Cubao Nights
First of all I want to thank Dennis Villegas and Dodong Flores for inviting me to photograph Cubao at night. Both are long time photographers and Filipino bloggers. They were great company and a joy to have them as companions on this nightly photo shoot. I never really enjoyed the company of other photographers during photo shoots but this time I liked it because we left each other enough space to take pictures of the things that we wanted.
Street photography is really what I enjoy most... and sad to say I was quite lazy lately. It was really nice to hit the streets again...
I want to express my special thanks to Dennis who was born in New York and educated in Harvard... both locations are... in Cubao (Quezon City, Metro Manila). Dennis knows Cubao like the back of his hand and having him as a guide at night was priceless. I really felt at ease and safe... which is not obvious in a big city like Metro Manila especially during night time.
Let me also point out that Dennis share the same photographic interests as me. Both of us tend to focus on “people” and their daily lives/plight. Dennis is more fanatic than me... he will not hesitate to sleep on the streets with homeless people just to experience the hardship of those individuals. He is quite an amazing guy!
Dennis did some wonderful photo series about the Kalakal boys (scavengers), about polluted esteros/rivers, about rugby boys, about street paupers, about the Filipino smile, the Filipina woman... and countless other human interest photo series. His blog is quite unique and I absolutely recommend his blog “Dennis Villegas: reportage on people, places, events and chismis.”
Dennis, keep up the good work!
Cubao Nights is just a collection of random pictures that I took during our six hour nightly walk in Cubao... there is no special theme... I just tried to capture the mood of the moment... all my pictures were taken hand held with no flash with the exception of two odd ones.
All my pictures are converted in a duo tone with a slight brown color... most pictures are grainy... not very sharp... it was not really done on purpose... but I like the way those images came out in the end... it expresses the way I saw the things... a bit dark... a bit hazy...
I might have done this in pure black but I wanted to convey an atmosphere that is neither creepy nor menacing since this was not what I felt that particular night...
Anyway...enough talking...
