where the sky meets the ocean

the horizon is varying shades of blue. a line separates air from water. the sky is so bright i have to squint to look out. the temperature here is a constant (perfect-for-michelle) mid 80's. even the water is at room temperature. it's 7 am, the surfers have been out on the water since 5. i haven't even had coffee yet. thankfully i'm not one of the can't-function-without-coffee people. it's just too hot for anything brewed right now.

2 reasons for the series of shots shown above. i re-committed to a project on flickr. it's called 365. i have to do a self portrait of some type everyday for 365 days. the last time i tried this i got to day 170... then life took over. at first i thought it wouldn't be too bad of a project but lemme tell you. i've woken up in the middle of the night horrified that i forgot to take a shot. ran to the camera, clicked the shutter without even bothering to wipe the drool off my face or the sleep from my eyes and called the obligation done. other times i would get bored with the same picture over and over that i would push myself to get more creative. and actually... perfectionist that i am, it takes more than one shot to get the one i want. or i might get over enthusiastic about a concept. whatever. it's been a really great excercise to help improve my craft. i got close to halfway thru the last time now i'm trying again. i've already gone in a month deep. so expect to see more pictures of me than you are probably comfortable with. chalk it down to peristence, an innate need to share and a slight hint of vanity.

oh... and the other reason for the pictures above is to share with you the quality of my new toy. i have the olympus sw 1030 point and shoot camera. it's a waterproof, shockproof compact camera. really fun in the water and so far so good on the quality of the pictures. i only have 2 complaints about it right now. the shutter is on the top left corner (kind of) of the camera... i like to take pictures from unusual angles and it makes it hard for me to estimate the shot because the shutter is in an unusual place. my old point and shoot was a canon elph (which i loved but died after 4 years of abuse) and it's shutter was smack middle.. where it belonged. the other thing i don't like is that in their attempt as user friendiness, it seems that they made the application more cumbersome than useful. other than that... i'm liking it quite a bit.

i've obviously tried out the waterproof claim, i'll share more underwater pictures on another post, but the pictures so far have been clear. i haven't taken it thru to deep waters yet. i'll let curtis handle that QA process. but olympus claims that it's good up to 10 meters. the shockproof feature is supposed to be for up to 5 feet... i don't think i'll be testing that feature at all. i don't relish the idea of tossing my camera to find out the claim was false. i'm too far from home and the olympus repair center for that. i'll count waves crashing as a good enough test for this little toy's resilience.

that's it for now! till next time!

first impressions

we arrived in san juan, la union after a looooooong 170+ mile drive from manila.  we left at 4 in the morning to avoid the usual traffic.  it was a sleepy 5 hour drive for curtis and i who had been up all night drinking and playing pool with my cousins. thank god for mang willie, our driver, who got us there safely and quickly.  for my cali friends and fam.. i know that 5 hours for 170+ miles sounds kinda long.  try to remember that the roads here are not as smooth, wide or accessible as the long stretches of CA freeways.  trust me when i say 5 hours was fast.

we arrived on a saturday morning and despite the beauty of it all, i am embarrassed to say that we spent the next 4 hours in bed fast asleep.  when we got up we hastily put our belongings away and started exploring the new diggs.  it's the weekend, people are in from the city ready to enjoy the scenery and get some surf lessons.  our new home is right on the beach and a few steps away from a string of surf resorts.  we sauntered over to observe the activity and get our bearings.

the series of pictures below gives you a taste of our first week here ...

a jeepney over looks the ocean like a contemplative surfer.

kids are kids no matter which side of the world they are on.  these two are new found acquiantances exploring beach life together.

to the left is a reef diver coming up for air.  on the right is a daylight shot of the moon watching over the surfers down below (taken at about 7am).  hold your surprise... yes, curtis and i have been getting up at 6 am almost every morning to get him into the water and ready to surf.  eat your heart out bobby! :D

creatures large and small, our companions in this new home.  btw... isn't that an interesting mohawk on that caterpillar?  (i'm talking about the yellow thing not curtis).  i've got a video of it too.

an ocean filled with treasures.  our collection of finds.

the beach entrance, the gateway to home.  please note that the 2 pictures below are not photoshopped at all.  the white balance setting on the camera was set to auto.  the yellow tinge on those pictures is what brought us out that afternoon with a camera.  i thought for sure that there was a fire nearby.  the last time i saw the sky this yellow was when the fires were blazing in the california mountains.  as it turns out, the only blaze was the sun setting and the clouds were reflecting all the color around us.

the view from our favorite spot, a hammock in the palapa.  it's the best place to have a nap.  the wind rocks gently and the steady sound of the crashing waves play in the background lulling you to peaceful sleep.

and as the sun begins to set we are thankful for another day and look forward to more fun tomorrow.  oh and we need to decide what's for breakfast.

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.