For the Coffee Table Book - Issue #10

Chance is always powerful.
Let your hook be always cast;
In the pool where you least expect it, there will be a fish.
- Ovid, Roman poet (43 BC - 17 AD)

This is one of my favorite pictures in my stock. This was taken sometime in May, 2005.

While strolling along the outskirts of Ilaya in Lapulapu City, I passed by a man squatting in the side of the road dike, fishing in the cleared-out mangrove swamp of the now abandoned Coral Reef Hotel. He was having a blast as his hook does not stay long in the water. Fish kept on biting for their doom. I chatted with him for a while and when he warmed up to me I asked if I could take a picture of one of his catch.

The fish was very much alive when the picture was taken. It flipped out of the man's palm several times and he kept on picking it up. This explains the grains of sand in his fingers.

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.