Estan Cabigas

The more than century old Spanish era church of Bantayan Island.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been tracing up and down the roads of Northern Cebu, waking up early in the morning and hoping to have a good and sunny weather. Going back, I usually arrive home early in the evening tired from the day’s shoot.

The Archdiocese of Cebu will be celebrating it’s 75th anniversary this year and this book project is one of the activities that will highlight this event. Together with two other local photographers, we’re covering all the parish churches in this island province. I am doing the entire northern Cebu starting from Consolacion and ends with Asturias. This includes the parishes in the islands of the Camotes and Bantayan groups.

Is it easy? While I have done Philippine Church Façades as my first major book work launched August 2007, this time, interiors and belfry details are included. Couple that with a not always cooperative weather that I have to do some adjustments. Early in the month, there were several days of inclement weather that I opted to do all the interiors first. Whenever there’s a break in the usually overcast skies or rain, I do quick trips to the different churches for façade shots.

With just a few more days left in my stay here in Cebu before going back to Makati to work on my course final projects, it’s more likely that I will need to finish this by April. Right now, plans of going to Camotes are shelved due to bad weather forecast. But then, I’m just left with a few more areas to do and I’m done.

Tags: balaanong bahandi, projects