonged to a local sugar milling company), I looked inside my duffel bag and saw that I happened to be toting my copy of the February 2010 issue of American Vogue, which contained a portfolio by Annie Leibovitz called “Brief Encounter,” starring Diddy and the model Natalia Vodianova as passengers on a train, inspired by Diddy’s latest album Last Train to Paris! I showed her the spread, and she, too, fell in love with the ingenious mix of elements of ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s fashion—from post-WWII peplum jackets and pencil skirts to Mad Men-style wool tweed coats/suits—all in moody, earthy colors. Without a minute’s delay, she asked me to tack the whole thing against our mood board.
Of course, that only covered the land travel part of it. We still had to work on a sea travel set, and an air travel set. Sea travel, easy as 1-2-3—I mean, wasn’t nautical sort of like my specialty, after having mastered it during my second solo shoot some 7 months back? When Sheryl said she wanted this particular set to be shot at a wharf, or, if possible, aboard a yacht, I convinced her to think Diana, Princess of Wales, on holiday with Dodi Fayed in the French/Italian Riviera aboard the Jonikal. Not exactly vintage, yes, but classic. She agreed, so immediately I mentally updated my board with that one photo of the Princess in un maillot de bain une pièce turquoise. For the air travel set, though, we were kind of torn: I wanted to reference Amelia Earhart, something I’d been wanting to do for a long time now, but she was kind of partial towards the PanAm stewardess look, or something that was inspired by it—“Kind of like one of the outfits [that the model Cielo Ramirez wore] in the Shandar Shoes catalog,” she cited. I told her it was me who’d photographed the Shandar catalog (and my friend Meyen Baguio who’d styled it), and I wasn’t really in the mood to reuse something that had been done very recently. She countered that Amelia Earhart wasn’t really someone she looked up to sartorially. We made a deal to include both in the mood board, and just deliberate on the days leading to the shoot.
On the topic of scheduling, we decided to break the whole thing into two sessions—I seemed to know it would be quite a stretch to leave for Bogo/Medellin for the train set, and then drive back to city for the two other sets. And because we wanted to make the three-hour ride up north on day one to be worth it, we decided to squeeze two bonus sets into the agenda: a garden tea set and an outdoor vanity table set. At first Sheryl and Rey couldn’t place how these fit into the travel theme, but I convinced them by saying, “Think of it as recreating a place that’s your own world,” repurposing a line from a Gwen Stefani song. They liked it, of course. (Haven’t you heard? As far as sales pitches go, mine are pretty legendary. Ha.)
Only slightly more enjoyable than putting the mood board together was getting to work in sourcing the items. Finally, here were clients who gave their one hundred percent when it came to this department, instead of, you know, sitting back and watching me do all the dirty work! I tell you, nothing whets my creative appetite more than clients who put enthusiasm and effort into the behind-the-scenes work. Sheryl was particularly diligent, and, when the going got a little tough, very tenacious. I gave her a list of 50 things to prepare or look for, she came back to me with a hundred things—swear to God, it was as if she’d been born with a to-do list in her hands! When I asked her to meet me two weeks before the shoot so she could show me the clothes she’d been able to dig up, imagine my surprise when I saw three huge suitcases! Such a cowgirl, too—some people flinch at the idea of going to the thrift stores/flea market, but when I asked Sheryl to come with me so we could shop for the items that weren’t already in her closet she was totally down for it!
I loved the looks we were able to put together for Sheryl. For the daytime train/railroad set we picked a ‘60s-style brown and ivory wool tweed crop jacket, over a beige sheath dress, some pearls, and a pair of ‘40s-style bistre fringe T-bar sandals (we’d considered gloves, but decided against it the last minute ‘cause we didn’t want the whole look to be too era-specific). For the nighttime train/railroad set, a barn red sheath dress and a slightly oversize camel trench coat, with nude pumps. For the boating/shipyard set, because we couldn’t find a turquoise maillot à la Princess Diana, we settled for this gorgeous halterneck romper—which looked like a ‘50s-style bathing suit from afar—in beige, copper and black brocade, something that Sheryl’s friend Sol Congmon had unearthed (in her mom’s closet, perhaps), plus a wide-brimmed straw hat and black spectator pumps (people are gonna argue that beige, copper and black make up an unlikely palette for a nautical-inspired look, but I’m going to disabuse you of that notion: think the Princess lounging in Barbuda in April of 1997 in a black sleeveless top and khaki cigarette pants, or, better yet, think Chanel’s cruise 2012 collection, in which beige and black were the predominant colors!). For the plane/hangar set, I was able to talk Sheryl into going for the Amelia Earhart-inspired look after all—it was a great excuse for her to infuse some pants and a pair of knee-high boots into her otherwise all-dress wardrobe, and plus I figured a kickass olive, hunter green and black L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani bomber jacket did not deserve to be punished just ‘cause a certain cultural behemoth wasn’t exactly on the list of heroines she looked up to (she would end up loving the resulting pictures, of course!). For the afternoon tea set, I had her wear a ‘70s-style chestnut tie-neck secretary dress that I’d snatched from The Fab Grab—at first I thought it was too, um, old-looking, but once Sheryl slipped it on it just lost its grandmotherly connotations. Finally, for the outdoor vanity set, I wanted something that looked regal and effortless at the same time—I was in love with the idea of an updated tea gown—and after fittings here and there Sheryl and I finally agreed to settle on this delectable cosmic latte draped silk tulle gala gown that was on display in the designer Protacio Empaces Jr.’s shop window—it was just too perfect for words!
As for the props, I’d thought we’d already had too much on our list, but, as it turned out, for a guy like Rey, too much was never enough—on our first day of shooting we had to commission a second pickup truck to help carry all our stuff! Unbeknownst to me, Rey had spent days digging through his parents’ old stuff for articles which he deemed still retained their cool quotient—vinyl records, an antique-looking typewriter, even dusty old paperbacks! Everything looked so carefully curated, it led me to believe it was him who put the “vintage” in “vintage travel,” after all, and it was Sheryl who put the “travel!” I particularly loved how the vintage cameras that he brought with him—circa mid-‘60s Yashicas—added a nice touch to the afternoon tea set, giving it a kind of “tourister” feel. Oh, and did I mention he also brought his Yamaha Vino on the second day, and so we had to make room for an extra set? At the sight of it my mind was flooded with scenes from The Talented Mr. Ripley, and images from this one spread in the September 2010 American Vogue called “My Generation” that featured Vodianova in ‘60s-style scooter girl looks and something that looked like a Vespa. Thank God Sheryl was ready with an extra dress in the shape of a ‘50s-style black-and-white polka-dot halterneck full-skirt number—it was just what a scooter set needed!
I loved that it was a big crew that I got to work with on this project—totally discredits the tired old rule that “the more people you’re working with, the less focused you become” (I wrote about this in a previous post). Aside from Malou and I, there was Paul Calo of Calography, and, boy, was I glad he was there because from him I got the much needed push for me to try my hand at strobing, something I’d thought I was never going to get around doing in my first year of taking pictures (I didn’t get a chance to take photos during the evening train/railroad set because I was saddled with the unglamorous task of holding up one of the Speedlights, but Paul made sure I didn’t miss the chance of taking a couple of shots during the plane/hangar set). We also had the videographer Marlowe Guinto with us, whose heavy-duty equipment were all over the place, but that was alright because I also got to learn a lot of things from him, like different angles I’d never thought were possible, panning, and the value of always moving around. And, of course, always a pleasure to work with the ever-effervescent makeup artist Ramil Solis—not only was he indulgent of my whims to change Sheryl’s hairstyle every two or so hours, he (and his assistants) also helped keep things light by making us laugh.
But the real joy to work with, of course, were our subjects. I kept telling Malou, “Don’t you wish all our couples were like them?” Not only were they game, inventive, and very involved in every aspect of the shoot, and not only did they have impeccable taste, they were also very patient, allowed us to take our sweet time, and were very attentive to our needs. Of course, it was a plus, too, that they both had killer good looks and that they knew how to make love to the camera (Sheryl was particularly good in this department, being an erstwhile model and all). And their chemistry? Amazing doesn’t even begin to cut it. We didn’t have to tell them, say, how to look at each other—they just clicked, and all we had to do was, well, click, click, click! Even off camera they were very sweet—every exchange of words was punctuated with “Sweetheart”—it was as if they’d only met yesterday.
I couldn’t make it to their wedding, but once I saw Malou’s photos and Marlowe’s video, I was, like, Wow. Rey looked dashing in a two-tone beige-and-black tuxedo suit by Edwin Ao, and Sheryl emerged as sort of a throwback to the era of the Grace Kelly bridal style, what with her satin chalice and Chantilly lace long-sleeved serpentina dress by, well, Protacio Empaces, Jr., and her hair sleeked back into a delicate chignon. Of course, in classic Rey fashion, he arrived at the chapel in a vintage-looking big bike, and after the ceremony whisked his bride away in a circa ‘70s Volkswagen Beetle Cabriolet. As if all this eye candy wasn’t enough, the couple surprised themselves by exchanging vows that were equally sugary. “From the moment I first saw you,” Rey recited breathlessly, “I knew you were the one I wanted to share my life with… Because of you, I have learned to live, laugh and love again.” To which Sheryl replied, “The wait is finally over, as [God] has given me just what I’ve been looking for: A precious gift that never gets tired of giving; a man who puts God on top of everything; my high school crush who now defines my forever…”
Something gives me the feeling that this is not the end, but only the beginning of one very exciting journey for them, and that wherever life leads them—whether it be via train, boat, plane, or, well, scooter—it is always going to end in whispering words of forever…and then a new journey begins. After all, as a friend puts it, love, like travel, “is a vicious circle,” really. To borrow a line from the music writer Michael Shapiro’s review of The B-52s’ “Roam,” the quintessential paean to the art of “busting boundaries:” every “trip begins—and, in the best cases, ends—‘with a kiss.’”
Rey Dauz and Sheryl Guzman | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Bogo and Medellin, Cebu, on October 30, 2011, and in Liloan, Cebu, and Lapu-Lapu City, Mactan, on November 6, 2011 | Main photographers: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy, Paul Armand Calo for Calography (click here to view Malou’s photos, and here for Pauls’s) | Hair and makeup by Ramil Solis (to book Ramil, click here) | Hair and makeup assistant: Hyatt Ortega | Special thanks to Sol Congmon, Gayle Urgello and the staff of Busay Air | Cosmic latte draped silk tulle gala gown, Protacio Empaces, Jr. | ‘70s-style chestnut tie-front secretary dress, The Fab Grab | Olive, hunter green and black bomber jacket, L.A.M.B. by Gwen Stefani | Black cigarette pants, Protacio Empaces, Jr. | Two-tone bole and desert sand safari jacket, Edwin Ao | Bole felt pants, Edwin Ao | Antique wooden suitcases, Casa Mella
In my mood board (see below) Clockwise from top left: Diddy and Natalia Vodianova photographed by Annie Liebovitz for the February 2010 issue of American Vogue; Diana, Princess of Wales, lounging in Barbuda (April 1997), photo from the August 23, 1999, issue of PEOPLE; Diana and Dodi Fayed aboard the Jonikal, circa July/August 1997, photo from lisawallerrogers.wordpress.com; a look from the Chanel cruise 2012 runway on model Natasha Poly; Natalia Vodianova photographed by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott for the September 2011 issue of American Vogue; I was obsessed about nude-colored turn-of-the-century tea dresses for a while, like these ones by Jacques Doucet (silk and linen, circa 1907) and Liberty of London (silk, circa 1885), photos from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Website; looks from Hermès’s aviatrix-inspired fall 2009 ready-to-wear collection, on models Constance Jablonski and Raquel Zimmerman, photographed by Monica Feudi and Gianni Pucci; Angelika Kocheva photographed by Giuliano Bekor for an Amelia Earhart-inspired fashion spread in the October 2009 issue of Marie Claire Romania.
Forever Your Girls: Rael, Nikka and Nicole
Growing up, there’s always that someone you look up to. And I’m not just taking about your favorite writer (Joyce Carol Oates in my case), or your favorite musician (D’arcy Wretzky of The Smashing Pumpkins!), or your favorite girl on TV (Shannen Doherty for me, I’m sorry!), or any of those from, um, another universe. I’m talking about someone who is actually in your life, someone who is right under your nose, someone you get to see and talk to everyday. Their mere presence enthralls you. When they open their mouths to speak, you hang on to every word. When they start to move to set about doing something, you stare dreamily.
Such was the effect that my good friend Odette Tolentino’s big sister Rael had on my 13- or 14-yeard-old self. I was a sophomore in high school when she opened a store across the street from the bookstore my father owned—a one-stop shop that sold everything, from clothing to accessories, gift items to goods for the home, even stationery and secondhand books. Most of the items had been culled by her mother ultraselective Cora from various flea markets, antique shops, vintage clothing stores, and even garage sales in their parents’ new hometown of California. Everything was so pretty and charming! I would find myself hanging out there for two or so hours everyday after school, and sometimes all day on Saturdays, just looking around and not exactly buying anything (hey, I was just a schoolboy), much to the chagrin of my father, who asked nothing of me but to lend a helping hand at his own store. To me, each visit was magical, like I was stepping into an alternate world every time. Akin, perhaps, to the novelist/screenwriter Amy Ephron’s visits, as a child, to an ailing Stiles O. Clements’s (the great American architect, who did the Spanish Colonial Revival style façade of Hollywood’s El Capitan Theatre, among others) house, which had “floor-to-ceiling birdcages with parrots and macaws of all kinds,” and a large cage out in the garden that housed toucans and flamingos and peacocks. Elements, that’s how Rael called the place, and how fitting! But it wasn’t the items per se that fascinated me—rather, it was how she presented these pieces, how she arranged and rearranged every corner, how she mixed this with that. Her sleight of hand was unerringly good, and invariably chic. Also worthy of note was not only did she sell clothes, she made some of them, too—in the backroom was a seamstress or two, for patrons who wanted something one-of-a-kind or custom-made. She didn’t want to be called a designer, had had no formal training in that department, but she knew her way with patterns and fabrics, and knew how to work the sewing machine, and so friends (and friends of friends) trusted her enough to come to her for help with their wardrobe dilemmas. It helped, too, that she was a tasteful and meticulous dresser herself—everyone she knew wanted a piece or two of what she was wearing, and who better to duplicate them than the original wearer herself? I myself was a huge fan of her dress sense. At dinner parties that her aunt Violeta threw, Rael was always the one that stood out, and that was ‘cause she was always impeccably dressed—mixing structured pieces with soft, feminine ones, and even vintage with new. I would stare at her from across the room, even told my mom at one point (or, maybe even more than once), “You should be dressing like her” (to which my mom would just nod and say, “I know!”). In a small town (this was Ormoc) where there were no designers, stylists, or makeup artists (as of the time, at least), she was the closest thing to a creature of fashion that I’d ever been exposed to. And in a time when the term hadn’t even been invented yet, she was my It Girl.
We would eventually lose touch with each other, especially after I’d moved to Cebu. Not to say we would completely lose touch, as there were a couple of times when, out of the blue, she would do little things for me, and so I would remember, you know, that she was still in my life somehow. Like, for instance, when she found out that I’d started working in editorial and had become a stylist, she would call my mom and hand her copies of hard-to-find (in this part of the world, anyway) magazines and catalogs, with specific instructions to ship these volumes to me. Her own little way of contributing to my compendium of references. And how very thoughtful, right? Some of these magazines remain in my shelves up to this very day. She became sort of like a long-distance mentor, so to speak.
It had been more than a decade since I’d last seen her (which I think is funny, because she lives in Ormoc, which is only two hours away from where I am, and I get to see her sisters Odette and Anna more often, and they live in California!), so imagine my surprise when she sent me an e-mail saying she really loved my recent work and wanted to hire me for a day! She wanted family pictures—well, just her and the girls (her two daughters), because there was no way she could convince the boys to be part of the thing. “I want something that shows my closeness with my daughters,” she wrote. Of course, I said yes! I mean, how could I not? Not only was this an opportunity for me to think outside the engagement/couples box, this also was a chance to rekindle old ties—and to make new ones, with her girls (I’d only seen her eldest Nikka once or twice, when she was still a toddler, and Nicole I’d never even met before). Plus, given I was all too familiar with Rael’s taste (not just in clothes, but in everything she surrounds herself with), I just knew this sitting wasn’t going to be one of those sloppy ones. November was a really busy month for me as I was booked to style and assist at five shoots for Shutterfairy Photography (where I am currently apprenticing), but luckily I had one weekend free, which was the weekend after Thanksgiving, and so that was the date I gave Rael. I might have caught myself with a silly grin as I was packing my bags—I’d never been this excited about a trip to Ormoc before!
This whole thing was perfect timing because, while doing catalog work for Grace Querickiol-Nigel’s accessories line Gracie Q just a week before this trip, the designer had shown me a coffee table book that the great American fashion photographer Bruce Weber had done for a recent ad campaign for German outdoor furniture giant DEDON, and I’d fallen head over heels with the concept: a multi-storey tree house among the branches of a giant tree, filled with DEDON masterpieces and quirky little bric-a-brac, and then occupied by people from all walks of life (from a young couple to an old couple, ballerinas to a garage rock band, even nudists!)—it was the ultimate outdoor living fantasy! Immediately I’d thought to myself, you know, that I had to find a way to translate some of this magic into my own work! And this family shoot right here was a chance for me to do so!
My proposal to Rael included four sets—the first being the highlight, as this was where we were going to set up an outdoor family room of sorts using real furniture and other home accoutrement. Really easy and all sorts of fun because I didn’t have to source items from other people’s homes or from the shops—everything in her own living room was gorgeous, and so I had to look no further! I didn’t even have to take anything from my own apartment—well, except for this Marrakesh-style ceramic flask that had been gifted to me by a friend from Seattle, and my own precious copy of that great big red volume a.k.a. Allure by Diana Vreeland. Safe to mention now that this whole task was kind of like a test for me—I wanted to see if I had what it takes to be an effective set decorator. I was confident with my styling skills—after all, I’d only been doing it more than 10 years—and I was pretty much getting comfortable with my photographing skills, but somehow I felt that something was still missing. For years I’d been stressing over the dilemma that I couldn’t find good shooting locations or decent backdrops in this part of the world, until I realized that, Hey, if you can’t find a pretty spot, why don’t you go ahead and create one yourself? So for months I’d been doing some pretty extensive research, immersing myself in stories about, say, the decorator Rita Konig, and the set designer Shona Heath—and here I was now, anxious to add “set decorator” to my resume! It was frightening at first, standing in the middle of Rael’s living room and not knowing where to begin, but all I had to do was take a deep breath and think, What would Rita Konig do?, and just like that, I got to work. First, I pulled out a carved hardwood settee (since anything larger than a settee would be fiendishly difficult to transport), and then I threw in a patchwork quilt for that touch of shabby chic. Throw pillows, I went for an assortment—in chenille, chintz, damask, and needlepoint, even a couple with tassel fringe. Instead of an actual coffee table, I asked to use an antique-looking hope chest to serve as one, and topped it with random curios (a carved wood picture frame painted in white, an artificial twig bird’s nest with faux eggs, and the abovementioned ceramic flask and Diana Vreeland book). And then I threw in some flowers (artificial, of course), wreaths (the springtime kinds, not the Christmastime kinds), and a couple of watercolor paintings, and that was it. What look was I trying to achieve? I couldn’t decide if it was country cottage-style, or whatever—the whole thing was too eclectic to ever be put in a box! But that didn’t matter. What mattered was it looked homey and inviting—and, more importantly, it represented Rael’s style well. That a certain milieu reflects someone so well sometimes out-enriches the most essential of design principles. Of course, I was proud, too, that it didn’t take a lot of effort in my part to put everything together—only 30 minutes picking the items, and only 15 minutes assembling them on the day of the shoot, and that’s it, no to-ing and fro-ing! Turns out the less stressed out you are about the outcome, the more efficient you become. In Ms. Konig’s own words, “Don’t panic, it is only the dreariest of people who have everything immaculate all the time.”
When it came to the clothes, well, I had it all too easy, too. Knowing that Rael was a clotheshorse, again, I didn’t have to source a lot of items—I told her I had full confidence in her own wardrobe. She asked for copies of pictures that were in my mood board, anyways, just so we could be in the exact same page, and so in no time her inbox was barraged with photos of Olivia Palermo. Rael admitted she had not heard of Olivia Palermo before—she wasn’t a The Hills/The City junkie like I was—but I told her it was the New York socialite and reality TV star that first came to mind when I was developing boards for her shoot, just ‘cause I thought they shared the same style sensibility—i.e., traditionalist, throw-it-on chic, with a knack for mixing crisp, tailored pieces with flouncy, ultra-feminine ones. For the first set I suggested for her to wear an ensemble that was inspired by Ms. Palermo’s outfit in a series of paparazzi photographs of her walking down TriBeCa’s Greenwich St. (from last May): loose-fitting pale cornflower blue dress shirt, pleated maxi skirt, and ballet flats. Rael was quick to snap a light blue seersucker dress shirt from out of her own closet, and quicker to commission her seamstress to whip up a maxi skirt for her, in plain white. For her daughters, a variation of the same theme: plain white dress shirts, and printed skirts in blue-and-white, inspired by, well, Ms. Palermo’s outfit when she attended the Friends with Benefits premiere at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater last July. For the second set, which was going to be shot at the Sabin Resort Hotel, we decided to play with black-and-white: Nikka was going to be wearing an ensemble inspired by Olivia Palermo’s outfit in this one paparazzi photo of her filming a scene for The City at the W Hotel Miami Beach (circa July 2009)—long white cardigan over a white button-front shirt, worn with black tuxedo shorts and a huge black ribbon as tie—while Rael and Nicole were going to be in a black-and-white maxi dress and mini dress, respectively. For the third set, which was going to be shot at a private compound in the Bantigue Beach area, particularly at the charming little driveway that led to Inez Larrazabal-Vesuña’s white picket-fenced country-style home, and which was going to feature a bicycle (Rael’s idea), I wanted outfits that were punchy bright, summery, and floral, a la the Zara dress that Ms. Palermo wore to the Stephane Rolland Haute Couture show during Paris Fashion Week last July—except I wanted to throw in some solid cardigans in the mix, to make the look more girly and carefree. For the fourth and final set, back at the Sabin, I had to reach outside the Olivia Palermo box and look to someone with a more romantic sense of dress for some inspiration. One of my favorite Bruce Weber photographs is that of Natalie Portman for the December 2007/January 2008 Teen Vogue shot outside his beach cabin in Montauk, New York, in which the actress is standing in the rain (with an umbrella, of course), in an oversize cream-and-white check blazer worn over a simple white dress, the blazer cinched at the waist with an offbeat, haute-hippie-style belt. This was exactly the kind of look I wanted on Rael for the fourth set, except I wanted the blazer to be more vibrant, in the same vein as the ‘50s-style halterdress in multi-colored madras that Ms. Portman famously wore back in 2002. Luckily, my friend Vanity Salinana let me borrow a madras blazer that she got from a thrift store! What better way to contrast sunset at the Sabin’s faux boardwalk, right, than with rainbow-bright madras? The stars all aligned when I was able to unearth a patchwork madras shirtdress in Nikka’s closet, and a pair of madras shorts in Nicole’s.
It rained like crazy on the day of the shoot, and I was about to call the whole thing off when I met with Rael and the girls as they were having their makeup done, and they were just laughing and having a good time. It was refreshing to see Nikka and Nicole just being themselves around their mom—if was as if she wasn’t their mom, you know, and more like their big sister. I thought about what Rael had told me in her e-mail: “I want something that shows my closeness with my daughters.” Well, it looked like I wasn’t going to have a hard time capturing that—if I just let them be themselves! It stopped raining mid-morning, perhaps thanks to their collective sunny disposition, and we were able to go about our business. I told them to “don’t mind the camera, pretend I’m not here, and just be yourselves,” and throughout the entire day they did just that. It was obvious the girls loved being around their mom more than anything—they were more comfortable during the frames that they were with her versus when they had to face the camera solo!
I couldn’t help but marvel at how Nikka looked exactly like Rael. “I look at you and am reminded of the first time I met your mom more than 15 years ago,” I told her at one point, and to which the young lady just beamed. Swear to God, the resemblance is uncanny. Even the way she moved her hands, the way she spoke, the way she laughed—just like her mom! Guess it’s worth mentioning now that Nikka almost couldn’t make it to this shoot. A medical student at Cebu Doctors’, she had asked her mom for a rain check because she’d wanted to spend her weekend hitting the books—but she’d said yes at the last minute, perhaps ‘cause she couldn’t bear the thought of letting her mom down.
As for little Nicole (I really shouldn’t be using little because this girl has some serious legs on her), well, it’s obvious she took after her father in the looks (and in the height!) department. When I asked her about her plans for college—i.e., if she ever considered going to fashion or arts school—she said she was interested in pursuing something that had to do with a lot of mathematics or athletics. This didn’t mean, of course, that she didn’t inherit some of her mom’s love of clothes—in fact, as Rael would later reveal, Nicole had been the most excited about this whole thing, and on the days leading to the shoot would rush home from school and spend hours on end trying her outfits on even when we hadn’t finalized them yet! She was very polite, too: when she spotted a couple of friends hanging around the pool at the Sabin, she waited until I was done with my frames before asking if she could go talk to them for a bit. What a sweetheart!
I’d never thought I’d be doing family sessions this soon. Always I’d thought I’d had to master/do nothing but couples sessions for, like, years before I could graduate to anything else (and don’t ask me for my logic behind that!). And then this one right here just made me realize that it’s so much easier doing families versus couples! Sure, there’s going to be more than two people to style, which means more work, and plus the prospect of having a child or adolescent misbehaving on set is kind of scary, but, hey, at least it’s more, um, relatable, right? I mean, not everyone has a better half, but everyone has a family! The moments that unfold before your eyes are things you are all too familiar with, and so it’s not hard to chase after the ones you should be capturing! Perhaps I’m speaking a little too soon here, but what I’m absolutely sure of is that I enjoyed every minute of this session, and I look forward to doing more family shoots in the future!
Speaking of family, another reason this shoot was extra special to me was ‘cause it was my second time to collaborate with the makeup artist Sheila On, after working together on my first ever solo shoot some 9 months back. Sheila is one of my oldest and dearest friends—we were playmates when we were kids, and classmates all throughout high school. We’re not exactly blood-related, but we grew up together, and she reads my mind, and I read hers—sometimes that is enough to make a family, you know?
I should also mention that it was my mom who assisted me during this session—she helped carry my equipment around, assisted with the styling, even took behind-the-scenes shots. Most people don’t work well with their mothers around—I’m proud to declare my mom has the opposite effect on me, and I actually become more efficient when she’s there. I said it once, and I’ll say it again: there’s no affair quite like a family affair!
Oh, and Happy New Year to my readers/viewers! I hope you all have a stylish 2012!
Rael Tolentino-Matuguina and her daughters Nikka and Nicole | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Ormoc City on November 26, 2011 | Hair and makeup by Sheila On (to book Sheila, click here) | Special thanks to Monique Rosal and Vanity Salinana | All accessories for the black-and-white set from Gracie Q Creative Designs
In my mood board (see below) Top row, L-R: New York socialite and reality TV star Olivia Palermo walking past TriBeCa’s Ivy Bistro (after leaving International Plaza Nails) on May 3, 2011, photographed by Bauer Griffin/Zimbio.com; Ms. Palermo attending the Friends with Benefits premiere at New York’s Ziegfeld Theater on July 18, 2011, photographed by Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images North America; Ms. Palermo filming a scene for an episode of The City at the W Hotel in Miami Beach on July 18, 2009, photographed by James Breeden/Nate Jones/PacificCoastNews.com; Natalie Portman wearing a ‘50s-style multi-colored madras halterdress, circa 2002, photograph from PEOPLE.com; one of my favorite images from Coming Home, the coffee table book that the fashion photographer Bruce Weber did for a recent DEDON ad campaign. Middle row, L-R: Ms. Palermo in a floral Zara dress attending the Stephane Rolland Haute Couture F/W 2011/2012 show during Paris Fashion Week, July 5, 2011, photograph from hillsfreak.blogspot.com; Natalie Portman photographed by Bruce Weber in Montauk, New York, for the December 2007/January 2008 issue of Teen Vogue. Palette used in this layout, bottom row, L-R: Powder blue, light pistachio, earth yellow, bittersweet, and chamoisee.
Behind-the-Scenes Instagrams Top row, L-R: Cross-checking an outfit I have put together for Nikka versus an Olivia Palermo photo in my mood board; Nicole trying on outfit # 1 the day before the shoot; sorting footwear is tough (I’ve never seen this much ballerina flats in my life!); finalizing outfits for the madras set. Middle row, L-R: Me photographing the girls during the bicycle set; me hard at work on the set decoration; I loved, loved, loved these watercolor paintings; me and the girls at the Sabin for the black-and-white set. Bottom row, L-R: Sheila On putting on Rael’s makeup; it’s always fun watching Sheila as she does her magic; Sheila’s makeup box looks good enough to eat; Nikka’s turn in the makeup chair.
Big City Love, Pure Country Strong: Chris and Cherry
Don’t you just love those New York Girls? I know I do. And I’m not just talking about those who have made me want to sing, “At the risk of sounding cheesy/ I think I fell for the girl on TV”—like the fictional but fabulous Carrie Bradshaw, for example, or the very real but too good to be true Olivia Palermo. I’m talking about the, um, regular girls, too: like the Lou Doillon look-alike who stood beside me at the Garment District Pret A Manger, and who ordered nothing but sparkling water for lunch; or, like the girls I bumped into at the Time Square Starbucks, cradling Caramel Macchiatos in one arm and a pile of fashion magazines in the other; or, like the middle-aged woman and her Chihuahua that I ran into near the Christopher St. station, who wore matching granny-style crocheted wool square ponchos; or, like the cool mom who grows her own vegetables in her Brooklyn backyard during the day, and at night squeezes her way through throngs of sweaty rock fans at Terminal 5 to watch Nine Inch Nails live in concert (I’m talking about my friend Anne); or, like the little girl who likes to refer to the Brooklyn Bridge as “the bridge from the princess movie” (Anne’s daughter Ellis, named after Ellis Island, and, yes, she is talking about the movie Enchanted). Yes, there is a certain kind of magic when you are looking at, talking to, or just simply being around a New York girl. It gives you a certain kind of thrill—something about the exuberance of their unrestrained actions, their whimsical wits. Inevitably, you find it extremely hard to keep your jaw from dropping.
One such jaw-dropping moment happened to me a couple of months back when we were photographing the New York-based Cebuana transplant Cherry de Dios and her groom-to-be Chris Beck. They’d just flown in from the Big Apple, decided to do a quick stopover in Cebu to see family—and to have their engagement photos taken—before proceeding to tie the knot in Ormoc City, Leyte. We were at some farm up the mountains in Carmen (some two hours northeast of Cebu City), and I was inside this quaint little cabin helping Cherry sort their outfits while watching her do her own makeup. She’d elected not to hire a makeup artist for the occasion: “For the actual wedding I’m going to have a makeup artist, of course,” she said (and she was talking about my friend Sheila On, who did the makeup for my very first solo shoot months back—what a small world!), “but for now I just want to look like me, you know? I don’t want to look like somebody else in these pictures.” At first I was skeptical about this decision of hers, but in no time she proved me wrong. And by no time, I mean, well, no time—she spent only 20 seconds penciling her brows, another 20 applying eyeliner, and then 10 seconds glossing her lips, and then another 10 combing her hair with her fingers! “You just gave new meaning to ‘in a New York minute!’” I exclaimed in awe. To which she just winked and said, “Exactly!” She knew what she wanted, she worked on it herself, and she worked on it fast. The very essence of a modern New York girl.
Asked why they’d chosen to have their engagement photos taken here when they could’ve done it in New York City (I was imagining Bow Bridge at Central Park, or those pretty little West Village sidewalks!), she said, “I thought about it, but it was Chris who said he wanted to do it here.” By here, she meant this very farm where we were at right now. Turned out the fiancé had fallen absolutely in love with the place when they’d first visited a little over a year back. And who could blame him? I looked around me and asked myself, what was not to love about this place? Towering pine trees, windswept shrubs, pretty little hiking trails—it was like we were in Baguio! Plus, stand on the porch of the main cabin and look east and you get a breathtaking view of Camotes Island (or, is it Leyte?). My favorite part would have to be how there were these charming little makeshift birdhouses atop each of the pine trees—and they weren’t there for decorative purposes; little birdies actually inhabited them! How was it possible that a place like this existed in this part of the country? Well, made possible in part by Cherry’s sister Toni Grace “TG” Villamor, who took her predilection for all things countryside and bucolic to create the ultimate vacation home for when she and her family needed to shy away from the city life.
That was it! It was the perfect retreat from the frenetic pace of their big city lives! That was why Chris loved it here! I was watching him as he walked around the place, took deep breaths and blinked dreamily at every little thing he laid his eyes on. And it looked like that was all he wanted to do all day—soak up the beauty of the place—and it got to a point it was almost too embarrassing to ask him to stop what he was doing so we could start photographing them!
It would later turn out that this place wasn’t the only thing Chris loved about the Philippines. When it was time for lunch, served semi-al fresco style—i.e., at the porch—he was more excited than everyone else was about the food. It was an all-Filipino fare that Cherry’s sister had whipped up, and Chris attacked the table with much gusto. And when it came to conversations, both while in front of the cameras and in between sets, he displayed a heady kind of sensitivity towards breaking the language barrier, trying as best he could to speak in Cebuano. It almost embarrassed me when I told the team to “be sure to speak only English when he’s around, ‘cause he might get the wrong idea,” and Cherry was quick to disabuse me of such notion, saying that Chris was actually semi-fluent in Cebuano, and was passionate about learning the language more! And what a romantic way of reconciling their greatest difference, right? This was probably one of the reasons why Cherry knew Chris was the one.
As for what made Chris know Cherry was the one for him… Well, no one needed to ask, either. August can be a pretty sticky, sweaty proposition in this part of the world, especially when you’re running around outdoors—and, yes, even when it’s atop the mountains where the breeze is somewhat cool. This was why I was kind of hesitant at first about making her do the things we wanted her to do in front of the cameras. I mean, this was a New York girl we were talking about here—what was she going to think if we asked her to, say, remove her Calvin Klein strappy sandals, tread barefoot on prickly, rocky terrain, and chase the farm animals around? To our surprise, she obliged, and even managed to laugh about it. When we asked her to jump into the freshwater pool—you know, like, really jump, in order to make a huge splash—she winced at first, saying she’d never done anything like it before, but she rolled up her sleeves and went for it anyway. Such a cowgirl, I know! You should’ve seen the look in Chris’s eyes as he watched his wife-to-be do all these crazy antic—it was like he was getting more and more smitten every minute! Emerging from the pool, all flushed from her feat, she chuckled, to thundering applause from her family (her mother and her brothers and sisters, who’d decided to tag along for this session), “You see, these people are never going to let me live that down!” And then she jumped back into the water, proving that, to borrow a line from Ms. Bradshaw, “city girls and just country girls—with cuter outfits.”
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Apologies for the delay in posting these photos. No, I didn’t misplace them. I just had to wait ‘til the couple returned from their month-long (actually, I think it was more than a month) honeymoon in Italy before seeking their permission. I seem to know it’s kind of impolite to interrupt anyone who’s on a Roman holiday, for whatever reason.
This was my first session as apprentice at Shutterfairy Photography, by the way. I didn’t take a lot of photos—I think I only took a little over 400—because I was too busy observing my mentor Malou Pages (and “second shooter” Charisse Calo, of Calography) at work. Couple of things I learned that day:
- Organize and clean your equipment the day before a shoot—not in the car on the way to the job, and especially not at the eleventh hour when your subjects are already getting ready to step in front of you. I must’ve wasted about 20 minutes and was only able to take 10 or so shots during the first set because I was still busy dusting my camera and my lenses while Malou and Charisse started clicking away.
- Just because your subjects ask for breaks in between sets doesn’t mean you have to take a break, too. You have to be in the moment, all of the time! Look around you and take as many detail shots as possible—of a flower, a farm animal, or whatever else catches your eye.
- Always carry your mood board around with you. I had brought mine to this shoot, but left it inside my bag, which I left inside the cabin the whole time we were outside shooting. Clumsy, right? I mean, what’s the use of a mood board when it’s just gonna sit in the dark? Malou saved her boards in her iPad (she’s techie like that), which she carries around with her to every nook and cranny, so it’s easy for her to check back on them when she feels she is straying from her vision and she needs to be pulled back in track.
- Strike up casual conversations with your subjects while you are taking pictures of them. When photographing people you’ve just met, you see, there is a tendency for us to appear, um, serious, and to keep our mouths shut, in an effort, I guess, to look professional and all. As it turns out: Stiff photographer equals stiff subjects, and the whole thing comes out very unnatural! I loved that Malou asked Chris and Cherry all kinds of questions while she was clicking away, even exchanged jokes with them. I was quick to adapt this style, especially upon seeing the effect it had on the subjects—they became more relaxed, to a point they forgot they were in front of the cameras. Cherry and I exchanged stories about our favorite spots in the West Village (including the world-famous Magnolia Bakery), and in no time we became, like, kindred spirits. I hope these photos show that happening.
Christian Thomas Beck and Joan Grace “Cherry” de Dios | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Carmen, Cebu, on August 17, 2011 | Main photographers: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy, Charisse Darlene Calo for Calography (click here to view Malou’s photos, and here for Charisse’s)
Show Me a Garden that’s Bursting into Life: Luigi and Maricor, Part 2
“If I lay here/ If I just lay here/ Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
How beautiful are these lines from Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars?” In fact, how beautiful are all the lines from that one song? Sources say frontman Gary Lightbody considers it the “purest love song” he’s ever written. Eschewing intricate imagery not uncommon in arena ballads, the muse having struck the songwriter during a hangover, it uses stark sentences, simplistic metaphors—“a garden that’s bursting into life”—and languid cadences, and this is probably why it’s so catchy. When you keep your words simple (which is one gift I definitely don’t have), you see, they go straight to the heart. “I think that the song has worked because it has an emotion that people can relate to,” Lightbody has been quoted as saying (after a UK-based music licensing body declared it “most widely played song of the decade” in December of 2009). In the same way, TV music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas told Los Angeles Magazine about her choice of the track for the second season finale of Grey’s Anatomy (a listing that would be responsible for propelling the song to the top of music download charts in 2006): “It connected on multiple emotions at once.”
Even to people like me, who don’t have someone we can lie there and just forget the world with, it has a way of sending chills down the spine. (Especially Natasha Bedingfield’s version—have you heard it? It’s pretty much like the original version, except the words are sung kind of breathlessly. It’s on constant repeat in my iPod.). It pushes buttons in that it conjures visions of all sorts of escapism. I mean, to just withdraw from everyone and everything, and just lay there, not caring—how nice would that be? Although, of course, I’m sure it’s no more nicer than to have someone to escape with—or someone to be your escape, if you will.
I had been toying with the idea of translating this whole song into engagement photos for so long. Luckily I found a couple whose very relationship embodies the carefree, almost hypnotic premise of the song. Luigi and Maricor, they knew the formula too well—some events (and people) in their lives threaten to shake them, but instead of breaking down they just withdraw and look for a means of escape. And so spur-of-the-moment road trips are not uncommon. Like this one right here, for instance.
We’d already done a session a couple of weeks back, and I’d thought, you know, that that was that. But suddenly they wanted another session, “away from the city” this time. Served me well, because although that first session had covered the track’s main lines—“Let’s waste time/ Chasing cars/ Around our heads”—complete with an actual car and all, I had been left with a hunger to translate all the other lines, and here was my chance to do so (I did not have to wait for the next couple to come along)!
Two hours north of Cebu, that was where they took me. A place called Borbon, some three or four towns after Danao, and right before Tabogon. Shame on me—up to that point I had never heard of the place. (We’re always in a hurry to go to, say, Bantayan Island, and we tend to overlook the gorgeous places along the way.) We were going to be shooting at Luigi’s grandfather’s vacation house (or “rest house,” as they call those things here in the Philippines), and during the ride there I thought I had a pretty good idea of what the whole thing was going to look like, but was proven wrong once the gates were flung open. More garden than house, really, and the area was so huge you could get lost in it if you weren’t careful. And unnervingly perched atop a cliff! Yes, overlooking the sea that separates the islands of Cebu and Leyte. There was a makeshift tree house, too, with an old telescope—presumably for those who wanted to look across the water at Isabel, Leyte. But my favorite part was how the whole place was made to look unmanicured—wildflower shrubs sat alongside well-tended garden plants, giving off a bittersweet, unstudied kind of appeal (give a wedding stylist five minutes to pluck the flowers and whatever else there is to pick at, and he would be able to come up with maybe 10 different kinds of whimsical bouquets, or quirky little boutonnieres). I was quick to thank the heavens for giving me a setting that was my very idea of “a garden that’s bursting into life.”
The photos of the couple lying in the grass (with a mahjong set, and don’t ask me why) were taken, well, from the top (how else?). Yes, there was the tree house to support me, but it was only the lower half of my body that it bolstered—my torso was pretty much suspended in the air! It was dangerous, and I almost dropped my camera—twice! I think I might have felt my back snap, too. Luigi’s friend Roland Caballero pleaded for me to give it up, saying he was scared for my life, but these pleas fell on deaf ears. I was willing to stay all day up there, and to risk my life, all for the sake of getting my perfect “lie with me and just forget the world” picture!
Speaking of Roland, I must not forget to thank him. And not only for his genuine concern about my safety. A graphic designer and illustrator by profession, Roland had been asked by Luigi to come with during this shoot to act as “creative director,” after I’d brought up that “I am going to be needing some help if we are going to be shooting somewhere where there’s trees and plants and all.” My mentor Malou Pages-Solomon (of Shutterfairy Photography, where I am currently apprenticing) very recently wrote about how she was more comfortable shooting in the mountains, where nature is aplenty, versus, say, in an urban area. For me, at least up to this very shoot right here, it had always been the opposite: I’d preferred shooting in the city (where there’s buildings and concrete and glass and etc.), and I’d been deathly afraid of, um, vegetation. In a city setting, you see, I’d found it easier to mind my composition and manage my angles—always a straight line somewhere, always a plane or two, always a perfect circle. Plants, however, I’d had a hard time grasping—too abstract, too all over the place! Thank God Roland was there to show me how to make all these nature-y elements work to my advantage. Taught me how, for example, to look at things two-dimensionally, versus in three dimensions (i.e., take a test shot before deciding against a certain spot), and how to use leaves and barks and all that for framing. Even showed me where the best lighting was coming out of—and wasn’t that supposed to be my job? To cut to the chase, what I’m saying is, yes, it doesn’t hurt to second pair of eyes with you when you’re shooting, and it doesn’t have to be a secondary or assistant photographer (Roland here does like taking pictures, too, but decided to go camera-less that day so he could focus on helping me out with my shots)—especially when it’s someone who’s professionally trained in color, shape, structure, composition, and in understanding the nuances of space. I do not think I could’ve done all this without him. I mean, sure, I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted my subjects to be positioned within my frame, but I wouldn’t have been able to get the third character—the location, the surroundings—to cooperate if it weren’t for him. Needless to say, I took note of everything that came out of his mouth, and would end up applying all these lessons a week later during my session with Christina Garcia-Frasco for the Shandar catalog (the concept had called for a farm set).
I think I mentioned this already, but I’ll say it again: This is my second session with this couple, the first having been completed a month earlier in Mandaue. They had a third session after this, because Luigi had wanted a kitchen setting with him wearing his chef whites (yes, he is a chef), but I had to excuse myself from that—they were going to be shooting at the Casino Español de Cebu’s cookery, and at nighttime, too, and I did not want to jump into indoors and strobe without proper training. And so that set was taken care of by a photographer named Burton Raya. I’m not sure if Burton has a Website and I haven’t really seen the photos from that set, but I’m sure they came out gorgeous—must have gone really well with the couple’s choice of wedding souvenirs, which were measuring cups, with a little note that said “Love knows no measure” (the cups came with rulers, too, as Maricor here is a teacher by profession).
I hope you enjoy looking at this set as much as we did shooting it.
Luigi Mangubat and Maricor Teves | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon in Borbon, Cebu, on April 10, 2011 | Hair and makeup by June Sy | Creative Director: Roland Caballero | Special thanks to: Mia Bacolod and Vice Mayor and Mrs. Ace Serafin of Tabogon
Carter
