The simple yet beautiful facade of Poro Church in Camotes, Cebu

Yes, I’m finished with photo editing work, all 372 images, with the last one, Carmen Church, proving to be a challenge with all those wires at the façade. What is left to do is burn these jpegs to CDs, send one to the layout artist and another one to the printer for color separation. If the last batch proves to be okay, like the first, I’m done.

Whew! Never imagined that this shuttling back and forth between Makati and Cebu would finally come to an end after many months, as far as taking these images are concerned.

The second batch of images, around 150, printed for color check

Layout of the book should be done by September then confer with the layout artist and printer. It should be launched by the end of November.

I should be back in Makati by next week.

Blast from the past! Second part of my post of a beach outing circa 1989/90 from old negatives.

Series of shots from the beach outing. Some frames have already faded

4C class!!!

Kiosk at Danao beach

Neal and ? (left), Duccio (right)

Jonathan and Dayok

Joseph Louie

Scan from a negative circa 89/90 of my high school classmates during an outing at the beach. In left photo is Dayok and Gifford.

While looking through the files of my hard drive, this scan of one of my old negatives caught my attention. It was a beach scene taken during an outing with my classmates in high school either 3rd or 4th year.

As for the negative, it’s really in a bad state with some mold on the surface as well as scratches. As you might notice, there are horizontal lines, marks of inexperience as I developed it myself and have pressed the foam too hard on the material when I wiped off water.

Objects found and seen early this morning in northern Cebu.

SANTO CRISTO. Found at a shaman's ware below the Sogod Church grounds. It is said to protect from evil and thievery.

ALICE IS DEAD. Found atop the ruins of Escuela Catolica in Catmon which was erected in 1879.

HEADLESS SWIFT. Found at the foot of the stairs of the Sogod Church belfry slowly devoured by ants.

©Ego Faylona

I really like this image. The colors, the composition… its a yin and yang and a good example of the diagonal method. The lightly colored verticals and horizontals of the inorganic at the upper left contrasts strongly with the dark and organic form of Rick at the lower right. The chair, the ceiling as well as the receding partitions beautifully frame the subject in his dreamy and open mouthed slumber.

The colors are not too garish or detracting. But what particularly catches my attention is how the eye is led around the image. How the photographer composed and cropped the photo for movement and flow, utilizing it to make the viewer explore the different elements, textures and colors.

On seeing this, my eye is led directly to the subject’s face, framed with his dark hood, the point of entry. The triangle of the neck then leads me down to a path formed between the arm and the yellow string and terminates at his hand. The partitions then pick my view, up with its vertical movement assisted by the post.

The dark square of the ceiling is the turning point, the corner which then leads my eye horizontally to the right goading me to follow the dark squares. The perspective created by the vertical lines of the ceiling helps to direct my attention to the center, to the blue spot.

Coincidentally, this part of the image forms a triangle, encouraging me to follow its direction until the arm of the chair stops the downward movement only to lead me to the right, to the chair’s rise and brings me back to the starting point.

And it flows beautifully.

Posted with permission from Rick Manzano of ProjectManila and Ego Faylona, the photographer. Photo was originally seen in Rick’s Facebook page.