Shooting models
I have recently realized that being a photographer’s model is never a walk in the park. Other than investing in the best eye wrinkle creams a model needs to have cosmetics that work best with her skin, clothes that she can put on just anywhere and the grace and pizazz to walk in thin high heels through a grassy park.
A couple of weekends ago I was part of another model shoot, this time under the tutelage of my mentor Rolly Magpayo. Myself and the majority of the D60KREW gathered at our house for the briefing and tutorials and in the afternoon we all trooped to the Nayong Pilipino for the “location shoot.”
Our models were Kates Ocampo, Kat Cefra and Sky Dizon. These girls shattered all my stereotyped notions of what models are. Kates, Kat and Sky were kalog, all-business and all fun at the same time, and while we sat at the briefing they began the long and tedious, but very interesting task of making themselves ready for the camera.
August 21
I can’t think of a better recipient of holiday gifts than these two kids, and kids like them who spend most of the time on the streets. This picture was taken last August 21, by the side of the Quezon Bridge on the Plaza Miranda side. Maybe their parents have been paid to setup these flags and passed the task on to them. Maybe they were hired by whatever political party this was.
If only every flaglet they stuck on the ground would raise their hopes for a better future…
Once in a well, lifetime
The flower you see below is on a cactus plant on our neighbor’s house across the street. In all of the five years we have lived here since coming back from Mindanao, we had never seen it bloom till yesterday. Today it had already wilted.
It sort of reminds me of things ephemeral, like chocolates from abroad that come in big shipping boxes from a relative far away. You eat up all the chocolate and remember the taste for weeks on end.
I remember this flower, and I thank my camera I was there to shoot it before it died.
Dead and dying
The original Nayong Pilipino here in Pasay City is almost dead. Two weeks ago, the Nayong Pilipino Foundation turned over more than half of what remained of the 42 hectare property to the Philippine Amusements and Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR). This is in “exchange” for a much smaller piece of real estate in the so-called Bagong Nayong Pilipino Entertainment City Manila on Macapagal Avenue.
While there is nothing left to do but lament its demise, I must also say this to the Nayong Pilipino Foundation:
Newer does not always mean better.
And in my heart there will only be one Nayong Pilipino.
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