Nobody told me there was a nice aquarium in Manila! I heard about the Manila Ocean Park when I was researching places to visit in Manila. Yesterday morning I took about an hour long cab ride in traffic over to the park. The ride cost 142 pesos (just under $3). As I walked up the stairs to the entrance, I didn’t see anyone there. I wasn’t sure if it was open yet or if I was the only one there. There was only a small family inside and alot of workers just standing around. It looked like I had the whole park to myself!

Flash photography isn’t usually allowed in places like this so I’m glad I had my 50mm 1.8 and 85mm 1.8 with me. I shot at either 800 or 1600 ISO all day long. The really wide shots were taken with my 17-40L. The tough part about getting some of these shots in the darkest of rooms was having to manually focus. It’s not the easiest thing to do when you’re wearing glasses and don’t have a proper focus screen. I used the 85mm the most and often found myself having to shift forward and back a couple inches to stay just outside of minimum focus distance. That Canon 100mm macro would’ve been perfect for the close up shots.

Sorry I haven’t posted in awhile. There hasn’t really been alot to show! I’ve just been spending some quality time with friends.

Looking out of my 26th floor window everyday, I notice how different everything looks depending on the time of day and weather. When it doesn’t rain for a few days, the air gets real smoggy and dusty. The buildings look so washed out and non-contrasty. When the rain stops just before sunset is when the city looks the most beautiful. The rain clears the sky of all that dust and brings back the color and contrast to everything I can see.

Here’s the view from the pool on the roof (32nd floor).

…and here’s the pool.

yesterday i spent some time at Pioneer Studios again. there were two shoots scheduled that day: Martha Stewart Philippines (she has a magazine here) and Philippine National Enquirer. I arrived before lunch and only caught the last 30min of the Martha Stewart shoot. The three people from the magazine and At (the photographer) invited me to sit down with them at lunch though and we got to talk a little bit. They agreed that my intentions of pursuing commercial photography here was a good way for me to get established. I loved just listening to them talk. They’re really at the top of their game. I’ve noticed that people all at the top of their game don’t actually talk about work. The lunch conversation consisted of mountain climbing in Italy and Germany and how running and cycling are the new mountain climbing in manila.

The Nat’l Enquirer shoot was interesting to watch. The energy in the studio wasn’t very high (At even said the same thing to me at the end of the day). I noticed he was trying exceptionally harder to push the model. He kept turning up the music louder and louder to the point where he had to yell at the model so she could hear him. It was all in good intentions though. He would often dance a little bit in between shots or start singing along with whatever song was playing.

another thing i really like about the studio is the people that are there. every client brings in as many people as they need (which often consists of at leasts 2 stylists per model, creative people, and coordinators) but theres also the studio interns. they’re all from University of the Philippines and around my age. they offer another source of energy to the studio which At often feeds off of. they do everything in the studio to make sure the shoot runs smoothly. there’s always at least 4 interns present.

just some random pictures since my last post. i’ve been eating alot  =)

dinner at Sugi’s. Katsu pork with curry.

dinner @ johnandyoko’s. the fried tofu steaks on the right were the best. the drinks are a lychee sake and lychee vodka. i also had a torikatsu curry ricebowl (not pictured).

lunch @ max’s chicken. fried chicken (left), lumpiang gulay (right), and chicken burger (top) was JUST my order. i was hungry! lumpiang gulay is everything inside a vegetable spring roll but instead of wrapping it like an eggroll, they make it into a bowl and give you the sauce on the side.

Inside megamall. 5 floors of shopping and eating.

mango daiquiri’s with two kinds of boba (tapioca pearls). and my cousin, kristen, in the back. this was at a smoothie and dessert place called cocktales inside of megamall. the first page of the menu said “STRESSED spelled backwards is DESSERTS. Coincidence? We think not!”

BIGGEST crepe i’ve ever seen! It was filled with whip cream, mango ice cream, cubed mango and diced almonds.

since before i left for this trip to the philippines, i started doing some networking by contacting photo studios around manila. one studio (pioneer studios) was really helpful and anxious to meet me. i let them know when i arrived and on monday they called and invited me to the studio on wednesday to watch a photoshoot.

that photoshoot was this morning and it was awesome. i arrived about 30min before the shoot was scheduled to start so i could get some time to talk to everyone before it got hectic. my contact over there is katya and her husband, al, was the photographer for today. they’re great people to talk to… they’re very passionate about their art. they actually began the lomo movement in manila which is HUGE today. Al actually shot 5 or 6 rolls of film today with his lomo and holga. he’s very good at it and the magazine requested him to do so on top of the digital work.

they started prepping the studio at 11am. backgrounds were set and light tests were done. creatives from the magazine started to walk in, along with stylists, wedding dresses, the model, and a film crew. the stylists got to work right away on the model. it was noon by then and it was time for us to eat lunch. over an hour goes by, the stylists finished the model, and she had just started an interview with the film crew that lasted about 30min. by 130pm she was finally on set.

Al works very efficiently and the model was great. She needed very little direction and eased into every pose as if she knew exactly what to do. she didn’t snap into her poses very quickly at all…. more like very graceful and determined. Al only needed about 20min to shoot and then she was back in the make up room for wardrobe change and another hair do. this cycle would repeat 5 times and it took about 30min for the model to change and have her hair redone. there were probably 12 people in the studio just for this shoot with a single model. the day finished by 4pm. they said on monday they had 6 models, 6 makeup artists, 7 photographers and about that many people from the magazine all there to coordinate. i heard it got hectic.

it was a great experience. i got to see how things are done here in the philippines and we had little bit of time to talk shop. so whats next? Katya is trying to set me up with Wig Tysmans as an assistant… he’s a HUGE photographer here in the philippines. He lives in the same neighborhood as Katya and Al so they said they could even just bring me to his house one day. He’s currently out of town on assignment but I could probably meet him before the weekend. it’s all pretty exciting and things seem to be moving in the right direction for me.

now… on to the pictures!!!

finally i get a chance to go online! my week up until the trip was super hectic. packing clothes was easy but packing my 2nd luggage was a bit of a mess. i ended up filling it with LOTS of candy. last minute, my mom gave me a coach purse to give to angelica. i thought that was nice.

so karl and i left tampa on friday morning and slept through almost the entire 5hr flight to LA. 30min before the plane started boarding, i ran to the bar for a martini and a long island and got on the plane with a big smile. the 12hr flight to Narita, Japan wasn’t bad. i borrowed my dad’s archos player and watched a couple movies and slept enough to kill the first 6hrs real quick. the next 6hrs went by pretty slow. 4 vodka tonics helped that though. our flight was delayed in Japan a couple hours. we arrived in Manila at about 1am, walked to mcdonalds for a late dinner and went to sleep at about 5am.

getting ready for a 12hr flight!

japanese people know how to fly.

anyways… the first full day in manila was fun. karl and i hopped in a taxi and ran over to makati to meet up with cherry for lunch. we ate at banana leaf…. it was a very nice thai restaurant. we had 2 kinds of padthai, 6 thai iced teas, spring rolls, and mango sticky rice for about $20. we ended up spending the entire day there just walking around, eating a couple more times, and meeting with up with old friends from Florida, Mike & Loisa.

karl & cherry at banana leaf with tall thai teas.

banana leaf style pad thai (broad noodles instead of the thin ones) served on a banana leaf.

absinthe martini =)

smoothie and ham croquettes

mike & loisa!

more to come soon! i’ll post video as soon as i can figure out how to get them off my iphone.