Portrait works by Frankie Callaghan, Candice Reyes, Tesa Celdran, Dennis Rito, Geric Cruz, Dennis Vega, Miguel Nacianceno and Tammy David

Last September, the German photographer Espen Eichhöfer was invited by the Goethe Institut – Manila, a contribution to its regional project, City Scapes, to conduct a workshop for eight Filipino photographers at the Silverlens Gallery. It’s the second time that this kind of workshop was held, the first, with Peter Bialobrzeski that culminated in the Mapping Invisible Cities traveling exhibit.

This time, Goethe Institut focused on the Philippines as it was the only country in the Southeast Asian region that enthusiastically responded to the first workshop. With the theme Portraits, eight photographers interpreted it and the output is
AS IT IS.

Like the first work, Urban Manila, I designed this website.

The new theme of this portfolio site/blog, estancabigas.com

A screengrab of a single blog post

As I just added a portfolio subsite, Pagtu-o, for my personal project, I felt obligated to redesign this main site as some photo stories were transferred to the subsite. Because of technical difficulties when I made the previous design, there were some problem solutions that are no longer applicable to a full Wordpress installation, which will now be undertaken.

Previously, static html pages were used in the portfolio image series and I needed to edit several pages whenever I add new work. Now, those tedious changes are a thing of the past.

Screengrab of portfolio page featuring a slideshow delivered via Slideshowpro

One crucial thing is the use of Slideshowpro via a self hosted Director to deliver the images. As this is a full Wordpress site, the slideshow is added using the Slidepress plugin. Just as I used it in Pagtu-o.

One main difference with the Pagtu-o site is that this installation uses Wordpress’ Pages instead of Posts for the photo stories as I have a regular blog.

Well, I will still assess if the redesign is something that I can live with in the next few months. A few tweaks here and there will be implemented in the coming days as well as complete the seven image series. More to come.

My new photo portfolio subsite where stories focused on faith and spirituality are posted through slideshows

Since 2005, I’ve been documenting Filipino Catholic religious events and activities. Over the years, I have amassed several images that have lain in my DVD backups and hardrive with some finding their way into my other blogs on travel, a photoblog and a few, into this portfolio site.

Why am I documenting these? Two reasons:

• It’s an attempt to record age old practices that are in danger of disappearing or changing in the future or architectural treasures that are constantly being disregarded and altered. I had this concern that in a few years time, we will lose this rich cultural heritage.
• I’m trying to look deep into myself, into my faith and try to find why I seem to be losing it due to questions and doubts.

Regarding the first reason, I may not be an anthropologist but I want to contribute through an approach that I know best: documentary photography. From 2005 to the present, the type of stories I have been doing are limited to religious events.

As early as last year, I was already looking for something to do as my personal long term project but was concerned that the religious stories I have are mainly seasonal. Then came my “A Ritual of Faith” work, my main portfolio for my Diploma in Photojournalism course. Doing this story was sort of liberating. It was quite fulfilling and made me realize that faith is not only limited to specific times of the year or events but is a daily occurence or practice that can be documented on a regular basis!

I felt inspired and it was during this state of mind that I thought of putting into one section, specifically a subsite to my photography portfolio a repository of the stories that I have done or is continually doing. In this way, I can keep track of this Pagtu-o or Faith project.

Right now, I’m going over my images and preparing photo stories that I will then post later. Over at the Pagtu-o site are now four photo stories with free and downloadable ebooks. More to come.

I will be posting soon at my other blog the details of the concept and design as well as some technical aspect of the blog that is used as a portfolio site.

My dedicated Faith photo portfolio subsite which is currently in development. The site uses wordpress in tandem with slideshowpro to deliver the slideshows. I am still refining the site.

First photo story that I've uploaded at Demotix.com. Click on image to go to the site.

Yesterday, I uploaded my first photo story, The Rags of Bagong Barrio at Demotix.com and this morning, I received an email notification that one of the images made it into the Demotix widget. So what?

Demotix.com’s website says:

…is a citizen-journalism website and photo agency. It takes user-generated content (UGC) and photographs from freelance journalists and amateurs, and markets them to the mainstream media.

Citizen Journalism has been the buzz word in recent years as some major news events were covered by people who, not necessarily professional journalists, were at the right time and at the right place. With the right tools, were able to send images, videos and accounts of an unfolding event. Just check CNN’s I-Report and you see citizen journalism in action. On the other hand, major news publications and media in general get their international news content from the wire agencies. As Demotix noted, don’t have a single staffer in 40 per cent of the world’s countries.

The beauty of Demotix.com is that it provides a platform not only for citizen journalists but, and most important of all, to us freelance photojournalists, who most of the time find it difficult to put out work into mainstream media. Our photo stories and images can now have an opportunity to be marketed and licensed to the growing media buyers comprised of major news publications and broadcasters. What’s more, the photojournalist still keeps the copyright, sales are split 50/50, fees are in the professional range (as against microstock) and payments are simple. In my case, I opted to be paid via paypal. Not bad for an agency that only started late last year.

One of my images made it to the Demotix widget. Click photo for larger image.

And what about the Demotix widget? It is an application that showcases the best photos that has just been recently uploaded to provide up-to-date, groundbreaking imagery. Subscribers, usually big media organizations, can show it in their websites as additional online content. It’s also a good opportunity for the photographer to gain exposure of his work.

As one of my images made it into the widget, I already earned £12.50 for it. What a good way to start!

Also view the slideshow of this photo story in this blog.