Thursday, June 7, 2012

On Influences [pt 1]


Let's start with the firsts.


The first street photographer I've ever known was Sir Luis Liwanag (also a photo- and videojournalist). I might have seen works of other street photographers before but it seemed that I didn't bother knowing who they are, or that I wasn't really interested in SP yet when I stumbled upon them, or maybe I was just plain busy harvesting likes from my random artsy hippy photos then. 


Me and Sir Luis


I first heard about Sir Luis when a friend's brother messaged me last November telling that Sir Luis will be holding a street photography workshop (Wide Open Streets) here in Baguio. The brother was so enthusiastic about telling the news so I thought, this might be something. Intrigued by his name (srsly! haha. Astig e!) and the workshop itself, I looked him up on facebook and found his works. I was awed. His street photos were full of life and soul. Heck they even made me laugh! His sense of humor and eye for oddities were so evident in his works. I was an instant fan. Too bad I wasn't able to join the workshop because of two reasons: (1) I was out of town and, (2) I've got no pesos to pay. *facepalm* So I just resorted to studying his works and trying to imitate/emulate/chocolate them. But to no avail. I had no idea what I was doing back then. I even used an 18-200mm on the street and shot voyeuristically! (More on why telephotos are "bad" in SP on later posts)


One of my first futile attempts at SP


Clueless to the errors I was doing, I continued shooting SP the wrong way. Until, months later, Ate Rina, the chief photojournalist of our university school paper, informed me that Sir Luis will be a guest speaker/lecturer in a journalism symposium organized by them. Without any questions asked, I opted to go! 
*fast forward to the symposium* 


Meeting Sir Luis was like meeting a celebrity for me. I was such a fan boy. :)) I wasn't really surprised that he's so easy to go along with. It just reflects on his works. He lectured about reportage/photojournalism and showed a bit of his works on video, too. We even got to join him in a photowalk the next day, even though that wasn't really included in the symposium programme. Sabit lang kumbaga. But that's when he actually taught us SP. He was so generous in giving ideas, as if every little secret that he knows about the field was made available to us, nonworthy beings. I learned much. But I I knew I had to learn even more. A half-day's worth of lecture/photowalk is simply not enough. Someday, I'd join his workshops. :D


*Following are shots taken on the said photowalk.








[... pt 2 ...]

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