Cruisin’ is Made for Love: Anthony and Cindy
I was swimming in delight the whole time I was working on this couple’s engagement session. Cindy and Anthony here both worked for a cruise liner (the Norwegian Pearl, if I am not mistaken; her as guest service representative, him as stateroom steward), and that’s how they met, in August of 2010, and then fell in love two months later. When I found out about this detail I wasted no time in proposing the nautical theme for their photos—I mean, come on, was there any other theme that was going to make perfect sense? This was where all my excitement sprung from.
You see, along with grunge, the nautical look is one of my all-time favorites. It all started when, as a little boy, I would rummage through piles of my grandfather’s old magazines, and then one day I stumbled upon the December 27, 1968, issue of Life, with the artist Pablo Picasso wearing a classic Breton sailor shirt on the cover, photographed by Robert Doisneau in Vallauris (circa 1952). Ever since then I wouldn’t stop obsessing about it, collecting clippings of images of people wearing sailor/fisherman stripes (or patterns inspired by such), including the cover of the April 1993 issue of American Vogue—Helena Christensen, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Stephanie Seymour, all wearing the same red-and-white-striped crop tops by Marc Jacobs paired with white Daisy Dukes (photographed by Herb Ritts)—which I ended up tacking to my bedroom wall where it stayed for a good four or so years. Yes, my very first mood board, right there!
That Vogue cover, along with all the other clippings, would go missing after moving house so many times, but the iconography of the sailor/fisherman shirt was to remained anchored to my, um, creative psyche, and there it stayed lurking until it was time for it to resurface and dictate a good chunk of my “adult wardrobe.” Yes, it wasn’t until I hit the Big 3-0 that I decided to infuse some nautical staples into my closet—I mean, I’d been itching to from the start, but then I’d figured it was the kind of thing that required some maturity and a bit of worldliness in order to be pulled off successfully. On the eve of my 30th birthday I gifted myself with a trip to my favorite local designer Protacio Empaces, Jr.‘s atelier so he could make me a navy blazer with red-and-white seersucker lining and anchor motif brass buttons (that came out perfect, of course, and now that jacket is the champ of my wardrobe, and coming with me wherever I go—in fact, I am about to snatch it from my closet so I could take it with me to Boracay tomorrow where we are to shoot a beach wedding). Perfect timing, too, because it was around that exact same time that the sailor/fisherman shirt made a huge resurgence, fast trickling down the retail chains, perhaps taking a cue from Balmain’s F/W 2009 collection which showcased a chic version of the shirt that Picasso had made famous (now I have about four or five of these shirts: a couple from H&M, one from Zara, and one from Uniqlo). And it didn’t stop at what I was putting on my own back—pretty soon nautical stripes became one of my favorite gifts to give, too! And it didn’t stop at clothes—suddenly all the other aspects of my life were starting to look, um, seaward, like my travel sense, for example: all at once I was eschewing big city adventures in favor of seaside communes and harbor locales, like Laguna Beach, Newport Beach, Marina del Rey, Redondo Beach, and even that area of Louisville by the Ohio River. Even my playlist was starting to be doused with nautical-themed tunes: “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, “Cruisin’” by Smokey Robinson, and “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” by Otis Redding. And, would you believe, I even proceeded to change my “fantasy wedding” (come on, now, everyone has one), in keeping up with this theme—whereas before I’d dreamt of a grungy, rock ‘n’ roll-y kind of wedding, or something with a country theme (à la the wedding scene from 8 Seconds), now I was all about a nautical-inspired wedding (imagine me yelping in a Dionne-from-Clueless voice: “When I get married, I’m gonna have a sailor dress, but it’s going to be a gown, and all my bridesmaids are gonna wear sailor hats…”)!
All the above stories (except, of course, for the “fantasy wedding” part) were what I leveraged in building a strong case, to convince Cindy that this theme was in my “sweet spot” and that I knew it like the back of my hand. Thankfully, she gave it the green light, saying she had seen some of the work I’d done for one of her good friends Sheryl Guzman-Dauz, for whom we’d done a “vintage travel”-inspired engagement session, which had included a cruise-themed set! At first she had qualms about a certain detail: “Don’t horizontal stripes make you look big?” I reassured her that I’d used to think that, too, until my favorite style writers at WhoWhatWear debunked this myth by declaring that it actually “looks good on any body type.”
Needless to say, I had one hell of a field day putting these clothes together. After years of romancing the Doisneau portrait of Picasso and the cover of the April 1993 Vogue in my head, finally here was my chance to translate everything about them that I loved into my own work! Of course, these two images weren’t my only guiding light: the aforementioned WhoWhatWear article helped, too, by serving as a refresher course, and I also got some useful tips from an old issue of Lucky (July 2006, Milla Jovovich on the cover) that I’d unearthed from the storage, which contained a 4-page spread dedicated to how to add “a cool twist” to the traditional French nautical style. I must say that one of the reasons I like this theme/style is that it forces you to exercise a little bit of discipline—like, there’s a strict palette of blue, red and white, and you have to remain rooted to it (actually, yellow is part of the basic sailorman palette, too, owing to the slickers that sailors use and the brass buttons that come with service dress blues, but for this shoot I made a conscious effort to stick to just red, blue and white). Which is not to say I left no room for experimentation, of course—for one of the groom-to-be’s outfits I looked past the stripes in favor of a little polka dot flavor, and it still worked somehow! All this was made more fun, of course, when Cindy offered to help scour the thrift shops for more nautical-inspired separates. It’s always a treat when your clients play an active role in the behind-the-scenes work, instead of just sitting pretty and watching you do all of it!
I must confess, though, that although I had fun assembling the outfits, it was sourcing the props and dressing up the set that I found immensely enjoyable. I love a shoot that gives my set decorating muscles a good old flexin’ good time! For the first set, in which I had Cindy and Anthony tinker with and show off various memorabilia from their travels/voyages (postcards, cruise ship models, etc.), I created a backdrop peppered with anchor cutouts—took me a good two days putting that whole thing together, and for a while there it caused some numbness around my fingers (imagine having to make 90 cutouts!), but it was all worth it in the end. For the swimming pool set, I wanted to have about 50 paper boats made out of yellowed pages from an old book—loved that they lent a childlike quality to the pictures! Of course, all that was me just going gimmicky with the whole thing. (This has sort of become an “unspoken rule” for all the engagement shoots that I do under the Shutterfairy brand: to insert a gimmick or two into the first couple of sets, ‘cause it helps the subjects shake off any trace of camera shyness by giving them something to keep themselves busy/entertained). In other words, I was just getting warmed up. It wasn’t until the third and fourth sets that I went real hardcore.
(“Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay,” yes—that was what I wanted to allude to for the third set, and so I put together a picnic setting by the edge of the dock, completed with “messages in bottles,” some books with ocean-themed titles (e.g., High Tide by Jude Deveraux), and even chocolate mallow cupcakes with nautical-themed fondant toppers (the cuppies are by my good friend Rhia de Pablo, by the way—call her at +63 [908] 301-5225 if you happen to need some custom cupcakes in your life)! And I didn’t want it to come off too stagy, so I decided against clearing out the moorings. (It would’ve been nice to move this whole setting aboard one of the yachts, but more than anything I really just wanted to stay true to lines from the aforementioned song that goes: “Sittin’ in the morning sun/ I’ll be sittin’ when the evening comes/ Watching the ships roll in/ Then I watch them roll away again.”) I was so happy with the outcome that I ended up taking some 200+ pictures of that set alone! Perfect timing, too, because it was during this set that the videographer Marlowe Guinto arrived on set to take moving pictures—imagine the look on his face when he saw we had something very telegenic waiting for him!
My absolute, absolute favorite, though, was the final (fourth) set, which involved very unusual suspects: crabs. By crabs, I mean crustaceans, of course! And how did these little creatures end up in the picture? Well, at the time of this shoot, you see, I was gaga over the ABC TV drama Revenge (not anymore now, though—isn’t the trick to stop watching when everyone else starts?), so as I was laying down my mood board I figured, why not recreate that one oh-so-stylish clambake scene from episode 11 (“Duress,” aired January 4, 2012)? I quickly snapped myself out of it, of course, after I realized that that would make us go way over budget. I began to think: what would be good alternative? something that had a clambake kind of vibe but was less swanky (besides, the champagne and all that were already to be covered by the third/picnic set)? And then it hit me: why not recreate the feel of a seafood market/crab shack? More specifically, Quality Seafood, Inc., down the Redondo Beach boardwalk, that served steamed crabs in disposable aluminum foil plates, and that used old newspapers as tablecloth? It was perfect ‘cause it was unrefined (and I mean that in a good way) and laid-back! The only challenge was we couldn’t find a crab mallet anywhere in this part of the world, but we had handheld wooden meat tenderizers that looked exactly like mallets, so there. Of course, the funnest part was when we got to eat all the crabs after we wrapped!
Goes without saying that all this kick-ass set decorating would’ve remained an aloof and distant concept had it not been for my friend Jennifer “Jenny” Hortillosa, who served as props master for this assignment, and who assisted me in the actual dressing of the sets. (You remember Jenny, right? She’s the girl who helped us design the overall look of the Glee-inspired engagement session that we did early this year, and she has since been taken under the Shutterfairy wing as official set decorator.) You won’t believe how resourceful that girl is. I give her a list of impossible stuff to source, and she knows exactly where to get them! And whatever she can’t find, you can count on it she’s gonna make it herself! She also loves taking me to obscure shops, and just about any store that I didn’t know existed! And extra diligent, too—for this shoot right here she woke up at 3AM, to make sure she got to the seafood market before 3:30 in order to get first dibs on he fattest, juiciest mud crabs (I wouldn’t have done it)! My favorite thing about her, though, is her sunny disposition—just ‘cause, as some of you might know, that’s something I have very little of. On set she’s always making us laugh, and she’s always keeping my temper in check. Said differently, she’s the singing bluebird that hangs my laundry. I don’t say this enough, but thank you, Jenny, for being in this with me!
Going back to Cindy and Anthony, I just loved their chemistry on the day of the shoot. There was no need for us to tell them it was time for a kiss, or a hug, or a really tight embrace—they were always doing these things, even during breaks between sets! At first Cindy was a little stiff in front of the camera, but with her fiancé constantly sweet-talking her and telling jokes to make her laugh out loud it was impossible for her not to shake the nerves off. Perhaps it had something to do with them being apart from each other for a long time—this was their first time to be back in each other’s arms after months (Cindy had had to get off the cruise ship first so she could fly home and straighten out all the wedding details). Or, maybe this was just how they were to each other, every single day that they were together!
They would tie the knot three weeks after this shoot. I couldn’t be at the wedding ‘cause I had to leave for California, but I heard it was charming, especially the part when it was time for Anthony to give his thank you speech, and he won everyone over with his gift of gab. (I’m beginning to think that maybe it’s a seafarer thing? All of my friends who work for ships and cruise liners are such sweet-talkers, they debunk the old idiom “swear like a sailor!”) The theme wasn’t nautical, but that’s alright—I mean, we don’t want anyone beating me to my “fantasy wedding,” now, do we? LOL.
Thank you, Cindy and Anthony, for allowing us to capture the prologue to your new beginning together, and for making us part of a very special time in your lives. I hear one of you is back in the cruise ship, while the other has opted to stay behind in order to build a new home. I can’t even begin to imagine the irony of it all: how the very seas that brought you together have now become the distance that is to keep you apart for long periods of time. But I hope that looking at these photos will help warm your nights until the day you find yourselves back in each other’s arms again!
Anthony Joseph Haw and Cindy Hermosisima | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Liloan, Cebu, on April 15, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by JingJing F. Manching | Set decorator: Angelo Kangleon | Props master and assistant set decorator: Jennifer Hortillosa | Special thanks to Rhia de Pablo | Strapped wooden wedge sandals, Shandar; navy blazer with red-and-white seersucker lining, Protacio; sailor shirt, H&M; blue-and-white polka dot dress shirt, Heritage 1981, Forever 21; off-white canvas boat shoes, Generic Surplus, Urban Outfitters; soft denim roll-up pants, H&M; bucket hat, Bench
To Womb It May Concern
Always I’ve considered photographing musicians to be a big deal. Not so much because music has kind of been a huge part of my life (like I mentioned in a previous post, I was raised in a household where musicality was, for the most part, the glue when all else failed, and I also happened to play an active role—as band publicist and rock writer—when the Cebu music scene reached its peak during the late ‘90s/early 2000s), and not so much because I am a frustrated musician (yes, I did try to pick up the piano and the guitar, but they didn’t like me very much), but because most of the great photographers that I’ve admired from the start—Herb Ritts, Annie Leibovitz, et al.—have produced some of their most memorable images by collaborating with musical artists. So imagine my excitement when I was commissioned to do this band’s photos! And for their debut album cover, no less! Of course, I foamed at the mouth a little—OK, a lot—when the folks at 22 Tango Records, with whom this band is signed to, announced that they were signing me up for this project. It was all sorts of emotions rushing through my veins, like I was about to be reunited with a long-lost friend, or like I was about to get a new tattoo! I mean, things like this don’t happen to me everyday—or at all to some people! Finally, here was my chance to tick one off my list of dream projects!
Although this was my first time to photograph a band, this wasn’t my first time to work in a photo shoot that involved musicians. Back in the day I’d used to do tag along with the now-defunct Glitch to the shoots for most of their magazine appearances following their signing to OctoArts EMI. Some five years ago I’d helped style Urbandub bassist Lalay Lim for the album cover shoot for the band’s fourth album Under Southern Lights (EMI Philippines). And then just a little over a year ago I’d styled—and shot, as “second shooter” to my mentor Malou Pages—singer-songwriter Cattski for the album cover of her latest release 0:00:00. It was being exposed to these kinds of assignments that had left an impression in my creative psyche, and that had showed me that there was a certain quality to doing portraits for musicians that you just didn’t get when you were photographing regular, non-musical folk, or even models (to me one exception would be Ford Models Supermodel of the World-Philippines 2001 titleholder Marjay Ramirez, of course, because that girl is just a rock star in her own right). “It’s all about charisma,” an ex-DJ friend had told me at one point, “that one thing that, even when they’re just standing there, makes everything else around them freeze in time.” And for the longest time that became one of my favorite stories to tell: how, during the aforementioned Urbandub shoot, we’d picked an unexceptional location—just a prosaic patch of arid land in the North Reclamation area, a few steps from where they’d begun erecting the new Cebu Doctors’ University—and how the props had looked unimpressive—just a dusty old leather couch that had presumably been snatched from Lalay’s father’s office—but once the band had stepped into photographer Charles Buenconsejo’s frame the whole scenery just…transformed. “That’s the thing about musicians,” I would tell my friends over and over again, “they have this certain air about them that just takes over, and then commands the picture.”
Funny thing then that when I began work on this project I seemed to forget about that whole “charisma” thing and ended up burying myself neck-deep in preparations for the concept, locations and the props. Perhaps it was anxiety in my part, knowing I had to do a damn good job because (1) this was my first solo photography project that involved musicians, and (2) I needed to redeem myself in the eyes of these people because when I’d been commissioned to do the photos of another 22 Tango Records artist (Undercover Grasshoppers) a couple of months back that had turned out to be, in Facebook parlance, an “epic fail” (i.e., it never materialized). I think that, in the four weeks that I was given to prepare for this whole thing, only 20 or 30 percent of that time was spent talking to the band, and the other 70 or 80 percent was spent overthinking the concept!
The band is called Womb, and the music that they make is predominantly trip hop/folktronica/experimental rock—this in itself contributed to my urge to devise a crack concept, because I figured, hey, not a lot of artists in this part of the world were doing this kind of sound, so I better come up with images that would further set them apart from their peers. The overthinking officially set in after they told me they were baptizing their album Anesthesiac, and my first reaction was, “How very clinical!” I proceeded to ruminate, What is it with trip hop/electronica and its affinity to the clinical/medical? My immediate case in point: Massive Attack’s 1998 hit “Teardrop” as backdrop to the anatomy-themed opening sequence of the Fox medical drama House, M.D. I thought to myself, I have to come up with something as clever as that!
I became so relentless in my quest for the textbook clinical/medical theme that I ended up spending two full weeks going around town and pulling some old strings, ringing my friends from college (yes, I went to med school) and every single doctor I knew to see if the hospitals they worked in would allow me to borrow a couple of old gurneys that were no longer being used, or even an ambulance truck. I even mooched a couple of straitjacket-looking garments off a friend who was into that kind of stuff (did you know there’s a local clothing brand called Mental who actually makes these kinds of clothes?). This was the sick scenery that I was beginning to paint in my head, you see: three dilapidated, rusty gurneys, one for each band member, smack in the middle of a grassy field that’s dry as bone, and the band in straitjackets, with spaced-out looks in their faces. Alas, it turned out I was in for not just a bumpy ride, but for a fruitless crusade as well: my liaisons told me that none of the hospitals were willing to grant me the use of their old gurneys, not even the ones that were begging to be thrown to the junk shop! They also were not willing to lend us an ambulance truck! I wondered if it had something to do with medical ethics in the general sense, kind of like how, as I was told my by friends who are nurses, you were not allowed to use a nurse’s uniform for a conceptual shoot, even if didn’t involve any sleaze (exactly the reason why, for the Pearl Harbor-inspired engagement shoot that we did back in June, we decided to shelve the 1950s nurse costume that we’d had made in Manila).
When it became painfully clear that I was never going to get the straitjacket-and-gurney diorama that I wanted, and we had less than two weeks left until the actual shoot date, I decided to just roll with the punches and reach into my back pocket for Plan B. And that’s how we came up with all that you see right here. No gurneys? Fine! Give me a hotel room and a hotel bed! Luckily, a close friend of the producer was set to throw a little hotel room party over at the old Montebello Villa Hotel down Banilad, and she said we could have the place to ourselves the morning after. We did three sets at the hotel. It was my way of playing safe—you know, just in case the first and the second didn’t work then we still had a third one to fall back on. Everything that we did in that cramped 250-square-foot space could be summarized as an alchemy of influences and interpretations. The set where I had them don white bathrobes and order room service breakfast, that was me thinking of the lines “And in the morning/ I render numb the tongue that asks for an encore” from their song “Aftertaste,” and taking a cue from that circa 1975 Annie Leibovitz photograph of an emaciated, bathrobe-clad Mick Jagger in a Buffalo, NY, hotel elevator. The set where I had them fool around with party hats, party blowouts, some confetti, and a bottle of Scotch, a projection of my fascination with the whole hotel room trashing thing (except we had to go easy on the trashing part, because we were only borrowing the room, remember?); and the part where I had the frontwoman Chai Fonacier wear a Mickey Mouse hat (and old one of mine from one of my trips to Anaheim Disneyland, and I just wrapped the ears in sequined fabric to make it look a bit outré) was inspired by that 1987 Herb Ritts photograph of Madonna wearing Mickey Mouse ears (shot in Tokyo). Finally, the set where I had Chai show a little skin was inspired by another song of theirs called, well, “Skin,” that goes: “Shadows playing on skin/ the closest to a touch/ A fleeting glance; a fading epitaph/ Your skin: the graveyard of desire.” (Perfect, too, that Chai had just gotten a brand spanking new tattoo on her upper back!) Oh, and if all the hotel room photos have kind of a ménages à trois vibe to them, that might have been because I wanted to allude to a line from another song of theirs, “30th and 1st,” that goes: “I understand the mechanisms of a triangle.”
It all turned out alright after all. You see, while I was taking the first few shots my mind wasn’t completely in the right there and then, as all I could think of was the straitjacket-and-gurney scene that I had originally envisioned. But, boy, were the band ever their element! Whether or not they felt good about the setup(s), they didn’t show it, or that didn’t matter to them—what mattered was that they felt good about themselves, and that was what they wanted to come through in the pictures. They were professional in a way that none of us—not even their producers—had ever seen before. And that’s how the pictures turned out pretty decent, even though the person behind the camera—A.K.A. me—was kind of apathetic about the whole thing. It was only upon seeing how the band behaved in front of the camera that I was reminded of the “charisma” factor—I realized that I’d only been wasting my time and energy stressing about the concept, the locations and the props, when all of it could’ve been trouble-free had I just remembered to consider that factor. That was when I made a mental note: Next time, when photographing musicians, try not to be distracted by the complicated that you end up losing sight of the comfortable. Look past the surface, like album titles, and talk to them about what they want. Finally, once they’re in front of your camera, learn to just let go—of preconceptions and premeditations—and just allow them and their personas to transcend the context and the picture.
Actually, it kind of worked to my advantage that the whole straitjacket-and-gurney thing didn’t materialize, because shelving the, um, psychiatric ward connotations only made room for me to beef up the styling aspect and pursue a few previously untapped resources. Classic case of how a lost cause can have a strange way of turning into a golden opportunity! For the guys (instrumentalists Anthony Uy and Fender Figuera) I looked to Urban Outfitters’ early fall 2010 catalog for inspiration, as well as various Barneys CO-OP catalogs (spring/summer 2009 and spring 2011; yes, I have a weird habit of collecting catalogs). For Chai, I allowed her one grungy outfit, and that’s it, because for majority of the pictures I wanted to portray her as an ingénue by having her slip into girly—albeit not necessarily dainty—cocktail threads from up-and-coming young designer Paco Serafica. People tried to sway me from taking this route, pointing out that Chai was a no-fuss, gamine kind of girl. Trust me, I wanted to respect that, but I felt it was my duty to highlight her being the only female in an otherwise all-male collective! Plus, although she technically wasn’t new to the scene, having been around doing vocals for another band called Mary Peril (formerly known as Balde ni Allan), this album with Womb was to represent her first major breakthrough, and so what better way to celebrate that than by giving her a debutante-like image, right? Also, they could’ve fooled me about the gamine part—anyone who samples/references the Madame de Pompadour in their songwriting (in “Aftertaste” she croons in her velveteen voice, “At sunrise as you asked to be excused:/ Après nous, le Déluge”) is more vixen than gamine in my book.
I feel like I should take the time out to talk about the night shots wherein I had them stand against a fiercely burning flame, because those are the ones that have been getting a lot of positive feedback ever since I put out the sneak peek some eight weeks ago. I can tell you now that that set was inspired by the music video of Hole’s “Malibu” from 1998 (directed by Paul Hunter), in which they set fire to a lot of stuff, including precious palm trees. I was also taking a cue from their own song “30th and 1st,” in which Chai sings, “Moments rain like ember/ What this love is made of.” Although the resulting photos look straightforward, that set was actually the trickiest of all. You see, the original plan was to have them stand in front of three strips of white cloth doused in lighter fluid, suspended from a 10-foot-high clothesline. As luck would have it, that plan turned out to be, again, in Facebook parlace, an “epic fail’—I tossed a lighter at the thing, and immediately a fire was ablaze, but only to fizzle out two or three seconds later, before I could make my way back to the tripod where my camera sat waiting! Didn’t see that coming! We were all taken aback. Thankfully, 22 Tango’s April Ordesta was quick to suggest, “Why don’t we just build a campfire?” It started to rain hard, too, in the middle of it all, but we were already on a roll, and there was no stopping us now. Everyone on set started singing the chorus of Adele’s “Set Fire to the Rain”—although in my head I was signing a different tune: “Fire in the Pouring Rain” by the Blackouts (2004)—and that’s how we got the job done. Fun times, I know!
On the subject of fires that fizzle out and the resilience that makes us bounce back in the game, I was just reading my prized copy of Annie Leibovitz’s At Work (a present from a friend in D.C.—thanks, Irene!) last week, and I stumbled upon her account of the work they put into the photo on the cover of the July 27, 1978, issue of Rolling Stone—Patti Smith standing in front of barrels of flame. Annie told the story of how the initial plan had been to photograph the punk star “in front of a huge wall of flame,” and so they’d “strung up a net soaked in kerosene” behind her, and then set fire to it—alas, that flame had only “lasted for about five seconds.” Eventually they’d decided to set fire to the barrels of kerosene themselves, and that was how they’d gotten their picture. Wasn’t that the exact same thing that happened to us? I couldn’t help but get goosebumps at the parallelism of it all. A year ago when I’d done work for Cattski’s album, Patti Smith had been the central inspiration, and that had all been deliberate. This time around, for this shoot right here, I hadn’t even considered Ms. Smith, but still she found a way to sneak through the back door. God bless the godmother of punk, and may her fire never cease to burn!
Womb is dropping their debut single “Good” today (December 8 Manila time). If you’re in town, and you want to show some love, it’s at Harold’s Hotel down Gorordo and Rosal, and the show starts at 930 PM. I know some of you have kind of lost faith in Cebu music, but trust me when I say this band has got what it takes to make us all believers again! As for me, I’m not styling them tonight, but I will be during the official album launch early next year—and that’s another thing to look forward to!
Charisse “Chai” Fonacier, Anthony Uy and Fender Figuera, collectively known as Womb | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon in Cebu City, Cebu, on September 30, 2012 | Makeup by Justine Gloria | Hair by Sherwin Amodia | Lighting director: Marlowe Guinto | Sittings assistant: April Ordesta | On Chai: Black semi-sheer stripe chiffon corset minidress, Paco Serafica; scarlet leatherette-and-lace minidress with recycled plastic cup skirt in overlapping scale-like pattern, Paco Serafica; black mesh skirt, stylist’s own | On Anthony: Flannel shirt, Heritage 1981, Forever 21; black biker jacket, Zara Man; eggshell silk skinny tie, Springfield UP by Springfield; 8-eyelet 1460 Dr. Martens boots in cherry red, his own | On Fender: Black-and-white gingham dress shirt, Divided by H&M; black sleeveless tuxedo jacket, Protacio; black-and-white striped cotton/silk blend skinny tie, Urban Outfitters; “Misfits” acid wash denim vest, stylist’s own; grey micro fleece hoodie, Uniqlo Undercover by Jun Takahashi; black workboots, Topman; black faux plug earrings, Santee Alley (downtown L.A.)
Just Like in the Movies When the Action Begins: Eric and Godday
Wanna hear a funny/sad story? Alrighty then, here it goes: Where were you when the nearly 7-magnitude earthquake hit Cebu (and the neighboring island of Negros) some eight months back (I think it was on February 6)? Me, I was in bed, watching Pearl Harbor from 2001 for, like, the 50th time—it’s one of those movies that I never get tired of, and not so much because of the obvious sausage fest (Affleck! Hartnett! Matthew Davis! One-fourth of the Baldwin brothers!), but because of the, well, ‘40s fashion! Anyway, so, yes, I was in bed, Cheetos is hand, deeply engrossed in the movie, and by the time I got to the bombing scene that was when the earthquake struck! At first I thought the whole shaking was ‘cause my surround sound was pretty intense, and I actually exclaimed silently, Wow, I’m so glad I got these Edifiers!—it wasn’t until I checked my Twitter timeline a few minutes after the shaking stopped that I realized there had been an actual earthquake! And as everyone was praying for the resulting tsunami warning to turn out to be a false alarm, all I could think of was, God, no! I can’t die right now! Not when I haven’t had a 1940s-themed shoot yet! True story! I am not making this up, I swear! I know that by sharing this tidbit I risk being called a coldhearted little prick, but I can’t help it if that was what really went through my head at the time! OK, so maybe I need a little help in reprioritizing my life, but for now let it be put on record that, for a while there, I cared more about the prospect of a 1940s-themed photo shoot that I did my own safety!
As luck would have it, my prayers would be answered only less than two weeks later when the Manila-based events stylist Deo “Din-Din” Urquiaga flew into town to book us (by us, I mean the Shutterfairy team) for a wedding that he was working on. The legwork was going to commence with planning the engagement session. When he mentioned that he was given a free hand to think up/explore a variety of concepts for the couple’s consideration, I wasted no time in pitching the Pearl Harbor-inspired theme at him. Initially he’d had a different concept in mind—something to the effect of “film director and screen siren, bard and muse, songwriter and songstress”—but once I got him started with stills from movie he found it hard to disentangle himself from his iPad! This guy and I go way back, and over the years we have come to acknowledge and respect our differences in aesthetics—e.g., if it’s grunge and so it looks like a job for me, he gets out of the way; if it’s romantic/ladylike and so it’s right up his alley, I step aside. This right here was one of the very few times that the two of us saw eye-to-eye on a particular style—the 1940s look appealed to me in that, especially for men, bright colors took a backseat to make way for more subdued tones, thanks to “wartime restrictions” (and drab has kind of a grunge quality to it, no?), and it fascinated him in that, for women, the hemlines were longer (i.e., more becoming), the waistline was reemphasized, and hats and gloves were a big deal. Something gave me a sense that this was going to be a winning collaboration! Thank God that because the groom-to-be, Eric Omamalin, was one of his closest friends (I think they’ve known each other since their college days), and therefore trusted him enough, we didn’t have a hard time selling the concept to the couple.
Let’s get one thing straight, though: I am not about to take credit for the styling, because that aspect was all Din-Din. Preparation time coincided with my travel dates, you see (I had to leave for L.A./New York and be gone for almost two months), thus I had no choice but to relinquish that detail. Well, it was me who worked on the mood board—I think I must have spent three or four straight hours at the Cathay Pacific lounge at Chek Lap Kok immersing myself in the Michael Kaplan/Mitzi Haralson dynamic, browsing through American fashion ads from the war years (Clare Potter, Adele Simpson), and staring at Vogue covers from the latter years of the Edna Woolman Chase era—but it was Din-Din who took the collage and painstakingly translated it to actual clothes/accessories for Eric and his fiancée Godday Bastigue. These dresses that you see on Godday aren’t vintage, by the way; they’re Din-Din’s own designs, brought to life by whom he calls his “super secret seamstress” (I volunteered to scour topnotch vintage shops [The Way We Wore down La Brea, revamp down the L.A. Fashion District] and even the Hollywood Goodwill for authentic 1940s pieces, but he good-naturedly declined, saying there was nothing this “super secret seamstress” could not whip up for him). That’s the thing about Din-Din: he never reveals his sources, not even to me, and everything is “super secret”—there’s even this shop where he gets props/knick-knacks for his shoots/events that he calls his “super secret store.” Clearly all this coyness works well for him, and that’s alright with me, because he matches this with irrepressible creative drive and a healthy dose of chutzpah.
What’s not-so-secret, though, is his choice of makeup artist/hairstylist. If it’s an event/shoot styled by Din-Din, expect him to demand for Vanessa Gamus: “It’s Vanessa or no one else,” he’d always say. For years I’d been trying to decipher this preference, and on the day we did this shoot it finally occurred to me: what made Vanessa appealing to Din-Din was her uncanny ability to strike a perfect balance between what was in the inspiration boards and what actually worked best on the subject’s face. Trust me when I say not a lot of makeup artists have that kind of eye!
You guys are probably going to blow the whistle on me and say it looks like I’m over-relying on or overusing the airplane/hangar/airport backdrop, and that’s totally understandable—I mean, I myself questioned this a couple of months back when I wrote: “What is it about planes and hangars and airports, and why do I gravitate towards them?” That’s what it looks like on the surface, but if you take a closer look you will see that, while the backdrop might be the same, the theme varies from session to session: for the Shandar catalog that I shot at the Aviatour hangar the styling was modern jet-setter with a touch of Catch Me if You Can (styled by my friend Meyen Baguio); the “vintage travel”-themed engagement shoot that I did at the Busay Air hangar exactly a year ago was inspired by cultural behemoth Amelia Earhart; and for the family session that I did at the Van Nuys Airport this past spring I looked to Lauren Conrad’s “airport looks” for inspiration. I have no problems with reusing locations and backdrops, so long as the styling/theme does not make a repeat performance. Just two months ago I had to say no to a bride-to-be who said she wanted a set that simulates Cielo Ramirez’s photos from the Shandar catalog—I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s, like, come up with something that I haven’t done in the not-so-distant past, and let’s talk.
This was one of the first shoots under the Shutterfairy banner that I had to carry out on my own: my boss/mentor Malou Pages couldn’t join me for this session because she had to jet to Manila to attend her idol Nelwin Uy’s first ever wedding photography workshop (yes, she was one of the lucky few to land a coveted spot). Before she left I’d jokingly begged for her to skip the workshop and not leave me alone, but I knew this was no time for me to be selfish—she’d been waiting for two or so years for a chance to meet Mr. Uy and pick at his brain, and now that that day had finally come who was I to keep her from realizing that dream? At first it frightened me that I was going to be working solo—I mean, sure, I’d been doing some of this stuff on my own, for commissioned work outside the Shutterfairy brand, but this time I was flying solo under that banner, and I was afraid that with Malou not around there would be no one to pull me right back on track in case I strayed from that signature Shutterfairy stamp. Good thing Din-Din flew in from Manila on the day of the shoot to keep me in check—he and Malou had been friends for a long time now, which made him all too familiar with Malou’s style! And thank God that he brought his camera with him, too—I wasted no time in designating him as second shooter! Helped a great deal, too, that Godday had kind of an “old soul” air about her, and so not only did she make it look painless slipping into 1940s character, she also lent that ladylike, graceful vibe that is oh-so-Shutterfairy to each frame.
Eric and Godday tied the knot just this past Saturday, October 27, at the Alliance of Two Hearts Parish Church in Banawa, Cebu City, with a reception that followed at the Beverly View Pavilion in Bevely Hills, Lahug. Incidentally, that wedding day of theirs was another first for me—it was my first time to photograph a wedding (not counting my brother’s wedding two months ago). Although I’m pretty confident I did a decent job with the engagement photos, I’m not very sure if I feel the same way about the photos I took during the wedding. Good thing Malou was around for the event, otherwise I’d be screwed! It was such a beautiful affair, from the preparations at the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu, to the church (loved that the priest they’d gotten to officiate the whole thing was someone they’d known since childhood—his homily was peppered with snippets of Eric and Godday’s love story, which made it very heartwarming), and down to the littlest details at the reception. Now, I’d been to the Beverly View Pavilion many times before, but I’d never seen it like that! The sleight of Din-Din’s hand is, indeed, never to be underestimated! The theme was not Pearl Harbor, of course, but he made use of some of these photos that we took during the engagement session, blowing them up to larger-than-life to resemble panel-format American movie posters, and there were floodlights everywhere, not to mention dozens of Speedlights to mimic the blinding flashes of paparazzi’s cameras. He topped this “movie premiere” ambiance with hundreds upon hundreds of luscious flower arrangements that, from afar, gave the illusion of one giant red carpet—majestic cockscombs in oxblood, with big, fat crimson roses, scarlet African daisies, and wine-tinged succulents and Magnolia seed pods. How’s that for plush? For a while there, I thought I was being transported to another place, in the other Beverly Hills (in California), like, say, the Greystone Mansion. Pair all that with Godday’s refined, ladylike bearing (Malou loved how Godday the bride behaved exactly like the Godday in these 1940s-themed engagement photos), and her Swan Princess-inspired bridal dress (by no less than Protacio Empaces Jr.), and you’ve got the makings of a true red carpet event. It was just too cinéma vérité for words.
Erickson Omamalin and Godday Bastigue | Photographed by Angelo Kangleon and Nino Deo “Din-Din” Urquiaga for Shutterfairy in Lapu-Lapu, Cebu, on June 10, 2012 | Styled by Din-Din Urquiaga | Hair and makeup by Vanessa T. Gamus | Sittings assistant: Amy Antony | Special thanks to the staff of Aviatour Air (visit http://www.flyaviatour.com/ to learn about their tour packages)
You Gave Me the Best Mixtape I Have: Vince and Jessa
It’s always interesting, if not thrilling, to see how a theme for a shoot evolves. In my creative process, that’s, like, the icing on the cake. Not a constant, by the way, because there are some clients who come to me already with a fixed plan, something they’ve been mentally picturing and working on single-handedly for weeks or months or years, in which case I have to sidestep the whole icing on the cake thing and make a beeline right into the business of building their wardrobe and/or sourcing for props. Which is not a completely unfortunate thing, really—I mean, I wouldn’t say these kinds of situations are “stifling” or anything like that. As a matter of fact, they actually are ideal, especially when you’re pressed for time; and as long as you and your clients see eye to eye on this fixed plan of theirs, you’ll be fine. Still, nothing else comes close to the kind of excitement that rushes over me when a client comes to me with absolutely nothing, or with just a hint of something, a vague idea that they cannot wait to see me leaven, a creative void that they need me to fill. Not to say that I delight in others’ helplessness, but it feels good when people look to your skills as the missing piece of the puzzle. Like what I said in my profile for the Shutterfairy Photography blogsite (I’m about to graduate from apprentice to in-house stylist/associate photographer, by the way), starting out as a writer/editor has made storytelling a huge part of everything else I would end up pursuing. Helping my clients develop concepts for their photo sessions exercises my storytelling muscles.
When Jessa Yap and Vince dela Calzada came to me for help with their engagement photos, they had a whole bunch of ideas that had been swimming in their heads. And they were all great ideas—except they were very disparate ideas, and, to the untrained eye, if put together would look remarkably disjointed. In their mood board: Photos by Toronto-based whiz Matt Barnes of male models styled in old-school trailer park/trucker fashions (with a touch of daddy mac) and doing some dirt biking at the Gopher Dunes (Vince’s pick, because he liked, well, dirt bikes); another set of photos by the same photographer featuring a wild bunch of grownup club kids wearing neon, Pop Art-inspired swimwear and doing some pretty shady, amoral stuff aboard a yacht (Jessa’s pick, because she liked “multiple bursts of acid colors and punchy brights”); and then there were a cluster of other images sourced from various corners of the Interwebs, all with rocker boy and rocker girl themes (including one of local actress-turned-singer Anne Curtis wearing oversize flannels over a midriff-baring top and denim hotpants, and cradling an electric guitar over her shoulders, Atlas-style, presumably part of the promotional material used in her No Other Concert tour); even a couple of stills from the trailer of the 2011 remake of the 1984 musical-drama film Footloose. Looking at this collage of theirs drove me a little batty at first, but it was no one else’s job but mine to take all these various elements and whip them into something that made sense.
Of course, it didn’t take long for me to arrive at a concept that embraced everything in their board and that most effectively communicated their unique love story. It got them all giddy with excitement when I pronounced we were going to have to do a “’70s, ‘80s, ‘90s” theme! The ‘70s set was going to feature the motorcycle, but instead of a dirt bike I wanted something more heavyweight, something that resembled the cruisers or choppers from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s—I was particularly inspired by the road/biker movies from that era, especially Easy Riders starring Peter Fonda from 1969, The Rebel Rousers starring Cameron Mitchell and Jack Nicholson from 1970, even Mad Max starring Mel Gibson from 1979; all this and more I’d revisited and become obsessed with after seeing the Quentin Tarantino-executive-produced Hell Ride from 2008. Jessa got her “bursts of acid colors and punchy brights” via the ‘80s set, in which I made them wear neon workout outfits—I looked to my mom’s Jane Fonda aerobics videos from that era for inspiration, and that’s how I came up with ideas for the styling (leotards, tights and leg warmers for her), and instead of using a dance studio’s mirrored walls as a backdrop I opted for a graffiti wall. Finally, the ‘90s set was going to combine the rock/grunge elements that they wanted to incorporate (including Anne Curtis’s neo-grunge look from that one photo), as well as the auto repair shop backdrop/grease monkey feel from the Footloose remake.
But while I will take credit for developing the concept and providing some direction, I am not about to take credit for sourcing all these impossible props—that credit goes to Jessa, who spent four whole weeks (give or take a couple of days) gathering all the items. Sure, it was me who came up with a list, but it was her who went around town (and even placed calls to friends who were from out of town) to obtain and gather 90% of what was listed down, improvising where necessary, and even adding items that she figured I’d forgotten to write down (in no time our list grew from 3 pages to five)! Swear to God, she was so resourceful, so ingenious, and so obsessive-compulsive, it made me think, Hey, this girl could give me a run for my money! At one point she became aware of her obsessive-compulsive-ness that she had to apologize, “I bet you’re getting [annoyed] with the million follow-up [e-mails]! I’m sorry!” But there was no need for her to be sorry! In fact, I should be the one apologizing—you know, for dumping all that work on her!
Of course, while Jessa was a champ, Vince was quite the trouper, too. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed working with a groom-to-be as much as I did working with Vince. I remember telling Jessa midway through the shoot, “You’re a very lucky girl! Some grooms-to-be, it takes us a couple of days to convince them to put on a certain outfit! Yes, he never complained—even when I threw a pair of jonquil short shorts from Protacio his way (for the ‘80s set)! But what really impressed me was when we were putting together his outfit for the ‘70s/biker set—he was so involved. I had a very crazy, almost outlandish look in mind, inspired by one of the looks from the Axl Rose-inspired Takahiro Miyashita for Number (N)ine spring/summer 2006 collection: black skinny trousers tucked into big black boots, acid wash denim vest over a black long-sleeved shirt, and a bandana estilo, well, Axl Rose. The denim vest and black books I took care of, because aren’t those kinds of things my specialty (I made him wear my acid wash denim jacket with the sleeves cut off and with the insignia of the ‘70s horror punk band Misfits handpainted on the back—a prized possession, because I wore it to some of the most memorable rock shows I’ve been to in my life, including an Alice in Chains concert in Hollywood some three years ago, and because it never fails to get compliments whenever I’m in some grownup cool kid territory like, say, Brooklyn)? Everything else he looked for himself, including this very specific black long-sleeved henley shirt, the red bandana, and the biker belt, the latter he snatched from his dad’s closet, saying, “My dad was big on the ‘Hagibis look’ back in the day” (Hagibis is a local all-male sing-and-dance band who were popular back in the ‘70s for their campy songs and biker-inspired outfits). You gotta love him, right? Well, and you gotta love his dad, too!
It’s probably too early to tell, but I am just about ready to declare this one shoot right here my favorite for 2012. I mean, three totally different themes rolled into one? What a way to flex my creative muscles, right? These kinds of things, although a bit daunting, can be quite fun. Like putting together a mixtape for someone you are absolutely smitten with!
Speaking of mixtapes, here are the songs that Jessa and Vince picked, if they were to come up with mixtapes for each other:
Jessa’s mixtape for Vince:
- “Baby, I Love Your Way” by Peter Frampton (1975)
- “How Deep Is Your Love” by the Bee Gees (1977)
- “We Are Man and Wife” by Michelle Featherstone
- “Dancing in the Moonlight” by King Harvest (1973)
- “Can’t Smile Without You” by Barry Manilow (1978)
- “Got to Get You into My Life” by Earth, Wind & Fire (1978)
- “Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)” by The Temptations (1971)
- “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go” by Wham! (1984)
- “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves (1985)
- “Time After Time” by Cyndi Lauper (1984)
- “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis (1996)
- “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer (1997)
- “As I Lay Me Down” is by Sophie B. Hawkins (1995)
- “Wonderwall” by Oasis (1995)
- “I Wouldn’t Be Here If I Didn’t Love You” by Belinda Carlisle (1996)
- “More Than Words” by Extreme (1990)
- “Love You Down” by INOJ (1997)
- “Get Here” by Oleta Adams (1990)
Vince’s mixtape for Jessa:
- “(Everything I Do) I Do It for You” by Bryan Adams (1991)
- “Wonderful Tonight” by Eric Clapton (1977)
- “(They Long to Be) Close to You” by The Carpenters (1970)
- “Isn’t She Lovely?” by Stevie Wonder (1976)
- “Everything I Own” by Bread (1972)
- “More Today Than Yesterday” by Spiral Staircase (1969)
- “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole (1975)
- “Have I Told You Lately” by Rod Stewart (1993)
- “Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel” by Tavares (1976)
- “I Should Be So Lucky” by Kylie Minogue (1987)
- “Best of My Love” by The Emotions (1977)
- “You Get What You Give” by the New Radicals (1998)
- “Follow You Down” by the Gin Blossoms (1996)
- “Someday We’ll Know” by the New Radicals (1999)
- “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)” by Vertical Horizon (2001)
Vince dela Calzada and Jessa Yap | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on February 19, 2012 | Main photographer: Malou Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy | Hair and makeup by Ramil Solis | Special thanks to: Nacho Pangilinan | Jonquil cotton short shorts, Protacio | Flannel shirt, 21 Men | Black Dublin Sounds Studios tee, Urban Outfitters | Black workboots, Topman | Black long-sleeved henley, Penshoppe | “Misfits” acid wash denim vest, stylist’s own
In our mood board (see below) Top row, L-R: Photos from a dirt bike-themed shoot by Matt Barnes; looks from Number (N)ine’s Axl Rose-inspired spring/summer 2006 collection, photographed by Marcio Madeira for Vogue.com. Middle row, L-R: VHS box cover of an old school Jane Fonda workout video (image from Amazon.com); photo by Mariano Vivanco from a sportswear editorial (styled by Nicola Formichetti) in the November 2008 issue of Dazed & Confused; promotional poster of Anne Curtis’s No Other Concert tour. Bottom row: Photo from a Bret Easton Ellis-inspired shoot by Matt Barnes; still from the 2011 remake of 1984′s Footloose, starring Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough; still from the Quentin Tarantino-executive-produced Hell Ride.
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.
‘Til the Cat Lady Sings: Cattski Espina
My own personal PJ Harvey. That’s what I’d used to call singer/songwriter Cattski Espina, back when I’d immersed myself in the local music radar as part of my duties as editor-in-chief of the now-defunct alternative culture e-zine Neoground.com (where I’d worked with Sonic Boom Philippines founder Alex “Phat Boy” Lim, Urbandub’s Gabby Alipe, and former NU107 anchorwomen Hazel Montederamos and Krissi Banzon, among others). And she remembered this—the woman has an astonishing recall of detail, testament that she is a compelling storyteller. No doubt she remembered, too, that I’d been an avid follower of her live appearances in shows like Intimate Acoustics (a series of sitting room only unplugged shows held at the then happening Padi’s Point, which ran popular throughout ’99) and its subsequent all-girls spin-off Siren Souls, the latter her eponymous band had top-billed along with the Kate Torralba-fronted Hard Candy, and the then female-fronted Cueshé (yes, Dhee Evangelista, now of Pandora). At the time, of course, the comparison between her and the divine Ms. Harvey had sprouted from—and ended at—the impassioned singing, the deeply sonorous vocals, the gender-bending songwriting. Certainly I had not meant for it to be a prediction of sorts. So you could imagine my surprise upon finding out firsthand that her musical career had somewhat ended up treading the same path as Ms. Harvey’s—i.e., her group had disbanded, and she was now on her own (the only difference was that the PJ Harvey trio had dissolved after two albums, while Cattski the band had managed to make it to three albums before breaking up).
Balmy early evening in late August, and I was having coffee—well, frappé, really—with Cattski. “The Cat Lady” (as I fondly call her these days, borrowing from the name of her weekly column from back when she was resident rock critic at the local daily SunStar) had just finished titling and tracklisting her forthcoming album, and with only four or five tracks left to fine-tune, it was now time to get down and dirty for the album cover. “Other [musicians] opt for artwork,” she would later declare, “but in my case, I like having my face in the CD sleeve. I mean, you gotta put a face to the name and to the music at some point, right?” Choosing a photographer to bring her vision into life had not been a daunting task—even prior to beginning work on this album, already she’d had Malou “Mai” Pages-Solomon of Shutterfairy Photography on top of her list (she’d worked with Mai before, for a couple of promotional material, and she’d liked the outcome so much that she’d decided no other photographer would do for this new recording). Which was what had brought me here—having just jumpstarted my apprenticeship at Shutterfairy a couple of weeks back, I had been commissioned by Mai to style Cattski for this one very important shoot. And what a way to be reunited, right? I had not seen this woman in seven or so years! But breaking the ice didn’t prove to be tricky. All she had to do was tell me about how Cattski the band was no more, and that this upcoming album, although technically her fourth (fifth, if you count her tenth anniversary compilation, released early last year), was really the first from Cattski the solo artist. Of course, the news came to me as a shocker, not so much because I’d come here expecting to style a quartet, but because I’d become so used to thinking of Cattski as a group. I couldn’t bring myself to imagine Cattski as a non-group without losing a bit of composure. I mean, sure, this woman right here had always been that band’s focal point, but all I could think of was that amazing, formidable chemistry that the group had had, you know? But, oh well, as Cattski now put it, “Life happened” (exactly the reason she and I had lost touch for seven years in the first place). Guitarist Anne Muntuerto had had to leave for Washington, DC, to pursue a Master’s Degree in Nurse Anesthesia—definitely a relief to hear it had had nothing to do with “creative differences” or anything like that, and that the two of them remained really good friends, and that Anne was now turning out to be not only Cattski’s but Cebu music’s biggest ambassador/promoter overseas, sharing our goods with whatever musical circuit she was able to penetrate (including the big leagues such as singer/producer Brian Larsen, for whom she became touring guitarist). As for the rest of the band members, well, I decided it was no longer my business to ask about them. Especially when Cattski began to make it clear that there was nothing else she wanted to do at this point but to move forward.
Or move further back, as the case would be. “[The reason] why I’ve decided to call [this new album] Zero,” she revealed, “[is] because it’s like I’ve gone back to zero!” As of the time we spoke she was still undecided on whether to label it Zero, spelled out like that, or 0:00:00, like “how your [digital] music player [timer] looks like right before you [hit the] play [button].” But whatever she ends up going with, the premise remains the same: starting from nothing. I know it sounds frightening, but turns out it’s not so bad after all. When you come from nothing, “you have this kind of independence, this freedom to do whatever you feel like doing, and it becomes a [prolific] exploration,” she explained. “Back when I was still in a group, I had all this music in me, just waiting to explode, but then I would put it forward for the rest [of the band members] to hear—because that’s what being in a band is all about, you have to get the others’ opinion—but then they’d be, like, ‘That’s too Barbie’s Cradle!’ or ‘That’s not hardcore enough.’” She went on about how, in the eight or nine years of being in a group, there had always been this unspoken rule that “you have to stick with a formula when trying to come up with new material, and so you always have to [reference] all the things you’ve already done.” But now she no longer needed to do that. “Now I can start with nothing—with silence—and then go with whatever hits me from out of the blue!”
Silence being the operative word. She proceeded to tell the story of how, one day at twilight, couple of weeks before beginning work on new material, she’d found herself standing on the vast balcony of a local hotel perched atop the hills, and she’d just stood there, stunned by how the city sprawled before her had changed its face as dusk had settled—and by the silence and stillness that had come with it. A silence so piercing that it had laid itself out like a stark blank canvas, awakening the music and words from deep inside her that she’d thought she’d long forgotten, and causing them to detonate like firecrackers. Just like that, what could possibly be her peak artistic period had gotten a jumpstart. Out of nothing, Zero had been born.
Said differently: By taking a step back, she had moved on.
In no other picture was this logic clearer to me than in “Monsters,” one of the 11 new tracks to be included in Zero, and a strong contender for carrier single. In her deeply soulful contralto, Cattski croons: “I feel I’m braver now to face my demons/ I’ve finally learned to use my angels, too/ I think I’m finally ready to live my truth/ ‘Cause right now that I’m without you there’s just nothing to lose.” Odds and ends of emotions in her words and in her voice, kind of like that closet where you’d kept your skeletons for so long, and now that the bones had been cleaned out you were seeing for the very first time all the other stuff that had been there with them all along (I won’t take credit for that simile; that’s an extended version of an imagery that she uses in the song’s refrain). But one emotion you weren’t gonna find no matter how hard you tried was bitterness. It hadn’t been disguised—it just simply wasn’t there to begin with. Definitely a feat—well, to me, at least—because very few storytellers succeed in looking past the pain, in just walking away from it. This was a huge change for Cattski, who, when she’d broken into the scene a little over a decade back, had embraced the exquisite anguish of hanging on to an offhandedly ambivalent partner (“High and Low,” 2001), and who, some five years ago, had made a big deal about holding on to someone who clearly was no longer there (“Your Ghost,” 2006). And who, only a year ago, had been “too emotionally unstable—disturbed would be an accurate description,” for whatever reason. In fact, change was starting to look like a recurring theme in Zero. In “New,” another solid candidate for first single, she spits out, in brisk cadences: “This is not you/ I guess I like the old you/ But then you like the new.” At first my brows raised, ‘cause it sounded to me like she was contradicting herself here by lamenting a friend’s resolve to change. If I hadn’t known better, though, I would have stuck to that first impression; but after rereading the lyrics more than a dozen times I was now confident enough to declare that that one line was really a sort of reverse message for her fans—like, “I know you liked the old me, but I promise you you’re gonna like the new me even more.” I could say that I made that up. But it would be very remiss of me not to insinuate that Cattski here was clever like that.
And so here she was with her brand new take on life. And, as they say, a new outlook required a new, well, look, and that was exactly what I was here for. Always I’d been cautious about styling musicians (as public figures, you see, they are ultimately responsible for the way they are seen, and so they have to be the custodian of their own image), saying yes only to those who’d asked for a helping hand (like to Urbandub bassist Lalay Lim, for example, who’d asked for my help some four years back before stepping in front of photographer Charles Buencosejo’s camera for the CD jacket of and promotional posters for their fourth album Under Southern Lights). Cattski here had not exactly asked for help, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t open to others’ ideas. So many things that needed to be done in the studio, so she wasn’t exactly in a position to turn down anyone offering to relieve her of non-studio work. Just like that, I got to work.
Taking a cue from her stories of how the Zero creative process had begun—i.e., “from nothing”—I proceeded to assemble a mood board that was pared down and very basic. No convoluted palettes, for one: I was quick to throw in some black, just ‘cause the RGB triplet for black was (0, 0, 0), just two zeroes shy of her 0:00:00 idea. I had to make room for one more color, and was tempted to go for a primary like a red or a blue, but in the end I decided to go with white. Black and white. Or, as Cattski liked to put it, ebony and ivory, like the keys of a piano. That was it. You couldn’t get any more pared down than that. It was perfect ‘cause I’d just finished reading excerpts from Just Kids, punk rocker Patti Smith’s tender and captivating memoir of her charmed friendship with the black-and-white photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and for weeks I’d been looking for ways to translate some of that enigmatic Smith/Mapplethorpe chemistry into my own work. I wasted no time mentally updating my board with the cover photograph of Smith’s debut album Horses—the singer in a white men’s dress shirt, tight jeans, black suspenders, with a black men’s blazer nonchalantly flung over her left shoulder, and scruffy hair—which Mapplethorpe had taken using natural afternoon light “in a penthouse in Greenwich Village.” Like how I liked my burgers, though, with one patty never being enough, one reference to Patti wasn’t sufficient, so I went ahead and slapped another photo of hers against the board: An older Patti this time, circa 2010, no longer punk’s princess but very much its doyenne, shot by the fashion photographer Ruven Afanador for the February 2010 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine—reclining against a wooden table, in a black smoking jacket and a white dress shirt so supersized they allude Martin Margiela’s all-oversize collection from A/W 2000/2001, and what looked like sweatpants tucked into buckle-strapped biker boots. Cattski liked these references, just like I’d thought. It was a look that was meant for her—with her newfound air of insouciance, she could well be on her way to becoming my own personal Patti Smith (yes, no more PJ Harvey).
We brainstormed for a couple of more looks, and she proposed that, since we were doing black and white, she wanted to use this, well, black-and-white star-print sweater she’d bought from a recent trip to the Lion City, to which I said why the hell not. If we had to go with patterns, stars were the right way to go—huge for Fall (as evidenced in Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear), and had kind of a grunge subtext, to people like me who remembered the teeny weeny asterisk in Billy Corgan’s infamous ZERO shirts of yore. (I swear, the uncanny correlations just kept on coming: Here I was styling an artist for her album called Zero, and Corgan’s ZERO shirt just had to come to mind.) That being said, we decided to make room for just a little bit more of neo-grunge, and that’s how actress Zoë Kravitz got into the picture, more specifically her character in the TV series Californication, a reckless Venice Beach teen and frontwoman of an all-girl band who called themselves Queens of Dogtown, whose badass (albeit scripted) Whisky a Go Go performance of Alice in Chains’s “Would” (for the fifth episode of the fourth season) and whose penchant for boy’s tanks and exposed brassieres had gotten me falling head over heels—or, wool beanie over combat boots, if you will.
Speaking of combats, Cattski forgot to bring hers on the day of the shoot, so my own Bed Stü “Artillery Boots” had to make a special guest appearance in one of the sets (I swear to God, wherever my boots go they manage to steal the show). That wasn’t the only thing I was happy about. I was also glad that the black smoking jacket I got from local menswear genius Protacio didn’t turn out to be too oversize on her (and so the silhouette came out more Demeulemeester than Margiela), and that the star-spangled sweater didn’t come out too fancy (originally we’d intended to have her wear black leggings with the said sweater, but we ditched it so we could show off the tattoo in her leg). Androgyny was a very good look on this woman, I must say. Although I was happy that she wasn’t afraid to get in touch with her girly side, too, putting on every single chain and chandelier necklace I flung her way—even agreeing, after only a moment’s hesitation, to “lose the dress shirt and just stand there in your brassiere!” (Such a trouper, I know—never even complained about the lack of a dressing room, and that she had to undress and dress in front of all of us!) Ecstatic, too, that my friend Nikki Paden had agreed to assist me with the styling, because a helping hand was always a treat, and no one knew the black and white palette better than that girl. What I was most happy about, though, was the hair and makeup. I’d never met, much less worked, with the hairstylist and makeup artist (and erstwhile model) Justine Gloria before, and had not even had the chance to talk to her before this shoot, but then she got to work and it was like magic. At the outset, you see, I’d wanted, say, Cattski’s eye makeup to be a bit glam, and her hair in some pompadour à la Gwen Stefani—but Justine had envisioned something else, and it came out perfect. It was a look that was mature yet not at all contrived, edgy but not sinister, and had that elusive quality of being at turns disheveled and flawless (think circa mid-‘90s Chrissie Hynde and you’ll begin to come close). And it went really well with the clothes! I was in awe: Cattski like I’d never seen her before.
But more important than the new outlook, and infinitely more important than the new look, was the new sound. In front of the cameras now I asked her to move around, pretend like she was performing onstage, in front of hundreds (the mic stand had been my idea, after she’d refused to be photographed cradling a guitar ‘cause it had been done so many times over the last couple of years), and so she asked for music she could swing to, and luckily for me it was a demo version of the aforementioned new song “New” that her assistant chose to play. At first I couldn’t place the song as hers, thought it was a mid-‘90s Jill Sobule, what with its rhythmic uptempo, tragicomic wordplay, and sing-songy chorus, so imagine my surprise when her assistant told me this was actually the song “New” that Cattski had been telling me about! The intro starts with a faint kick drum beat that is very characteristic of house, and then slowly intermingles with some synth and mellow guitar plucking, before it crescendos into an a capella, and then a bang. (The transitions would follow this same pattern.) It’s the kind of song that’s hard to put in a box. She would admit later on that, yes, the underlying beat was a “generic house beat,” at 140 bpm, but then throw in all the other elements and it becomes something else altogether. A hundred different things, if you will, because, I swear, every time I am ready to dismiss it as pop rock, I hear a little bit of riot grrrl pop-punk here and there, and some elements of symphonic rock. “In the past, [whenever] people asked me what kind of music I made, without [skipping a beat] I would say, ‘Rock!’” she would later recount. “Now when I meet new people and they ask me the same question, I stammer and I can’t give a straight answer.” And there is no formula, too; no two songs are ever the same. The abovementioned “Monsters,” for example, is a languid, organic ballad set against an irresistible concoction of trip-hop, ambient, and dream pop—even a tinge of country pop! “Defying genres,” that’s how she calls the whole thing. So this is what happens when you “start from nothing” with every song (and when you micromanage every single step in the production process, if I may jokingly add—I don’t think I’ve ever met the brand of control freak that this woman has on!). Although this early on Cattski is in anticipation being critiqued by the pundits: “[They’re] most likely [going to] say…that [the album] has an identity crisis, for not having a consistent sound. But I’m no longer afraid of that. I trust myself enough [now]. My intuition [is] my ultimate guide. Everything will have to be on the premise of what sounds and feels right for me.” But I don’t think it’s ever going to get to that point—the pundits part, I mean. If anything, peers and fans alike are going to appreciate the bold step she’s taking, her kind of game-changing, and I predict this album is going to be her biggest contribution yet to Cebu music. Yes, by sidestepping a niche, Cattski has found her, well, niche—that is, as renaissance woman of Cebu music.
I am tempted to talk about all of the other songs, but that would be doing a great deal of disservice to the artist. My job is to build up excitement, not to do an album review, so I’m gonna have to stop right here. For right now, go ahead and take your time reveling at the woman that you see here—Cattski like you’ve never seen her before. Although I can’t exactly guarantee all this is ever going to prepare you for the Cattski you’ve never heard before.
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Follow Cattski on Twitter (or the hashtag #00000cattskinewalbum, or even the Tumblr tag 00000cattskinewalbum if you are a Tumblr purist) for updates on the progress of her upcoming album Zero.
Cattski Espina | Photographed and styled by Angelo Kangleon for Shutterfairy in Cebu City on September 3, 2011 | Main photographers: Malou “Mai” Pages-Solomon for Shutterfairy, Paul Armand Calo for Calography (click here to view Mai’s photos, and here for Paul’s) | Hair and makeup by Justine Gloria | Stylist’s assistant: Nikki Paden | Sittings assistants: Manna Alcaraz and Gwen Reyes | Special thanks to: The PR and Communications Department of Marco Polo Plaza Cebu | Black men’s smoking jacket, Protacio | White men’s dress shirt, Memo | Solid black men’s silk tie, Springfield UP by Springfield | Black women’s leather biker jacket, Bershka | Black women’s skinny suit jacket, Divided by H&M | Chandelier necklace, Forever 21 | Chain necklace, Mango | Crucifix necklace, Divided by H&M
In my mood board (see below, clockwise from left): Stills of Zoë Kravitz as her Californication character Pearl, with her band Queens of Dogtown, performing a cover of Alice in Chains’s “Would” onstage at West Hollywood’s Whisky a Go Go (for the fifth episode of the show’s fourth season, originally aired February 6, 2011); still of a star-spangled sweater from Wildfox Couture, photographed by Pete Deevakul for TeenVogue.com; looks from Dolce & Gabbana Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear, on models Isabeli Fontana and Anna Selezneva, photographed by Yannis Vlamos for GoRunway.com; Patti Smith, photographed by Ruven Afanador for the February 2010 issue of O: The Oprah Magazine; the album cover of Patti Smith’s debut record Horses, photographed by Robert Mapplethorpe, circa 1975.
Behind-the-Scenes Instagrams Top row, L-R: Makeup artist/hairstylist Justine Gloria giving quick touch-ups to Cattski between sets while Mai looks on; Cattski’s assistants Gwen and Manna were asked to document the shoot and keep her in check (“I could go crazy, you know,” Cattski rationalized); Cattski literally rolling on the floor laughing when she thought we were done, only to be snapped out of it when she remembered she’d asked for night shots. Middle row, L-R: Mai with Paul (of Calography) waiting for the shoot to commence; Cattski wouldn’t stop singing, even while being photographed; Cattski forgot to bring her boots, so she had to borrow my Bed Stü “Artillery Boots”(which meant I had to go barefoot half of the time); Mai fixing Cattski’s hair. Bottom row, L-R: My assistant for the day Nikki checking out my mood boards before getting to work (she loved the Robert Mapplethorpe shots of Patti Smith); Paul getting ready to take photos of Cattski with the grand piano (the singer sang a haunting rendition of The Cure’s 1989 hit “Lovesong” while Paul was setting up); no dressing room, so Cattski was forced to dress and undress in front of everyone (such a trouper!); Cattski getting ready for the evening set.
The September Issues: My Month in Instagrams | September 2011
Never jump to conclusions. That’s one of the more important things I learned this past month. When my first two sittings (back in August) as apprentice at Shutterfairy Photography had turned out to be engagement sessions, you see, I’d thought, Oh, this is all we’re going to be doing, couples and stuff. (Not that I’d thought that was going to be a bad thing.) So imagine my surprise when Shutterfairy’s Malou “Mai” Pages-Solomon sent me a Tweet saying she was going to be photographing the singer/songwriter Cattski Espina (01, 03) for the album cover of her forthcoming release, and that she wanted me to do the styling! I was literally jumping up and down! This was massive for me, in part because it was an opportunity to think outside the engagements/couples box, but for the most part because it was a chance to rekindle old ties. Yes, Cattski and I, although that may sound to some like an unlikely combination, we go waaay back. (Don’t you just love how it’s a small world, after all? Mai is best friends with former Y101 anchorwoman Imma Fermin-Ongteco, who is best friends with Cattski; and both Imma and Cattski are best friends with one of my best friends Deo Urquiaga, who was responsible for hooking me up with this apprenticeship gig with Mai. Did I just use “best friends” four times in one sentence?)
It’s true for me, so I just assume it’s true for everyone: It’s nice to be reunited with someone you haven’t been in touch with for a long, long time. When Cattksi and I sat down for a pre-shoot meeting of sorts at the tail end of August, it turned out to be 70% catching up and laughing, and only 30% business—hey, I hadn’t seen this girl in 7 years! Funny thing, really, ‘cause it’s not like she had moved to a different place, or it was me who’d moved away—we’d been living in the same city the whole time, thank you very much. But, well, as she puts it now, “life got in the way.” I love that this woman has amazing recall of all level of detail—makes missing out a whole lot easier to endure. I was floored, for example, when she remembered how, back when I’d been editor for the (now-defunct) local counterculture e-zine Neoground.com, I’d proceeded to declare her “my own personal PJ Harvey.”
Well, now it looked like all she was going to be was my own personal dress up doll (she’s not going to like that term, though)! At first I’d thought that she wouldn’t be open to the idea of styling—I mean, it’s a fact that not a lot of local musicians are into that kind of thing (heaven knows the kinds of beef I got into when I tried to style musicians who were either performers or presenters during the first two installments of the San Miguel Beer Cebu Music Awards some ten years back). To my amazement, she was 100% down for it—and she pretty much gave me the free hand, too!
I’m sure most of you have seen Mai’s photos already (if you haven’t yet, click here). Killer, right? I’m tempted to talk right here and right now about how I came up with the styling, but I think it’s wiser to save it for when I am to post my own shots from that session (yes, I took a couple of photos, too). At least judging from Mai’s photos (and these behind-the-scenes shots) you will be able to tell that, yes, my inspiration was pretty much “ebony and ivory” (02), and that I used a couple of mannish items, like a Protacio smoking jacket (01). My own Bed Stü work boots (05) even made a special guest appearance!
Some of you might be wondering where we did the shoot. If that edifice behind Cattski in photo number (04) doesn’t look familiar, well, I can tell you now that is actually the Marco Polo Plaza Cebu. Yes, we shot at the hotel’s Grand Balcony, from where we had an amazing view of the Cebu skyline below. This choice of location was Cattski’s idea, after she’d been here one day at twilight and she’d had an epiphany of sorts while staring at the city as it had changed its face with every passing minute until it had become dusk. She told me the story of how, from that moment on, she’d become more contemplative, resulting in an inexhaustible kind of songwriting. That explained how it had only taken her less than two years to come up with this new album, her fourth (quite a feat, considering that it had taken her a good six years between her second and her third). It’s amazing to realize that inspiration can come from the places you least expect to find it—in this case, home.
I’m excited about this album. I’m excited to find out which of Mai’s photos are gonna end up in the album cover. Most of all, I’m excited for Cattski, and her fans. The inspiration maybe dusk, but I can only predict a bright outcome.
Those closest to me can attest that, yes, I do have “girl crushes.” For example, I am kind of crazy about Love Marie Ongpauco a.k.a. Heart Evangelista—for six or so months now, my Sunday evenings have been spent sitting in front of the computer and staring at her face in the short film Muse (created by actor-turned-director Albert Martinez for the designer Inno Sotto’s 30th anniversary gala). I am also kind of turned on by Zoë Kravitz, or at least by her role in Californication. And then, of course, there is Lauren Conrad. But, you see, these are only my fairly recent obsessions. The one that’s been the object of my fantasies for more than 15 years now is none other than the great Kate Moss.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had an obsession as intense as my fascination with the truly amazing creature that is Katherine Moss. I remember using her Calvin Klein Jeans and Calvin Klein Obsession for Men ads as wallpaper for my dorm room. While everyone else was lusting after Leonardo DiCaprio, I was decidedly all about Johnny Depp, just because he was dating Ms. Moss at the time. I remember hating on my cousin, just because he was the first to have a bottle of CK One, and to my mind that had brought him closer to Kate than I ever could be. When I was 17 or 18 and could not afford a coffee table book, I would spend 2-3 hours every Sunday sprawled on the floor of my favorite bookstore, ceremoniously devouring every single page of Kate: The Kate Moss Book—or just staring at the cover and praying, “Oh, God, please make me have those freckles!”
Yes, my girl friends were going crazy penciling on fake moles above their lips, in an attempt to copy Cindy Crawford’s “beauty mark,” but I was all about freckles. I guess that was what endeared Kate to me. She was perfectly imperfect. I had had enough of the impossible smiles, the vermillion lips, the unattainable curves, the outlandish gowns, the whimsical locations. Escapism was good, but didn’t quite go well with the soundtrack of the times. Grunge was on a rise like a bat out of hell, and it needed a muse to conquer the world with. The world needed, as how British curator Iwona Blazwick put it, “a truth located in the artless, the unstaged, the semiconscious, the sexually indeterminate and the pubescent.” And Kate gave us that kind of truth. Here was someone who was not afraid to slap on a silly grin, to not put makeup on, to eschew technical perfection, to misplace optimism, and to date Edward Scissorhands. In other words, she made fashion real and attainable. For you and for me. And that’s why she will always have a special place in my heart.
So please forgive me when I say that this month I broke a very important promise that I had made to myself—that is, the promise to buy more books, and no more magazines. I’d pretty much been able to stay true to that promise in the last couple of months, but I just had to make an exception this month. Why? Well, ‘cause it’s Kate Moss on the cover of the September issue of American Vogue (06)! And this isn’t just your regular Kate Moss cover—it comes with an exclusive coverage of her wedding to The Kills guitarist Jamie Hince!
I almost died for this copy. I went to Fully Booked on September 5, and they told me they didn’t have it yet. I came back September 11, still they didn’t have it. I was on the verge of throwing a bitch fit when I returned on September 15 and was told they still didn’t have it! How ridiculous is that, right? In the U.S. the September issues hit the newsstands and bookstores as early as mid-August! Ah, the pain of living in a…I shouldn’t finish that statement. On my fourth trip back to the bookstore on September 18, the girl behind the counter gave me a nasty look. “We [already] have the September issue, but you can’t have it yet—we haven’t unboxed any of our new arrivals.” Can you believe her? I was going to cause a scene, but thankfully this guy named Abner came to the rescue and offered to unbox the new magazines right there and then so I could have my copy. Thanks, Abner! You are super awesome!
Anyway, back to the magazine: I don’t think I’ve ever held a September issue that’s this heavy (then again, I haven’t seen the past 4 or so September issues, so what do I know). Perhaps the reason this one feels particularly weighty is ‘cause the cover story was written by my favorite writer Hamish Bowles, and shot by my favorite photographer Mario Testino. The beauty of Bowles’s text, alongside Testino’s dazzling images—I do not think a more formidable pairing exists. Their genius certainly gave justice to a truly momentous, one-of-a-kind event. I even love the little inset photo of wedding guest Naomi Campbell, and the funny little anecdote that tells of Naomi being fashionably late and Kate saying to her, “Trying to upstage me, bitch?”—to me, a celebration of friendship like no other.
My favorite photo of all, I must say, is that of Kate surrounded by her young bridesmaids, flower girls and pageboys, although I am also inexplicably drawn to this one black-and-white number of her and her daughter Lila Grace (07), done in the style of the ‘90s Calvin Klein campaigns that propelled Kate to superstardom. Needless to say, I am going to be putting these photos up a pedestal. Who knows? I might be asked to do a mother-and-daughter session one day—at least I will have something to look back on and slap against the mood board when that day comes.
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Another September issue I just had to get my hands on was that of local fashion glossy Preview (actress Anne Curtis on the cover, making her the celebrity with the most Preview covers to date, this one being her sixth). I’d always been a fan of the magazine, but I kind of stopped reading them in 2007, or 2008—can’t remember why exactly. The reason I picked up this issue, though, is’ cause my photo of Shandar’s Urgello wedges (inspired by Gayle Urgello) made it to their Fashion News section (08), to supplement a sidebar on Shandar designer Mark Tenchavez. Nothing huge, really—it’s all but a little 3.25” x 2”—but it’s huge to me considering this might be the only time a photo by me is ever going to appear in a fashion magazine. They forgot to credit me, though, not even in marginalia, but that’s alright. I’m just happy that Manila editors are starting to take notice of deign talent from this part of the country. I am so proud of Mark and of where he’s taken his little shoe line—everyone’s buzzin’ about Shandar Shoes, and it’s only been three months since he launched the whole thing! I told him to be prepared—now that Preview has ran a story on him, other fashion/lifestyle magazines are bound to follow suit.
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Of course, my itsy-bitsy photo is not the only reason I’ll be holding on to this copy of Preview for years to come—I also am happy to have stumbled upon this glorious print-on-print editorial called “Fly on the Wall” (09), photographed by Jeanne Young, modeled by Sanya Smith (Pepe Smith’s daughter), and styled by the fabulous Daryl Chang. It’s exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from the ever-innovative Chang: brave, fierce, and game-changing. She is always first to do what other stylists are too afraid of doing. I, for one, have been too timid to try mixing patterns. God knows how many times I’ve toyed with the idea, but I always end up dropping it cold turkey before I can even get to work. I keep thinking about rules, you see—like, should I mind the scales and sizes of the prints, so that teeny florals should be matched with, say, large stripes? or, should I stick to just two different patterns in one outfit? This editorial by Chang, though, has made me realize that I shouldn’t be caring about rules when it comes to this department. The very reason we do print-on-print is because we want to make a bold statement, right? And so, in the end, it really is a fearless approach—and a little bit of rule-breaking—that is going to do the trick. Total mood board material right here!
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From “girl crushes” we move on to “man crushes.” Laugh all you want, but, yes, I squealed like a little girl when I saw this photo of my “man crush” Carlos Concepcion (with Georgina Wilson) in the BOB of this month’s Preview (10). It’s not even that kind of crush, OK? Carlos here, although most of you might know this already, is a designer and a stylist, and has done a lot of great work for The Philippine Star’s youth lifestyle section, as well as for glossy titles like Garage and Preview Men. I admire him for the most part because of what he’s doing to change the way we look at men’s fashion in this part of the world—it takes a whole lot of balls to do what he’s doing. I mean, cropped jackets and above-the-knee skirts on men? I’m sorry, but he’s my hero. So it’s not that kind of crush, but maybe it’s the Single White Female kind of crush—i.e., I wanna be him. I don’t know if I am ever going to meet him in this lifetime, but if, by some wicked stroke of luck, I end up bumping into him, you know I am going to drop to my knees and plant a kiss on his feet. And I don’t even have a foot fetish. But I do have a shoe fetish, and the guy has some seriously pretty shoes, so there.
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Meanwhile, there was that one September issue I wished I could have but just couldn’t—I’m talking about that of French Vogue. Huge deal to me because this was Emmanuelle Alt’s first September issue as editor-in-chief, after she’d supplanted Carine Roitfeld in February of this year. Of course, I’d always adored Roitfeld (I’d give her a bear hug if I could); just that it had gotten to a point when I could no longer get her—I mean, she’d let Tom Ford guest edit the title’s December 2010/January 2011 issue, and allowed him to use 10-years-old girls and a geriatric couple as models! I’d read somewhere that Alt, who’d been under Roitfeld’s French Vogue wing as fashion director since 2000, was so far doing a great job breathing new life into the title by taking things more lightly, injecting a little “humor” and “positivity” into the scene—and what better way to see this for myself, right, than by getting her first September issue? But, alas, French Vogue wasn’t something you could easily find in this part of the world—hey, it had even taken three weeks for the American edition to hit our bookstores! Luckily, I was able to get my hands on a copy at the designer Protacio’s atelier a couple of days ago! My jaw dropped as I was scanning his magazine shelf and—wham!—there it was, Charlotte Casiraghi on the cover staring back at me with smoky eyes (11). “How is it even possible that you have this?” I asked Protacio as I clutched the copy against my chest. Although, of course, I’d known a long time he was fond of collecting all sorts of hard-to-find foreign titles. (Exactly the reason why I love visiting his shop in the first place, because it’s like a little fashion library to me—he even has a copy of the aforementioned controversial Tom Ford-edited December 2010/January 2011 issue [see same Instagram, 11, behind the Charlotte Casiraghi, with Ford and Daphne Groeneveld on the cover].) Indeed, Alt’s French Vogue was a joy to flip through. Still had that requisite European quirkiness and modernism, but presented in a whole new light—blithe, if you will, and not at all menacing. Just like that, two or so of the inside photos of Casiraghi went straight up my mental mood board. Yes, mes amis, it is that relatable now, even if you don’t speak or understand a word of French (I know I don’t)! Thank you, Protacio, for sharing! I will be back for more inspiration soon!
So I woke up in the afternoon (hey, I work afternoons/evenings Mondays to Fridays) of September 8 wondering why this blog was getting so many hits. Turned out earlier that day Mai had written a little something about me in her own blog (12), and that’s where all the traffic had come from! What a surprise! I know her site has a good number of followers; such an honor for some of them to be trickling down into mine. Now I gotta pay attention to what I’m posting on here, because I don’t just represent me now, I also represent Shutterfairy. And so I have to behave accordingly and try not to do anything foolish.
She wrote about how she doesn’t want to call me her apprentice, but, really, that is all I am for now. Until such a time that I’m confident enough with my own skills and with my application of all the things I’m learning from her, I don’t mind being the guy in the backseat, taking orders, taking down notes, even talking to clients pre-shoot. Which brings us to the something extra that I do for Shutterfairy: Mai, via the same blog post, has made it official that I am resident stylist. Which means that, yes, if you need help in that department, I’m the guy who’s going to sit down with you (Mai may or may not be present during these meetings) days or weeks before your session in front of the camera to help you out with your clothes and accessories (and even makeup and props).
So, OK, if it was the Shutterfairy blogsite that led you here, let me break it down for you: If you’re interested in a styled session with the Shutterfairy (engagement, portrait, family, etc.), simply shoot her an e-mail at mail@shutterfairy.net. She will then contact you to discuss scheduling and all the other high-level stuff. After which your contact details will be forwarded to me, and that’s how I get in touch with you for the pre-shoot styling/mood board development meeting. At the meeting, you will simply need to let me in on your, um, theme, your desired shooting locations, etc., and I will then proceed to build a mood board or two for you. I do house calls, too, just so you know—easier for me to look at items that you already have.
By the way, because I’m only apprenticing for right now, there is no separate fee for the styling. You just have to pay for the photo session, and that’s about it. So, what are you waiting for? Contact Shutterfairy now and let’s get to work!
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Some three weeks after I’d found out that my photo of Shandar’s Urgello shoes made it to this month’s issue of Preview, their “online counterpart” StyleBible.ph put up a gallery of my shots of all the other shoes from the shoe line’s premier collection (13). This gallery, and the accompanying article, marks the addition of Shandar designer Mark Tenchavez to StyleBible.ph’s venerable Designer Directory and Designer Spotlight, placing him side-by-side with the likes of such Filipino design greats as JC Buendia, Patrice Ramos-Diaz, Jun Escario and others. Click here to view the gallery, and here to read the article.
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Exactly how long can one be obsessed with something? In my case, more than 20 years. Yes, the video for Janet Jackson’s “Love Will Never Do (Without You)” turned 21-years-old this past month (14). Shot in September of 1990, I watch it today and it looks like it was only shot yesterday. Thank you, Herb Ritts, for leaving us with such an amazing piece of art.
My fourth sitting with the Shutterfairy was for another non-couple session (15-19). When Mai told me she was going to be photographing a single mother of two boys, I said, OK, I gotta see this—I’d always wondered how she did things like this, you see, where there were children involved. Up to that point the only children I’d ever gotten myself to photograph were my own nieces and nephews, and even with that sort of kindred I’d never been able to make them behave during sittings.
Turned out that the reason Mai was so good at it was ‘cause, well, she was a mother herself! She knew how to command kids’ attention in a manner that was very natural, not at all domineering, and had little to no bribery involved. I am never going to be a mother (duh), but I picked up one thing that could come in handy when I am to photograph kids/families in the future: When doing pre-shoot research, don’t focus too much on the adults; take the time out to learn what the kids love doing and figure out a way to inject it into the sitting. For this shoot right here, Mai had found out that the little boy loved to play soccer, so when she saw that he was a little uncomfortable standing in front of the camera she asked him to take out the soccer ball and just have fun with it. Needless to say, the resulting photos were gorgeous. Click here to see Mai’s set from that session.
Couple of other things I learned that day:
- Don’t stress too much about the location. Yes, there is value in planning and in pre-shoot oculars, but there is potential in the unexplored. Mai had planned to shoot the family at the Mountain View Nature Park in Busay, but decided to shift gears the last minute and took us to Talamban’s Family Park—well, not the park per se, but a somewhat secluded area outside the park. She’d never been here before (neither had I, or any of the subjects), but she was curious. Turned out to be a beautiful place (16-18).
- Don’t stress too much about the props, too. Just explore the surroundings and, if you’re resourceful enough, you’re bound to find something that can be useful. I’d pretty much ignored this rusty wheelbarrow (15) until Mai called my attention to it and asked me to have the subjects play around with it. The resulting picture turned out to be my favorite (19)!
- Even when it looks like it’s about to rain, don’t cancel just yet—there’s a chance it won’t. It was 2PM when I met up with Mai, and there were dark clouds starting to hover over us, so I said, “Should we call it off?” She didn’t want to. I would learn later on that it’s actually a good thing when it’s a bit overcast in the mid-afternoon—the light is just right (not too harsh, and not too dim, either)
- Don’t be afraid of greenery—instead, use it to your advantage! See, always this had been my weakness—like, I’d always ask my subjects to stay away from the trees and the shrubs and all. And then Mai made me realize that it’s actually kind of gorgeous to have all those leaves distilling the sunlight into gorgeous, soft little rays (18).
- Mind your framing/cropping when it’s portraits. Never frame/crop in such a way that you’re cutting through the subject’s joints (i.e., wrists, knees, ankles).
- Most importantly: Do not waste your subject’s time by taking 100+ photos of one frame. Don’t chimp a lot, but be sure to check after, like, 20 or so shots. If you got a couple of winners, move on to the next frame.
I know it all sounds very elementary, but, honestly, these are things I never learned from other photographers that I talked to, or read about in basic photography books. Indeed, there are some aspects of the craft that you can grasp faster as an assistant.
It was my mom’s 52nd birthday last September 10. Because she lives in Ormoc with my grandfather (her father) and our youngest, I hadn’t had the chance to celebrate her birthday with her for the past seven or so years. I didn’t want to miss out anymore, so I asked her to come to Cebu and blow this year’s candles here with us (20, 24).
I love the birthday cake I got her (20, 21). I wanted something light and sort of pastel, and with candy-colored sprinkles, like the gorgeous lemon cupcakes that I’d fallen in love with at Magnolia Bakery some two years back—no chocolate, no devil’s food, nothing dark. It was my friend Rhia de Pablo who made it (she makes the meanest, moistest chiffon cake, and she got the lemon meringue buttercream right). You can’t see it, but the top of the cake says, “YOU CAN HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT, TOO.”
We also had habichuelas con chorizo de Bilbao (22). Earlier in the month I’d engaged in an online discussion with my good friend Kenneth Enecio, who comes from a family of cooks (mom Laura is a pâtissier, brother Eric is a chef), and the venerable Annabelle Tan-Amor (mom of my former co-editor Ina Amor, so I really should be calling her Tita) about what makes a good habichuelas. While Annabelle liked hers authentic, and served in stoneware (puchero de barro, if you will?) “to keep it piping hot,” Kenneth liked to be “adventurous,” adding in stuff like a little ginger and saffron “to give it a little color and aroma,” and even a little potatoes. In the end, we’d come to an agreement that, however you liked it, it was a must to add Bilbao chorizo. Now, I do not know where to get the authentic ones (and I wish I knew how to track down the guy who used to cook all these delish kinds of Spanish dishes for the Sunday brunches of my childhood at my great-grandmother’s), but the canned ones by Purefoods are pretty decent and are a good substitute. Whatever you do, do not use Macao chorizo. Someone I know updated his Facebook status once (or was it twice) to say he was “cooking habichuelas con chorizo de Macao.” OK, first of all, you do not say “chorizo de Macao” with the “de” because we all know that is not a type of Spanish sausage. Second of all, what was he thinking? I don’t know where Macao chorizos are from, but just in case they’re Chinese, then I do not need to explain how it’s all levels of wrong to add them to a Spanish dish. It’s like you’re watching, say, Abre los ojos and then it’s Zhang Ziyi as Sofía instead of Penelope Cruz!
Anyways, backpedaling to my mom’s birthday, yes, I made California-style sangria, too (23)! Sangria is really easy to make. For a recipe, see below.
So, OK, I know I’ve been going around telling people I no longer drink, and that’s still true. What I mean when I say I no longer drink is I no longer go out to bars or clubs and drown myself in shots, shots, shots, shots. It just isn’t for me anymore—the idea of walking around drunk (or, worse, of losing an entire morning the next day due to any level of hangover) frightens me now. I mean, sure, I’d still go to these places, if it were the only way to, say, catch up with long-lost friends; but the only thing you’ll ever see me cradling is a glass of Coke, or maybe orange juice.
I do allow myself the occasional relapse, though. And by occasional I mean a maximum of once a month, and only when there’s something extra special to celebrate. And nothing hardcore. Just sangria. And it has to be sangria made by me (29). That way I don’t get to leave the house and I’m not tipsy or anything in public.
I fell in love with sangria some two years back, when my best friend Chiklet dragged me to the Do-Over, and at the time the whole thing was still held at Crane’s Hollywood Tavern down El Centro where they made sangria of the killer kind. I’d had sangria before, but it wasn’t until here that I was, like, Whoa! Since then it became sort of my official California drink, and everywhere we went—Bar Centro by José Andrés at the SLS Hotel, Lizarran in the O.C.—that was all we got.
Well, Bar Centro’s version is really of the blanca kind—still pretty good, but I like my sangria blood red (precisely why it’s called such, no?), never mind if it threatens to leave a deadly stain or two in your clothes.
If you wanna try making your own sangria, here’s how:
- Take a large carafe and mix 1 bottle of dry red wine, half a cup of brandy, half a cup of triple sec, and a thirds of a cup of simple syrup (1 part sugar to 1 part water).
- Juice one large orange, two or three medium-sized lemons, and add the juices to the wine mixture.
- You will need another orange (28) and another two or three lemons (25), all sliced into rounds; float these slices into the mixture. You may also use lime, but the green kind of bothers me.
- Most people like to add maraschino cherries, but I go for seedless grapes instead (27).
- Let the whole thing sit in the fridge overnight.
- Add two cups of tonic water/club soda (26) just before serving—you know, for that fizzy effect.
- Enjoy!
If you’re pressed for time, you may skip the wine/brandy/triple sec/simple syrup mixture and go for ready-to-drink bottled sangria. Doesn’t taste as good, though, I have to warn you. Boone’s Sangria is pretty decent (and already fizzy so you can skip adding the club soda, too). Whatever you do, stay away from that brand called Eva.
Why are all the Nikkis leaving me for California? First it was my sister, three years ago, to marry her long-time boyfriend. Now it was Nikki Paden (31), just three days ago, to be with her father. She’d called me up beginning of this month to tell me that she was kind of sad about leaving, and so I’d asked her to join me at the Cattski album cover shoot (01-05) so she could help me style—and so I could convince her that it wasn’t exactly a bad thing to be moving to California. We’d spent hours after the shoot just talking about Melrose and Malibu, PCH and Pinkberry, etc. Apparently it worked because during the days leading to her flight out and as she was packing she was nothing but stoked—had reservations about leaving some of her stuff behind, but I told her, hey, a new city called for new style, so, by all means, yes, “leave it all behind.”
It got me kind of depressed looking at photos of her layover in HKG. Happy for her, of course (in just a couple of hours she was going to be hopping off the plane at LAX!), but sad for me. You see, if things had gone as planned, I would’ve been on the same planes and layovers. Yes, I was supposed to leave for L.A. three days ago. Well, the original plan had been for me to leave in May, but then I’d been asked to move the trip to September. And then September came, and they asked me to move it again. So hard to go on vacation these days!
Up to this day I am still in all sorts of pain. I’m looking at all these photos from happier times and all I can think of is, man, the things I’d give up to, say, be riding shotgun through the Santa Monica Freeway right now (34). Or, to be standing before Chris Burden’s Urban Light outside LACMA (32). Or, to be watching the sunset from Venice Beach (33).
Of course, all those are nothing compared to the biggest thing I am missing out on—I’m talking about the chance to see and hold my adorable niece Mikee (30) while she is still a baby. I mean, look at her! Isn’t she a darling? If things had gone as planned, she would’ve been in my arms by now.
My friends are, like, “It’s not the end of the world! Just go early next year!” If I have to be honest, though, I’m actually sick of people telling me that. Yes, I know, it’s so easy to move vacation dates, rebook airline tickets, etc. But has it ever occurred to them you can’t stop a child from growing? By January or February she’s going to start growing milk teeth, and that’s when babies start to lose weight. I’m sorry, but it would’ve been so much nicer to hold her now while she still has 10,000 creases in her arms and legs, you know? But, oh, well, it sucks to be me!
One of the most unexpected blasts of fresh air to hit Cebu this past month? A fashion school opening!
Fashion Institute of Design and Arts (FIDA) Cebu opened its doors last September 16, and I was lucky to have been there to witness the unveiling. It was the designer Dexter Alazas (36) who’d asked me to be his plus one, and, of course, I’d had to say yes—this was not your ordinary fashion event; this was a milestone!
Full disclosure: Growing up, I’d always wanted to go to design school. I’d had no plans of becoming a fashion designer, of course, but always I’d been curious about how things work in the creative industries. But, alas, my family had had other plans for me—and even if I’d had it my way there was no way it could’ve happened because nothing had been accessible at the time. So I’d ended up in med school, although the dream had never died—I’d catch myself fantasizing about going to Central Saint Martins in London, or Parsons in New York. Meeting people like, say, Stephanie dela Cruz, my art director at Zee Quarterly and a Parsons alum, had only fanned the flames—hearing their stories about their amazing teachers and internships, and, most importantly, seeing how precise and innovative they were with their work, their astounding facility of visuals, and their acumen in creative decision-making, I’d become more appreciative of design education.
At the launch, which also served as an open house/mixer to give prospective students a chance to ask questions about the school’s programs and curriculums, I remember looking at the young ones and saying to Dexter, “How lucky are these kids! They get to be of college age at a time when schools like this are becoming accessible!”
I got to have a brief chat with FIDA founder and headmistress Christine Funda (38), an alum of Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising (FIDM) in L.A., and it was refreshing to hear her talk more passion than business. Always she’d considered Cebuano design talent to be topnotch, and for years it had been her dream to make quality fashion and design education available to Cebuanos. “I was just talking to a [prospective student] who said she’d always wanted to study fashion design, but she just couldn’t leave Cebu to go to Manila because she has to raise her young family,” she shared. It gave her utmost joy knowing she was bridging the gap between people like this and their dreams.
Nestled in the heart of the city, at the corner of Escario and Clavano (42), a stone’s throw away from Dexter Alazas’s atelier, FIDA’s pilot programs of study include a 2-year Diploma in Fashion Design and Merchandising, a 1-year Diploma in Fashion Design and Apparel Tech, a 6-month Certificate in Fashion Merchandising, a 3-month Introduction to Fashion Business short course. They’ve also enlisted an impressive lineup to comprise the faculty: Project Runway Philippines season one first runner-up Philipp Tampus (39) is set to teach industry sewing five hours a week; and Lord Maturan (41), winner of the Third Cebu Young Designers Competition, is set to teach fashion illustration. Ms. Munda stated they also intend to offer short courses in advanced makeup, hairstyling, fashion styling, and, yes, fashion photography. (Do I foresee a tie-up between the school and Dexter’s Stylissimo Sessions in the future?)
My stylist friend Mikey Sanchez, upon seeing these photos of mine from the launch, asked if I had plans of taking some classes. I wish I could! I wanted to ask Ms. Munda about one of their 1-year programs, but I had to stop myself. Not that I am not open to the idea of going back to school—it’s just that I have so much going on right now. But, who knows, in two or three years’ time, perhaps? Right now I’m just happy to have walked the halls that are to house the dreams of the future stars of Cebu fashion.
