Fine is good

Damn! Something so simple for me became a lot more complicated. In the second session of our workshop, we were fortunate enough to have the honor of a Srilankan international photographer who is somewhat based here in Manila, Tilak Hettige, to do a morning lecture and do some coaching for us since he is around this week. This is an honor apparently since he isn't around the philippines that frequently nowadays. So yay, right? Besides his difficult to understand accent he was very inspiring. So I guess it's a yay.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Most of the lecture involved a lot of AVP's about his works that showcases his styles and techniques with a lot of tips. And I must say, his photographs are total drool-worthy materials. And I couldn't even believe that he primarily uses film cameras. Which leaves image retouching through photoshop or other softwares out of the question. The challenge is that we just have to have this critical eye that sees beauty in everything, no matter how ugly everyone thinks a thing is. So, that makes things difficult since we are used taking photos of things that we see as beautiful. It is a difficult thing to make something ugly into a beautiful masterpiece. (mental voice: Eh paano kung pangit lang talaga siya!?!?!?)

Later in the morning we were thrown into the almost midday heat to take photos. We were no more than 10 seconds outside the lecture room and we were sweating like pigs. We were divided into big groups and were assigned a single subject per group. Our subject was this Aloe Vera plant with bushes clustered around it. Geezuz! It's a big clump of green all over. What's interesting about that??? Then Mr. Hettige explained that we have to find what is interesting about it. Perhaps, the thorns that protrudes on the sides of the leaves? Yeah, but the light is not flattering anything about it, so what now? Then he explained that the light then flatters the slight tint of yellow on the sides. Then he asked if we could see it. We were all staring blankly with "uhhhm.. okay..." coming out of our mouths. He then left us alone to do the assignment and instruced us that we could wander around to get photos of other subjects after getting enough photos of the plant.

The situation of our groupings is quite frustrating. We were at least 10 in the group and were supposed to just use one camera from somebody. The problem is, most of my groupmates have digitals and started shooting with their own anyway. Leaving us film users just standing there doing nothing since we weren't given any film to use. Everybody just clustered around the plant and started shooting, while the other non-digital people were directing and instructing people who are shooting what he/she can do. Ideas and watchamacallit's started to saturate around them and condensed into a cloud, blanketing everyone. (susmaryuseyp! ang daming Bibo!) I decided to just stay in the background and chat up other classmates who are in the same bind as I am. I just followed around, lagging behind.

Until I saw this scene and quickly grabbed my phone and took a quick snapshot:


The one by the arc is Mel my seatmate while the man whose back is turned to us is Lesh, the guy from Malaysia. Because of the midday lighthing some parts of the picture are washed out. But, since I only used a camera from a phone, I couldn't complain.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

The day wasn't that really frustrating. Remember my dread about last weeks practice shoot? Well, some photos turned out fine. With a sigh of relief, I thanked the high heavens things weren't worse for me, unlike my other classmates. In the afternoon, we had a lecture about composition. We had our best photos from last week posted on the whiteboard for everyone to critique. My photo was not the bestseller (the others' were enthralling, which makes me question the authenticity of these photos. Something is not right about these picture but i got no proof) but when the lecturer did an individual critique of the photos my shot was one of the images that stood out for the lecturer. It was praised for a good technique and exposure and it said that it has very good composition. Which made her ask if it was my first time to attend a class about photography. When I replied with a yes, she gave me a doubtful look and expressed that she doesn't think so. Uuuuuyyy..... propeyshonal daw! harhar!

So we had another round of practice shooting late in the afternoon and found some interesting places to shoot in. I still might feel some dread about the outcome of my photos yet, I'm still confident that everything will be fine. Not sure if it would be great, but at least it's fine. Fine is good.