For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #5

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.
- Saint Francis of Assisi

The blue candles of Simala, Cebu...

SFC ICON 2009

The CFC-Singles for Christ held its annual International Conference (ICON, formerly known as ILC) in Cebu City on Feb 20-22, 2009.

As an active SFC member for about 6 years now, I attended the conference with my brothers and sisters from our chapter - MEPZ (Mactan Export Processing Zone).

Below is a collection of snapshots during the conference. Snapshots because I didn't bother myself with apertures, focal length and composition during the entire event. I just point the camera and shoot. (I'll be very busy in the coming days so I did my best in doing this as fast as I can. By reviewing after my upload, I found out I had misspelt a word or maybe even more... There seems to be a text slide missing too after the pictures on the Feb22 Mass. My apologies for these, I have no more time to go back to the old drawing board and do the corrections. Maybe next week... But by then, this would be stale. :) )

Nevertheless, I hope you will enjoy...

For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #4

The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable, a perpetual series of occasions for hope. - John Buchan

Along the shores of Olango Island in Cebu, locals can be seen catching fish trapped in shallow waters during low tide.

For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #3

Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all.
- Harriet Van Horne

In rural areas in the country, kitchens would always have a dapug - the Hiligaynon word for a raised platform in the kitchen where cooking is done by fire through earthen stoves. The floor of the platform has layers of hard-pressed soil and ashes. Pots and pans are placed underneath or hanged on the sides. On top of the dapug are stacked firewood supported by widely spaced bamboo slits for flooring. The wood are left to dry by smoke and heat.

 

Featured is my aunt cooking in her kitchen's dapug lighted by a kerosene lamp. Fried rice was on the menu that night complemented by boiled eggs and dried dilis (anchovies) saute'd in garlic, onions and tomatoes seasoned with vinegar and soy sauce.

For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #2

Planting (rice) is never fun,
Back's bent from dawn 'till set of sun.
Cannot sit and cannot stand - bending all day is never fun...

Just a loose translation of the first stanza of the song Magtanim ay Di Biro.

After all the hardships of planting rice, the farmer is supposedly rewarded by a bountiful harvest - and rest...

For the second picture in this series, here's a rice farmer resting after a harvest.

CONTUSIONS

con·tu·sion (kən-tōō'zhən, -tyōō'-) n. An injury in which the skin is not broken; a bruise.

At about 9:10PM, February 11, 2009, as I was crossing the street in front of my boarding house, I was hit by a passenger multicab.

I am now out of the hospital with no major physical damage aside from contusions in my head and in my right arm. I am recuperating from the muscle pains and the entire experience, including the medical bureaucracy... :)

I'll be back to work next week... I am extending a million thanks to my friends Danny and Genisa Dacillo, to our company nurses Tata and Ekit, my friends who visited me while I was in the hospital (you know who you are), my siblings in the Singles for Christ community who prayed for me, and to all those who sent messages of concern and well wishes...

Along Mountain Roads: San Carlos - Don Salvador Benedicto

The global economic crisis has pressured our company to have forced vacation leaves on the last week of January. I was off to the fields of Negros. For the first days of that week, I indulged in the eat-tv-sleep routine. The outdoor activities were limited by the continuous rain.

The heavens cleared up for two days and on that second day, I headed off to Mierkolesan, a rural area within the mountainous Barangay Prosperidad in San Carlos City. This is approximately 71 km away from Bacolod City. My aim: to take silhouettes of Mount Canlaon during sunset.

I arrived there at about 3PM. I specifically selected this area because I can stay in the "nice but cheap" Nabatang Peak Mountain Resort for the night. Nabatang is situated along a hill's slope. The golden hour of photography started at around 5PM. I went to the higher adjoining hills to have unobstructed views.



And then, it happened for the second time! While I was scouting for possible perspectives, a cow was rapidly approaching me. I had no time to do some metering to adjust my exposure, or even compose for the scene. All I was able to do was to decide for a vertical shot. As a result, the cow was washed out in her portrait together with my shadow. Fortunately, its leash is not long enough for the cow to really reach me.



While waiting for the sunset, I strolled and saw this pathway along the grass.



When I arrived in Nabatang, I already noticed black clouds moving from the northern skies. Just as the golden hour was about to end with the sun slowly slipping behind Mount Canlaon, the clouds have reached the mountain.



I have not made a single, clear silhouette of Mount Canlaon. While it was behind the dark clouds, I decided to move to the highest adjoining hill and waited until much of the clouds have passed for pink-orange lights to be visible. After I took this picture below I then called it a day.



I was up early the next day. It was an overcast morning. Armed with banana chips, biscocho, 1.5L of water and a painkiller ointment, I decided to trek the rising and falling slopes of the national highway from Prosperidad, San Carlos City to Talos Falls, Don Salvador Benedicto.

Six kilometers away from Nabatang is a natural formation slightly similar to that of Bohol. Against the boring, uneventful, and cloud-covered skies here's our version of Chocolate Hills.



After about 5 hours of walking some kilometers (I purposely did not count) and many, many rests in between, I finally reached my final destination: the Talos Falls.



Talos Falls is actually on the other mountain opposite of the viewing deck where I took the picture above. The pic was shot using a 300mm lens - exactly 6x magnification. From the viewing deck, the base of this waterfall could be reached within 30 minutes but it would take at most 2 hours to come back. The viewing deck actually has clean comfort rooms. Due to this, it has become an established bus stop. It has also offered opportunity to local folks to sell bottled mineral water and other snack foods to passengers.

From there, I walked a little further along the road to have another angle of the waterfall.



This is another shot using 300mm lens from the same angle.



After hours of walking, I decided I deserved some comfort. I waited for about an hour for the airconditioned bus and headed home.

Note: Nabatang Peak, where I spent the night, is ideal for short summer vacations for people who want to stay away from the noise of the city. The place is simple, rustic and windy. They have no electricity during the day. At night, one may opt to have generator powered lights or their solar battery powered LEDs. I opted for the latter to somehow relive my childhood days. The rooms have no fans or aircon units. They are not needed. The place will give you a chill. Water supply is abundant. Travelers may opt to bring food or call ahead for their preferred meals. I did neither. I just requested the caretaker to buy a kilo of rice, a can of corned beef for supper, 4 eggs and another can of corned beef for breakfast. Well, part of the preparation for those kilometers of walk is that I have to stuff myself ahead.  :)

For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #1

For years now, I have captured many, many images on film during my short travels. Some of them, while not well within my standards, have this factor of amusingness. Some do convey something about the Filipino culture. Some do declare issues.

Every picture has a story to tell, but there are pictures that narrate more worthwhile stories. Let's allow them to do so... So, from time to time, I'll be posting images that fit into this category.

For the maiden issue, I present Gaisano Sta. Rosa...



Gaisano is one of the largest chain of stores and malls in the country. Sta. Rosa is a baranggay in the bird sanctuary island of Olango, Cebu. I was surprised and delighted that a branch of this large store chain sprouted in this part of the island.

 

Special thanks to DFish for the idea on this series.

Remembering the Storyteller

My grandfather’s 12th death anniversary passed a few days ago. The nearing approach of this once sad day occurred to me on the last remaining days of January while I was taking pictures in Brgy. Prosperidad in San Carlos City. I noticed the long shadows during the late afternoon’s golden hours. They reminded me of summer.

In honor of this great man, I am sharing an article I wrote six years ago – during summer. It was the first summer that I was not able to go home, and the memories of my grandfather made me more homesick.

sum¢mer (sum ¢¶r) n. & adj. the usually warmest season of the year.

Summer is the time of the year when days are most often than not golden and languid during the afternoons and long shadows are signs of twilight. These scenes never fail in bringing a tinge of nostalgia.

The fondest memories that I often remember of my childhood were during summers. When my family moved from our hometown to a distant city, summer is the most looked forward time of the year. It is probably because before I entered school, I could not distinguish months. In addition, when I went to school, activities reminiscent of those times and our old place usually filled my summers.

Summers are not really summers when we were not at our grandparents’ place. My grandfather is a tall, fair-skinned man. He looked Spanish to me. However, never once I had seen in him famous Spanish temperaments. He was always kind and affectionate. Upon arriving at his house, he would usually give my brother and me a hug. And he would comment on how much we have grown since the last summer. He would stare at us with his light brown eyes – squinting. Everything he saw was in faded silhouettes. He was blind ever since I knew him.

My grandfather was a man of much dexterity. Although he could no longer see, he could still do the things he used to do when he was not blind. He would even make toys for us. My favorite was his ‘bee-sounding’ invention made of coconut leaves. He made them for me as far as I can remember but I never knew how to do them on my own.

Our summer vacations are not complete without my grandfather’s stories. He was one of the best storytellers I ever knew. He would tell us tales about the war, kapres, duwendes, aswangs and a cornucopia of the fables he knew. In all those many summers, he sometimes retells his stories but I never got tired of them. I still wanted to listen. They sounded magical to me. Perhaps the magic was not in the stories but in the storyteller.

One of the times I saw my grandfather cried was on the summer before I entered college. He again commented on how much I have grown since the last time we met. His tears flowed when he said that he is living his life one day at a time and he wants nothing else. He is enjoying each of his remaining days until his Maker calls him home.

I did not see my grandfather the next summer. He went home two months before school ended. From then on, not a summer would pass that I would not remember him. Summertime summons my memories of the great man.

Now, the days are usually golden and languid during the afternoons and long shadows are signs of twilight.

It is summer…