Archive for April, 2009

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…

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Underwater Fun in Palawan

April 27, 2009

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.

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That’s my sister, Graciel. She’s the one who brought the underwater cam.

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The images looked like we were shipwrecked and lost at sea :)

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More snaps from under the sea…

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I think from now on i’ll bring an underwater cam when travelling to beaches :)

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Monitor Mania

April 24, 2009

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 :)

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There’s so many shoots I want to post and I just am lost where to begin. I really want to blog all my shoots as much as I can but it seems whenever I try to start something always comes up. I’m also in charge now of the quality control of our albums and we are coming up with new and better designs and products. I guess that’s what’s occupying most of my time these days. Enough excuses! :) This was a wedding I shot with Erron of December last year and I was his second shooter here. I know this is kinda late but I still have a lot of shoots from December last year that I believe is worth sharing. I’ll try to alternate with the more recent and previous ones on my posts. Algene and Marife are both based in Dubai…all I can say about this couple aside from being so nice is that they were really so game to try anything and they were really natural in front of the camera…hardly no coaching needed they were like models who knew how to emote in front of the camera.

These camel stuff toys they brought from Dubai were so cute.

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Algene and Marife really knew how to strike a pose.

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Hotel Preps: Vivere Suites, Alabang

Church: St. James

Reception: Fernbrook

Wedding Coordination: Christine Ong-Te Events

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Food!

April 15, 2009

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.

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The next two are from a shoot I did for Town and Country Philippines.

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These two was from a friend of mine who owns a restaurant and he got me to shoot for his menu and marketing materials.

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When I travel, I also like to shoot the food I eat…

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PJ and Chet’s Wedding

April 14, 2009

PJ and Chet are both doctors and I only got to meet them a week before their wedding day.  I was looking forward to this wedding because after two years of shooting weddings, this was my first time at Fernwood. I’ve shot there last year but it was for the Weddings @ Work party. Anyways, here’s how the day went…

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I thought of doing something different with the bride about to wear her gown.

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Also, I got to use my new Tokina 11-16 f2.8 lens for this shoot. I love its ultra-wideness! It tells a different story and shows a different view of things for these next three shots.

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Anything for a shot…I had to stand on the ledge in order to get this angle. Good thing there was a lamp post and Marjun to hold on to :)

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and here’s my fave for that day.

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Coming to America

April 8, 2009

This morning, I received an unexpected surprise and blessing, I got booked for my first U.S. Wedding! Thank you Lord!

After I just woke, I read a text message from our mentor, Sir Jong,  to check our online booking calendar. I didn’t check it at once since I usually gravitate towards checking my email first after I wake up in the morning. I saw on my email an inquiry for a wedding shoot for October 10, 2010 from a girl named Frances. She only mentioned her wedding date but no place and time. It  then occurred to me that this may be related to Sir Jong’s text message and hurried to check our booking calendar and to my surprise I saw – Enrique and Frances, October 10, 2010, Grand Newport Plaza, California.

Ok,  I was a bit confused and I only have an inquiry email but how come I was already booked on that date. I texted Sir Jong to double check if it they were the same girl and he said it was and she already paid for the reservation date. It turns out, they were already talking and Frances decided to book me. WOW! Thanks Sir Jong!

Early this year, I really prayed to God and asked him to let me experience shooting U.S. destination weddings. Months went by and it seemed like it would not come anytime soon but I remained hopeful someday it will come and it eventually did!

In times like these,  God has reminded and affirmed me how faithful he is and hears our prayers. That we just need to hold on to him and joyfully wait for him. For there may be times that the things we pray for don’t readily get answered by God because he may be teaching us something or he feels that it is not yet the right time. But at the end of the day, God will always deliver, but in his time and not ours.

Here’s the Grand Newport Plaza in Costa Mesa, California where I’ll  be shooting Enrique and Frances’ Wedding.

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I’d like to leave you with this wonderful verse that Sir Jong shared to us last Monday.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7

This verse really sums up my experience leading up to this day. When we anchor our faith in Christ, all things are possible. May God be praised!

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Yesterday I shot this groovy engagement session of Cyril and Ferdine.  The location and clothes they wore were so funky and I really salute them for really planning how they wanted their shoot to look like.. Here’s  a preview of what’s in store….more to come!

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Last weekend, Jason, Gen and I  headed to Punta Fuego for the much awaited shoot of Elmer and Gie. They are our friends in our Single’s for Christ community. We’ ve shot in Fuego before but I believe we were able to discover new locations and make this shoot different from our previous ones. We love the house that we stayed as you’ll see later on. It was such a blessed weekend being in the company of good friends and shooting a great locations.

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We rose up early to start our whole day adventure. We were on our way to our first location when we stumbled upon this nice hill. We just had to stop and take a few snaps.

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We then proceeded to the marina for our “Nautica” set.

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For this shoot, I really wanted to show more of the range of emotions they have for each other.

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It was almost noon and it was getting a bit hot but good thing this location provided the perfect shade. I felt like shooting at the Grand Canyon for this set.

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By this time we headed back to the house for lunch and since it was noontime already, the sun was to0 harsh for us to shoot so we decided to shoot at the house first.

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Then we went to the backyard which was the beach! How cool is that!

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This one’s definitely my favorite set for the day. We coined this the “Out of Africa” set. I’ve been really wanting and searching for this kind of scenery to shoot at and God really blessed us with this cool place.

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Then back to the house for some glamour shots.

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The next day, we just could not resist to shooting at our beachfront house.

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Last shot of the day , time to get wet including the photographers :)

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