Today, Sir Jijo de Guzman brought the class out for a walking photography tour of Baguio's most famous and most populous area: Session Road. In the 90s, this wasn't as commercial as today and one only passes through this road to get to the market. Now, restaurants and hotels/inns dot the area, people walk up and down, unstopping, any time of the day.
As the local government unit imposed a unitary route around Baguio, almost all the taxis or vehicles ply through Session Road, making it the center of commerce and the heat--its the only spot where celsius climbs in the morning (except during rainy days or the -ber months).
Yesterday, Sir Jijo gave a photography 101 lecture and before sending us out on the walking tour, gave us a reminder in travel photography: to capture the place through its people, culture, and religion. The route was simple: we begin from the CAP building with him playing our mother hen down to the park at the end of the road, cross the street and trek uphill until we return to the building for our photo critique.
Nica and I trailed behind and lost the group. We did end up bonding with our new film mates. Richard, already a BTS (behind-the-scene) photographer was taking the walk easy and just lingering around--I bet he already knew what to shoot for the class assignment.
Our first stop was the
ukay-ukay at the park, primarily hosted by Korean sellers who refused to be photographed. I only have one decent photo of that stop because it was hectic; people moved around like wild bees, taking clean photos a feat. Finding the subject was hard given the many people in the area so I just fired away and gained this lucky shot:
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| Army pants on re-sale |
Sir Jijo said we should always look for colours and patterns. The best I could come up was this shot (because I'm hungry and no one was minding the store):
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| Puto-bumbong is a Filipino Christmas staple food |
Our mentor pointed this photo opportunity and I assumed everyone jumped right away. Sir Jijo said if I decreased the aperture opening a few steps more, I would have minimised the depth of field in this shot:
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| Regional news |
This was the first shot I was extremely excited about; I got conscious of every single detail in frame, too absorbed trying to be inconspicuous that I forgot to check my screen. The ending: this one had to be processed because of over underexposure. :(
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| Lazy Sunday |
This shot had me waiting... for someone to stare at these pieces. In my head, a pair of eyes would scrutinise the rings with interest and gets reflected in the glass. In photo tours, I realised, most things are just in my head and never really happen in real life. In the end, I have this shot instead:
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| What glitters |
The second subject that piqued my curiosity and one of my favourite shots:
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| Musician along the road |
I hate the wires here but liked the framing for the photo (below). At this point, I was getting more comfortable with Alab and the settings we were taught yesterday. (Sir Jijo said my 200 shutter speed is overkill for non-moving subjects--I'll work with slower speeds next time.)
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| Christmas blooms |
Car photography is fun, especially when someone's willing to model:
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| Let's pretend I own this car |
My favourite shot and one the broke my heart during the re-sizing:
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| I'm sorry |
When we saw this Korean-dressed old woman, Sir Jijo said we should avoid the fire hydrant, which was impossible in my position. Given very short time for shooting, she caught me taking photos! When she pointed, though, I kinda got what I wanted for the photograph. (And yeah, the hydrant can be an eyesore.)
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| Caught you! |
Finally we reached the last part of the tour, the church, which was once upon a time standing alone on the top of the hill. Now, reaching it requires a few stairs. Churches, for me, are easy to photograph because they do not move. Also, being a Catholic all my life, I already know what symbols to prioritise.
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| Holy beads |
I realised today that street photography is a different league altogether, but one I would gladly explore especially if outside Metro Manila. Out of the 200 photos I took during the tour, I liked around 20, which is a better number compared to my other shots. I still have a long way to go with Alab. :)
- 11/29/2014
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