Summer is here and I’ll be heading to Bora for the long weekend with Junie, my girlfriend, and our SFC friends. Looking forward to spend quality time, do some Landscape Photography and recharge for the work lies ahead. I’ll be back in Manila by Monday night next week. Have a great weekend everyone!
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Last March 1-3, we trooped to Camsur Watersports Complex (CWC) in Pili, Camarines Sur for an internal workshop with Manny Librodo, an award-winning travel and glamour portrait photographer. Manny is on a league of his own and he has created his own unique style of portraits that has given so many accolades here and abroad. I already featured Manny on my previous article for Manila Standard, which, made me more excited because I know he brings a lot of fresh and creative ideas since he is not a wedding photographer and will give us a different perspective in shooting portraits. The first day was the actual shoot with models, the second day was on post-processing of images and the third day was for wakeboarding! Here’s some of my favorite images from the workshop.
Kharu, Manny’s favorite and popular model/subject who has won for him so many photography contest awards, was able to join and model for our workshop. I must say she really is excellent at what she does and we we’re all captivated by charm and grace. More admirable is her humility and friendliness to everyone. We had lots of fun hanging-out with her and became our new wakeboard buddy.
We had local models to shoot there.
Monique, our mentor John Ong’s wife, also became our model that day.
Along with our beautiful apprentices who joined the fun and modeled for us. Here’s Tin…
and Marie…
also Shyla…
After our workshop on Day 2, we still could not stop shooting. We were all inspired by Manny’s teachings that we decided to ask more of our Imagine Nation girls so we can practice some more. Here are the results…
Meet Jaja aka Rihanna
The Empress Jamie
and the water goddess Gracielle
Thank you again Manny for blessing us with your time and talent. We learned a lot from you. Also, thank to Kharu and all the Imagine Nation ladies for being such a cool sport in letting us shoot you all.
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I just got back today from Davao where I attended our annual Singles For Christ International Conference (SFC ICON). Its 3 days of listening, communicating and worshiping God. Our theme and anchor verse is from Colossians 2:6-7, “6 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.” My personal message for this conference is to live full-on for Christ with no compromise and be obedient to his will. I am also blessed and thankful that I was able to share this experience with my household or small bible study group that I lead together with Pam, my household partner. After Sunday’s final conference session, we toured around Davao thanks to Sheila. Here’s a sneak peak of what’s to come.
At the SFC ICON.
Our 135 strong SFC Makati Delegation.
My SFC Household.
And by the way here’s Tristan and and Gen’s (My good friends in SFC who’s getting married this October) impromptu engagement shoot at Samal Island.
Also, here’s the video highlights of SFC ICON 2010.
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Before I started photography I’ve always thought about going into writing for a magazine or some type of media but never seriously pursued it. However, an opportunity to write came up last September when Sir Jong (our mentor John Mateos Ong) received an email from Vic Sollorano, associate editor of Manila Standard. He asked sir Jong who was interested from our studio to write for their biweekly Photography section.
Sir Jong then asked us and I told him I wanted to give it try and sent my photographer profile to Sir Vic and he eventually took me in. Writing about Photography is a great way for me to give back the glory to God and share the valuable lessons I’ve learned from Sir Jong and my fellow photographers at Imagine Nation to people who share our passion for this craft. Being able to shoot for a living has been such a blessing from God and to be able to write what you love doing is another gift I am grateful to God for.
Yesterday my first ever article came out. My first topic was about off-camera flash for outdoor portraits….expect more articles to come every 2 weeks.
God bless!
Just a few more days to go and Imagine Nation will be hitting the shores of Boracay! The anticipation and excitement is at fever pitch!
We are celebrating two important milestones in our Imagine Nation family as we shall be witnessing not only one but two weddings from our very own. Our mentor, John Mateos Ong and Monique Lopez will tie the knot on July 1. Also, one of our master photographers, Jason De Guzman is getting married to Loi Concepcionon July 4.
John and Monique
Jason and Loi
Most of us will be there from July 1 to 6. We may not be able to reply to our emails as quickly as we want to so better text or give us a call on our cell if you need to contact us.
Lovely sunsets and being in the company of great friends…what more can we ask for. Thank you God for such a wonderful blessing. To everyone attending, see you there! Bora here we come!
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite Before we release the much awaited engagement shoot of our dear friends’ Jason and Loi…we’d like to give you a sneak peak of how that historical day transpired.There’s so many things to share of what happened that and we hope that through these images we are able to show how super fun and memorable that day was.
We gotta eat right! A hungry photographer will not function well 
The Road Trip was anything but boring.
Never a dull moment with these folks.
Off to our secret getaway more on the official post!
The lovely couple.
Before we start with our shoots, we always start with a prayer.
Jesy in her element.
Jayjay being himself.
My favorite shot for that day. “That could have been me!”
The ladies.
That’s me taking a break!
The power couple Erron and Jesy!
Into the woods…
Jason….a picture of happiness 
Tiqui… always searching for the perfect moment.
The whole crew.
Goin’ back…
The final set.
Last Sunday, I witnessed a very emotional and moving moment. Jason, Jamie and I covered the wedding of Tiboy and Meg and we taking family portraits before we left the hotel to go church. It was Meg’s dad turn to have a portrait with just the two of them. As we told them to look at each other, her dad suddenly was about break into tears, as he could not contain what he felt inside. He pulled away and went to the back of Meg trying to hide his tears from her daughter. As Meg glanced back to see her dad wiping his tears , she began to also tear up.
I must admit that I was caught by surprise because more often it is the Mom who usually cries. I would normally expect a parent to tear up as a bride walks down the aisle at church. As Meg and her dad were overwhelmed with their emotions, they were unmindful of our cameras, which gave us this rare event to witness and capture. I believe this shows the true heart of a wedding - being able to capture raw moments that tell a moving story. Personally, this image for me speaks so powerfully about a Father’s love for her daughter as he gives away his daughter away on her wedding. A moment that all of us may experience someday whether as a parent or a child. After everything has been said and done, all that is left are photographs and videos that brings a couple and their families back to a special day and help them remember how they all felt and what they experienced that day.
God has truly blessed our team that day as we were able to do our share in revealing for Tiboy and Meg the heart of their wedding. More images to come soon…
These are a few shots from my sister’s kodak underwater disposable film camera …my first impression.. not bad right! The exposure and colors are just right. This was taken from our trip to Coron, Palawan a few months ago (which I still need to post). Its a good thing she brought this camera since when you go island hopping and swimming in the different lagoons there’s no way you can use an SLR camera since you need to get in the water in order to move around and explore.
That’my sister Renel.
That’s my sister, Graciel. She’s the one who brought the underwater cam.
The images looked like we were shipwrecked and lost at sea
More snaps from under the sea…
I think from now on i’ll bring an underwater cam when travelling to beaches
The other day my dad told me that he had an extra 24″ LCD monitor at his office. He asked me if I’d like to use it but I really did not see the need for it but I said yes anyway thinking I might just find something to use it for. I now realize I can do more things to multi-task with it. I can do my surfing on the big monitor while I can do other stuff on the small monitor. There are other advantages too, using a bigger monitor really helps when I check album designs and when I sort through or do some post-processing on my images.
As you can see below I still need to calibrate the new monitor and I’m still researching on how I can fix the resolution. It seems when I put my mac turn off the mirror mode, where I can do two different things on the two screens at the same time, the images are sharper compared to running them simultaneously like the image below. I don’t consider myself an expert on this stuff maybe you can help? Anyways, I’ll find more ways to make the most of this set-up but I’m lovin’ it
Once in a while I get to do commercial and editorial work. I’d like to share something that’s dear to my heart…Food! I love to eat and its quite natural for me to like shooting them What I like about shooting food is that it challenges me to go out of my comfort zone of just shooting people and it helps me hone my studio lighting skills. So here are some of my food photography shots.
These first two images are from my Food Styling and Photography class I took from Jo Avila. I learned a lot about how you light food and the logic behind how you style food to make it more appealing in pictures.
The next two are from a shoot I did for Town and Country Philippines.
These two was from a friend of mine who owns a restaurant and he got me to shoot for his menu and marketing materials.
When I travel, I also like to shoot the food I eat…
