The Fireworks in Makati to welcome 2012

Good bye 2011! It has been a good year but 2012 holds a lot of promise. The recent holiday season, we had a lot of foreign relatives visitng our humble home in the Philippines, it was fitting that I stay in the metro but it was a fun staycation. I decided to welcome the new year in Makati for their Magical! Musical! New Year’s Countdown 2011. it’s the second time for me to welcome the new year here but it was a lot better, organized and more extravagant. The stage and the lighting was awesome, I was also able to catch The Dawn’s pumped up performance and the fireworks, the whole 15 minutes of was magnificent. A great way to enter the new year. Sharing here soem photos from that night.

The awesome stage at Ayala Avenue

The Dawn still knows how to rock the crowd

Jett Pangan of the Dawn

The Crowd at the booths

Blinking little items

The fireworks along Makati Avenue

More Fireworks

And more fireworks!!

Happy New Year! May you all have a blessed and prosperous 2012! For more photos you can check my SmugMug Gallery!

Old Bagan in the morning

With over 2200 temples spread out on a dusty 26-square mile plane, Bagan is a stunning landscape of temples dating as early 11th-13th century. As dawn breaks, light paints a dramatic play of shadows and gradients on the vast land of temples and trees. For a moment, the horizon is like a sea with a sharp waves from the temples coalescing harmoniously.

Shot in Old Bagan, The Sea of Temples is available for print here. Property and Copyright by Ferdz Decena.

Kar Grobl at Atok (Olympus E-PL1, Lumix 20mm, f3.5, 1/640, ISO 200)

I recently had a chance to work with Humanitarian Photojournalist, Karl Grobl on their first Jim Cline Photo Tour in the Philippines. I find his knack for people photography impressive most especially that he’s a JPG shooter and his images doesn’t rely much on Post-processing. I have a short interview with Karl on Philippine Star’s Online Edition at Unblogged which I’m writing weekly for a limited time. At the interview we discussed why he chose the Philippines, his type of Photography and also some travel related stuff.

Mang Ramon (Olympus E-PL2, Lumix 20mm, f1.7, 1/25, ISO 1600, WB Auto)

I met Mang Ramon, the owner of Rita’s Inn in Batad, Ifugao while he was grinding a few betel nuts to chew in a corner by the dining area. His humble and heavily bearded appearance was deceiving as one would just ignore him as one of the elders until he speaks. His English was fluent and had stories as many as the lines in his face. Before I left Rita’s Inn, probably the oldest inn in Batad, he wanted me to see his Ifugao House which he inherited from his father. It was probably more than a century old. Inside the elaborate Ifugao House are his collections of antiques.

What’s more interesting at that moment was the lighting on his figure. The lighting was dim and Mang Ramon would usually sway from his position. I pushed the ISO of the Olympus PEN E-PL2 to 1600 and shot wide open at f1.7. It took several attempts until I asked him to stay still for a second and got a really sharp one. I liked this portrait as it captures the context of the subject perfectly.

Mang Pol Curato (Olympus E-PL1, Lumix 20mm, f1.8, 1/1250sec, ISO 200, )

His name is Pol Curato, we simply call him Mang Pol. He was our guide from our recent tour in Corregidor Island. He’s been guiding here for about 3 decades now, a heritage himself yet still witty in his lectures and trivia.

Here he raises an illustration of some victorious Japanese along with the gun at Battery Hearn, where we were at that time.

Backpack Photography will be having a Photo Tour in Corregidor. Join us on July 2-3, 2011 as we show you how to Capture Corregidor in a New Light.

A kid in Binondo

As most mature photographers would say, “The Best Camera is the one you have”. This is more true now when Mobile Phone’s imaging capabilities are getting powerful and closer to replacing a common point and shoot cameras. I’ve had my Nokia N8 for more than half a year now and am very much impressed with its 12mp larger than usual camera sensors. As much as Nokia is currently having multiple personality disorders with their Operating System of choice, we can’t deny Nokia produces phones with mean hardware especially on the multimedia department. So here I’m sharing 15 of my favorite photographs taken with the Nokia N8.

Batad Ifugao Morning Light

Mt Pinatubo Crater and Boats

Batad's Tappia Falls

Candaba Bird Hide View

Batad Rice Terraces Patterns

Ayala triangle's Festival of Lights

Burnt and barren in Zambales

Nagsasa Serene Morning

The White Rock Kapurpurawan

Chinese Angpao

4x4 Run at Mount Pinatubo

Interiors at Hotel Elizabeth

Hongkong Skyscrapers

Nat Geo Earth Day Run 2011

Angeles Flagellant (Olympus E-PL2, 40-150mm at 100mm, F5, 1/250, ISO 200)

It was a Bloody Good Friday at Angeles, Pampanga. We were there to witness the Siete Palabras (The Seven Last Words) re-enactment which is a first at Barangay Lourdes, Angeles City. It was chaotically interesting I could say. But alongside there were numerous flagellants. At first I thought I couldn’t handle the gore, the pain of seeing them punish themselves and their blood splattering all over the place but it was interesting to observe their practice of this old Filipino tradition.