Ferdz Decena Digital Dispatches

Seair Inflight June-July 2009 Cover

This is a very special issue for me since it is actually my first cover work for Seair Inflight Magazine. The cover photo was shot in the beautiful rugged island of Batan in Batanes. This one was a really challenging assignment since it involves hours at the sea along ripping waves and some bad weather at times. I even got seasick and threw out my very heavy lunch on the first day. We originally had some other shoots for the cover but I also kinda like this one since it goes well with the title of the main story “Desperate Angler” written by Chip Childers . More details about it later, but for the meantime read on for the editorial note.

Issue Contents:
I was on holiday recently in the UK when I noticed a text message from Monica, our managing editor. “Please call me. URGENT!” it said. Which is all very well, but I was in the depths of Cornwall, one of the remotest parts of England, and we were staying in an old house hemmed in by cliffs on one side and raging sea on the other. The nearest phone signal was five miles away along dark, tricky tracks. One false move in the car and it’s a Cornish rerun of Thelma and Louise.

I must remind Monica not to use the word urgent without giving me an idea of exactly what urgent means. Urgent someone has just decapitated himself on the office Xerox machine or urgent someone need’s a day off? There was nothing for me to do but wait, going over all the connotations of urgent.

Next morning, I had some trouble dragging my 11-year-old daughter away from the beach to go to town in search of a signal. When I got Monica on the line the urgent matter was not so urgent after all. No death, no divorce, and no disease.

Experienced angler Tony Barrios hadn’t been able to make it on the flight out to Batanes for our fishing cover story. But another angler, Gordon Uy, was willing to help. Our writer wasn’t able to make it either and recommended Chip Childers, who comes from a family of anglers.

In the course of a few days, there were more text messages. Chip wasn’t able to catch a fish. The weather was not good, fierce waves rocked the boat, photographer Ferdz Decena was seasick and threw up. And then there was an accident at sea, when the fishing boat the editorial group was renting broke its propeller.

When I finally got the story and the photos, it was with a sigh of relief.

When you go out at sea to fish, you put yourself in the hands of the elements, and learn to respect and enjoy it. As one fisherman once said: “Fishing is like lovin’. You have to take it slow.”

Childers didn’t get his big fish, but he seemed to have a damn good time trying. (Story on page 42)

– Editor, SEAIR InFlight Magazine

Credits:
Cover concept by: SEAIR InFlight
Cover photo by: Ferdz Decena

Contributing photographers: Ferdz Decena, Wacky Gochoco, Raymond Isaac, Carlos Legaspi, Leonard Pe, Oggie Ramos, Rachel Rillo, Jeffrey Sonora, and the list goes on…

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+632 840.2802

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