just the two of us

we spent the last month with family at my home town taytay (just a 45 min drive and a lot of traffic away from manila).  a week ago we trekked on to our planned destination san juan, la union. it's the closest surf town to manila -- a 5 hour drive from the city and a common weekend getaway for surf pilgrims from the city.  we'll be spending the next six weeks here.

i haven't been blogging of late since the internet wasn't up at the place we're staying.... but it's up now!!!  the garden plage (that's not a misspelling) is a green oasis on this stretch of beach.  the little cottage we rented is surrounded by shady trees, grass and quaint little huts on a fairy ground by the ocean.  it really is picturesque, perfect for a garden party.  and the people running it are downright loveable.  i'll be posting pictures of it in the next few blogs.  this might be the perfect time to say that our cottage has a spare room.  that's an open invitation to all interested parties.  and if it gets too crowded, the main house has 3 rooms available for a nominal fee.

in the 17 1/2 years i spent in the philippines i never really experienced public commuting and every californian knows that public transportation in cali is, more often than not, an inconvenience.  this last week i've been catching up on all that.  we've been taking the jeepney and tricycle EVERYWHERE!  as if we had so many places to go lol! 

there actually isn't much to do in this little town other than surf and relax.  we usually start out the day with a morning surf for curtis.  i hang out at the nearby resorts reading a book or teaching myself more about lightroom and photoshop while the boy is out on the water.  we have market day a couple of times a week to give us something to do and to stock the fridge.  there's a little mall 15 mins away that has a handful of shops (most of them shoes :D) and a small theater that gives one respite from the constant heat.  there's supposed to be a casino nearby the likes of vegas that we haven't checked out yet.  in all honesty, the little alleys in the market is fun exploration for me.

we've devised a work out regiment to keep me from exploding into fatness since i still haven't summoned up the courage to try surfing myself.  there's actually a surf school around here with some awesome and very patient instructors.  some of the locals we've made friends with are puzzled by my inhibitions.  i tell them that i'm worried my contacts will wash away but really i'm more worried about making an ass of myself when the board hits me on the head.  there are actually quite a number of girls coming out from the city to learn how to surf.  i envy them their courage but my response to trying it out myself is... "you're so brave!  i'll be here snapping a picture when you stand up". 

at night the shops close early.  even the pool hall down the way was closed by 7pm to our surprise.  so we spend the evenings walking on the beach awed by the things that come to life at night.  we'll pull out a deck of cards and play till curtis gets tired of losing, hang out at the palapa and enjoy the breeze and in the absence of tv, watch dvd's on our laptops.  relaxation at it's finest.

in the coming weeks i'm planning on some 2-3 day excursions to some "nearby" towns.  there are a few places i want to check out while we're this far north of manila...

• benguet, home to the rice terraces of the philippines once made it into the list of the 7 wonders of the world is an 8 hour bus drive from here
• hundred islands in the city of alaminos is 2 hours south of us. comprised of 123 natural islands and islets some inhabitable and all of them just a few mins boat ride away from each other.
• vigan, a coastal city known for its architecture dating back to the spanish colonial times of the 16th century and is a 4 hour bus ride away
• pagudpod, a couple more hours past vigan is another beach town with stretches of white sand and more surf for the boy.

for now it's a lot of beach time, relaxation and time for the two of us to get to know each other better. 

keep in touch everyone and i'll be blogging more regularly.

starting over

i was 30 years old with 12 years of fashion retail in my back pocket when i finally got my college degree. i graduated with a bachelor's in programming...worlds away from my work experience. unless i wanted to throw all my school loans and hard work out the window i was going to have to walk away from everything that was familiar to me and start over.

oh to be at the bottom of the stack again... to be the newbie, the little fish in the giant bowl, to be the nobody, to re-establish, to prove myself and to take that painful pay cut. it was enough to lose sleep over. but i did it. now i look back fondly at the fear and stomach churning memories thinking it was the best move ever. no regrets.

when i started up with my photography hobby it was an accident. i had a little canon elph -- a christmas gift that showed up in the mail in time for a new year's party. i took the first picture and couldn't put it down for a whole year. there were a lot of shaky blurry pictures that first night (some in part to lack of experience and some might remember that i was a little too tipsy and maybe too giggly to take sharp photos). i fell in love with photography that night. i told myself that if i was dedicated enough to it i would buy myself a big girl camera in a year.

big girl cameras didn't seem to expensive when i looked into them at the time. the kits seemed affordable enough. i didn't know the difference between the lenses and rationalized that i was just playing. i didn't need anything over the top. i developed another hobby on the side, making earrings. pretty soon i was selling enough of those to pay for my new toy. i graduated into my big girl camera by november of 2006.

love had grown into passion. i took pictures of everything and everyone that would let me. one of the girls in our office found out about my new toy and asked if i would take her engagement photos and i gladly acquisced rationalizing that it was just play time. she wasn't paying me so it wasn't a risk for either of us. to my surprise... she loved them! but then she asked if i would take her wedding photos. that was no longer a playful question and i backed down. a wedding was more responsibility than i was ready for at the time but it certainly got me thinking.

it's been a year and a half since soraya's engagement photos and i've been busy building a network of clients and growing my portfolio. i've done events, portraits, headshots, a few weddings and even a magazine ad since... all this while i held down a more than full time job as a business analyst. the hobby has been paying for itself and my bag of goodies has grown. but i never had the opportunity i have now which is to focus more of my time and attention to my photography. but as life would have it... nothing comes easily.

back in the states i could network more easily since i had started the process a year and a half ago, starting from ground zero in the philippines proves to be more than challenging. and so now i come to the whole point behind this entry.

i'm starting over. again. and with that comes some sacrifices for the love of the art. i'm considering doing a couple of weddings this year for no more than cost + the equivalent of $100. cost being travel expenses (since the price of gas is the same everywhere in the world), the album and the 2nd shooter. is anyone out there? is anyone listening? if you are in the philippines (or some country close by) TWO WEDDINGS that i'm willing to do where the photographer's labor is PRACTICALLY FREE! email me... email your friends.. email them to email me. everyone cross your fingers hope that i get somewhere. i'm starting over. i hope i look back on this blog some time in the future with a smile too.

internet was down

when i was a little girl the rains would come and the power would go. couped up in a the house with no electricity and just our imagination to keep us afloat (no pun intended) we needed creativity to stay amused.

that was an excerpt from my 365 entry but there was a bigger story and a hella lot more pictures to that than i posted...

we weren't exactly sitting in the dark but the internet was down for FOUR days! looking at these pictures you might say we went stir crazy but really we were just having fun. cosmetics, a willing victim, a household of entertainers and a trigger itchy camera finger later we had a montage of insanity. it's too bad i'm not as handy with a video camera. these would make for some great home movies.

discombobulated

is that even a word? really? i feel as confused as it sounds. we went to go see eagle eye the other day. great movie by the way! it comes at a perfect time. the 25th anniversary of wargames. but i digress...

sometimes i come out of a movie theater and get really turned around. a piece of me gets left behind in that dark theater... my sense of direction. i get so engaged in the movie i forget which path i took to get there. this time it went a little farther. american actors, cold air and the lack of humidity in the room made me think i was home. HOME! that was the term i had floating in my head as the credits rolled thru the screen. the conversation around me snapped me out of my american haze and brought me back to manila. it was then that i realized how i used the term HOME.

in the past, home meant a warm bowl of sinigang, laughter around the table with family and a world full of greenery. now it was a freezing theater and an american accent? i was somewhat surprised by my disorientation. it made me pause.. i guess i have 2 homes. from the colder side of the world i would think of home and sigh at how much i missed it, here i am now in that place wishing i could easily jump back.

dual citizenship has its pros and cons. i can never have both worlds easily. i can never bring all that i love and cherish into one place. i can never be truly home.