Ted, the guy who’s renting one of the rooms in the second floor of the townhouse where I live brought some lechong paksiw from Dapitan City. It’s not the usual lechong paksiw with all that liver sauce and bay leaf. If my taste buds are right, seems like it was just boiled in vinegar, with garlic and pepper, more like what my lola called “adobong matanda”. It’s getting a little old so I decided to do some experiment. I chopped one bowl of the recycled lechong baboy and marinated it in one tbsp. of soy sauce, ½ tbsp. of dried basil and a teaspoon of ground black pepper for 30 minutes. In a small pan, I sautéed a medium sized onion and added the marinated pork. I let it cook for about 10 minutes in high heat to achieve a crunchy texture and with occasional stir to avoid the bitter sunog taste. I then cracked a couple of eggs right after switching off the fire and then stirred it again until the eggs are cooked.  Guess I just created a Zamboangueno style lechong paksiw sisig. Food recycling at its best.
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Ted, the guy who’s renting one of the rooms in the second floor of the townhouse where I live brought some lechong paksiw from Dapitan City. It’s not the usual lechong paksiw with all that liver sauce and bay leaf. If my taste buds are right, seems like it was just boiled in vinegar, with garlic and pepper, more like what my lola called “adobong matanda”. It’s getting a little old so I decided to do some experiment.

I chopped one bowl of the recycled lechong baboy and marinated it in one tbsp. of soy sauce, ½ tbsp. of dried basil and a teaspoon of ground black pepper for 30 minutes. In a small pan, I sautéed a medium sized onion and added the marinated pork. I let it cook for about 10 minutes in high heat to achieve a crunchy texture and with occasional stir to avoid the bitter sunog taste. I then cracked a couple of eggs right after switching off the fire and then stirred it again until the eggs are cooked.

 Guess I just created a Zamboangueno style lechong paksiw sisig. Food recycling at its best.

The task was to create a montage of shots.

Can’t think of a subject better than UP, sabi nga ni Vanessa, “tatlong kembot lang” from the office. This was done using a Canon S95, one the best digital cameras IMO.

I really don’t have the time but this is close to what I had in mind. I was worrying that 3 minutes is too long. In then end, i found it more difficult to decide on what to put in the final video and what to discard than the whole process of capturing them.

The camera that i used has limitations, well what can you expect from a digital point and shoot camera? So i just made the most out of what i can do with it. I can’t zoom in and out and the there’s no manual focus so I can’t change the depth of field. Using my newly purchased tripod, tinadtad ko na lang panning, tilting and pseudo dollying.

My professor liked it. That’s all the matters.

Norte Day Two

We welcomed yet another beautiful day in Northern Philippines with coffee and pandesal, courtesy of ate Cathy. The day was set for the exploration of the nearby municipalities. First stop was the tallest lighthouse in the country, well that’s what the tour guide said but after doing some research, it’s not even close. It is situated on a hill and from up there you’d see the entire town of Burgos. It’s sad however that they no longer allow people to go up the actual viewing deck. I was focusing more on enjoying the scenery rather than getting the perfect shot so my camera was just on landscape mode for most of the day. 

Bojeador

Bojeador

We went to Patapat Viaduct afterwadrs, an elevated hi-way which is actually the fourth longest bridge in the country. 

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Norte

Ilocos Norte was just as beautiful as the morning sky when we stepped out of the bus. It was a smooth ride but my excitement just won’t let me sleep and after seeing the beautiful beach all i said was, “it’s worth it”. 

Pagudpud Beach

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We arrived at around 8 in the morning and in a heartbeat i found myself enjoying the serene waters of Saud. The sand is comparable to the what you’ll see in Boracay, although it is somewhat loose. It’s kinda difficult to walk as your feet would always be at least four inches deep on it with every step. It is perfect for those who hates a huge crowd and just wanna enjoy a laid back atmosphere. 

The province offers a lot. I’d say that this could be on top of the list of most underrated places in the country. It’s dotted with unique places, one which is the Kapurpurawan Rock Formation.

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I don’t know exactly how this came to be but it looks like a giant rock formation that used to be below water level. It’s white probably because of the white sand that stuck on its surface over the years. This theory of mine is evident on the second picture. 

You’d also see here the only wind farm in the country, right at the shore of the sleepy town of Bangui. These turbines provide a significant amount of energy in the province. 

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The sun is already a little too strong so the image i was able to capture doesn’t offer that much of contrast and sharpness. The beach on this side of the province is not as good as Saud’s, probably why they chose to build these giant turbines there.

Laguna Up in the Air

Another long day. I had a short break though. After work, I slept for 45 minutes before hitting the road for Laguna. The plan is to be at the UPOU headquarters at around 9 AM so Kim and I were on our seats as early as 6:30. It’s our first meeting as a group to select the pictures that we are going to include in our final project. But then since we’re already there and Laguna is famous for it’s historic churches we called it a shoot day as well.

It was my first time in HQ and I have to say that it is way better than the learning center in Diliman, well it should be. The area is just very conducive to learning. And the best part, they have high speed internet connection. We stayed there for a couple of hours. While waiting for the other peeps to arrive, we’re already making our initial “screening” and post processing.

We’re complete before lunch time, well Filipino time in the province is kinda worse. they’re more Filipino there, I get it (LOL). The “Magdalo” brought us to Magdalena and we stayed in the house of a former Governor. It looks and feels like a haunted place, but I just ignored all the vibes that surround us. Nah!, I was scared, specially when we encountered power interruption not once but twice. It was too quiet and all you hear are these weird sounds around the house. The sky was also blinking with minor lightning and the distant moon made the atmosphere perfect for a scene in a scary movie. I never had a problem sleeping though, which is one good thing. I’m not sure if it’s because I was just too tired or maybe because the cold lost spirits roaming around were taking turns in embracing their guests.

Before going back to OU the following day, we decided to go to Liliw and framed its old church:

Nagcarlan is also just seven pesos away so after taking pictures of the Liliw church, we went to the Nagcarlan Underground Cemetery.

The thing that they did with our pictures is not something I’d say I like. But I already did too much and I wanted them to do their part. In the end, it was the chance to shoot together as a group was the thing that really made this trip worthwhile.

Day ‘N Night

This is a very long day but instead of going straight to bed after hours of taking pictures, here I am blogging about our second trip to the Korean Village in Makati. It’s me and Kim again and we were there about the same time when we first visited the place. We saw a lot of Koreans this time which is a good thing. Not that I want to take pictures of them, it just adds Korean feel and they made me believe that this project can still be done.

We visited some grocery stores. Wang Mart, where we stayed for a couple of minutes is like their version of 7-eleven. They also have tables and chairs, although I wasn’t able to see ready to eat meals. We tried their ice cream which ah-love very much!

We also took some pictures of other items they sell.

When we were about to leave, we saw this young lady reading a Korean magazine

Nah!.. that was Kim lol!

We went around the area and took some more pictures. It was a great opportunity to go back to the places where we thought we could’ve captured better. The sun was just about to set. I wasn’t feeling well but we still wanted more. We decided to go to Ayala Triangle to do some night photography.

We’re so happy about the results and the experience left us craving for even more. I remember the beautiful facade of this building in front of Ayala Museum. I dragged Kim there and next thing we knew, we were on our knees taking pictures. We played with shutter speed. With the biggest aperture opening, f5.6 and shutter speed of 1 second, I came up with this:

Time Warp

We’re done with the Koreans and their spicy food. This time we went centuries back and visited the walled city of Intramuros. It’s the first time we did a morning shoot, although on my way there I was thinking that we should’ve agreed to meet earlier. Super early morning sun can really make the wall of an old building look like it’s a side of Taj Mahal. We were able to cover a lot a of areas. We started with the wall itself, from the top, side, stairs and passes like these:

Walking around the area, we passed by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) building and we decided to go inside and check what’s in there. They have this collection of Southeast Asian music instruments and dance gears. It’s not related to our project but we still decided to take some pictures.

This is a blurry picture of me wearing an Indonesian hat lol

General Luna St is definitely my favorite spot. This is where you can find a lot of old buildings and the area between Real and Sta Potencia streets even has bricks for its road.

Some of the casas there are open to the public. We chose the biggest one and we took tons of pictures. I felt like I’m in a movie scene. The place is just uh-mazing, but scary at the same time. Just imagining the number of people who passed by those alleys who are now dead scares the hell out of me.

Last in line is the Manila Cathedral. This is one of the symbols of the one big thing that the Spanish colonizers left us, Religion. On our way there, I saw this beautiful bunch of flower situated in one of the pillars that surround the cathedral. I set my camera to aperture priority mode and set the aperture setting to f5.6. I zoomed out to focus the flower a little bit and resulting image has the blurry bell tower as my background.

There’s a small plaza, Plaza de Roma in front of the church where the statue of Spain’s Carlos IV is located.

Before we gave our thanks and asked for forgiveness, I looked up to sky, not to imagine the Lord’s face but to take this picture:

 P.S. Sometimes things happen when you least expect them. On our way home, we saw a Kalesa full of Korean retirees.

Who that in the red dress?

I went home this weekend with two goals in mind, to vote and to test some of the things I learned about portrait photography.

She was so excited to go to “tangos”, the tip of the island where the east and west wind meet. I told her we’re gonna swim in the lake which we now rarely do because of the condition of the water. My niece, Athen, who barely speaks was a big surprise. She only knows to say a handful of words but she knows how to sell clothes.

An hour after my math teacher stained my nail with a drop of indelible ink, we’re on our way to tangos. It was 4:30 and the sun is about to set so the original plan was to do the shoot on the west side so we can take advantage of the natural golden light. I did some shots but I was not happy with the results. I noticed that the wind is blowing from the east and I realized that it would give some drama with Athen’s hair and the dress she was wearin’. I carried her on my shoulder and we moved to the other side of the island.

Luckily, the sunlight was still good. I let her stand above the biggest rock I saw so we can maximize the light and also to capture the mountain range beside Banahaw which is visible from where we were standing. With the aperture setting set to f5.6 and the shutter speed to 1/320 of a second I came up with these photos:

I asked her to jump but she kept saying “ulog ako”. And then she was saying “ati” (kati) when I placed her on this shrub:

If you’re wonderin’ why her smile in these pictures is so controlled, well let’s just say her

Koryan

I started that day with a cup of vanilla ice cream, a little late but just in time for our test shoot. Kim and I agreed to meet in Philcoa at exactly 3 PM so we can reach our destination early. Armed with our filthy map that she drew the night before, we fearlessly went to a place we both are unfamiliar with. We got off the bus just before Manila Penn and we decided to just walk. I know taking pictures in the area is prohibited especially if you’re taking pictures of buildings. But Kim is makulit and still managed to frame the fountain area of the hotel. I saw some interesting subjects, the small art piece in the Ayala Triangle, a crane, the pattern on the brick sidewalk, just to name a few. I was about to break the rule when I saw this beautiful white building, seemingly separated from the rest of the skyscrapers and floating above this vast array of trees when I realized that I’m too shy to bring out my camera. I guess I worry too much with what people might say. This Facebook page Roy San mentioned in Moodle, (HINDI PORKET MAY DSLR KA, PHOTOGRAPHER KA NA!) the page I used to laugh about is now haunting me. I still have to work on my confidence. More than security reasons, I never thought that wearing this gadget in public could be so difficult.

But I said I could only overcome this if I know for sure that I can produce not just good but great pictures. And how would I know that if I’ll just keep my camera inside my bag? After washing my face inside McDo’s restroom I decided to wear it like a dog tag.

We were in P. Burgos at around 4:30. This is the area where they say a large number of Koreans reside. It’s the perfect time; the sunlight is not too harsh, it was hot but not as hot as any day of this month and the month before. But sadly, Koreans were nowhere to be seen. We started taking pictures when we saw this Methodist church:

There’s a lot of sign boards written in Korean but I wouldn’t say the area would pass as a Korean Village. My initial goal was to take pictures of streets and make it look like it was taken in Korea and not here in the Philippines. But with the lack of Korean vibe in the area, I realized it is going to be difficult. We had to do a lot of cropping and zooming in and out to make sure that there are no non-Korean signages in our viewfinders.

I got tired of taking pictures of signages and sensed that it’s getting harder to produce artistic results. I looked around and I noticed how bright the colors on the walls are. That’s when I started focusing on colors. I applied the Fake HDR effect in one of these pictures. 

 

 To complete our Korean experience, we ate in one of the restaurants We had this:

with these:

I didn’t think about composition this time but I just wanna try this soft flash thingee.

On our way out we found this huge wall filled with post-it notes with Korean characters

Overall, the shoot was fun. Yes, we didn’t see many Koreans (I expected a lot!), but the experience is worth all the time and effort. These are definitely not the best pictures but this is surely a step forward. I only realized I was still wearing the dog tag when we went back to McDo to pee.



Credits:
The liempo picture was taken by Elaine Kim Abenir. Visit her blog here.There’s like a bar at the back but it was poorly lit. If I turn off the flash though, I loose the warmth produced by the lights. I remember I can set the flash to like a soft setting so that I can brighten up the room without actually changing the colors too much. I placed my camera above a