Chasing Light

My photo buddies and I attended another landscape workshop, this time with landscape gurus, Jay Jallorina and Edwin Martinez.  The thing was, I had to go straight from Puerto Galera (for the RX summer fling), to Pagsanjan (where the workshop was being held), and I had to get there by 9am!  The earliest boat out was at 7am, which ended up 7:30am, which didn’t leave until past 8am, so I didn’t get to the Batangas port until about 9:30am.  Delle dropped me off at Turbina in Sto. Tomas, where I was supposed to take a jeep, then a bus, then a tricycle, to hell knows where.  Thank goodness someone suggested I just hire a jeep to take me all the way there.  I talked to a jeepney driver who was next in line in the terminal and I asked if I could hire him instead.  He chopped me (in Tagalog: tinaga niya ko), but with 5 bags filled with heavy gear, who was I to argue?  Thankfully I wasn’t too late, got there by 11am, just a mere 2 hours behind.

It was cool to hear insights from such great talents like Jay and Edwin, and they were so willing to share what they know about the craft.  I wasn’t able to take as many shots as I would’ve liked, but learn a lot I did!  For me the most aliw thing I learned was how to put false colors into my infrared photos. I like my reddish-orange IR pics, but it’s nice to have an option now, to give them false colors, to get that more traditional “icy” feel to infrared photography.  I’m so excited to try and post-process my other IR pics to see which version I prefer.

Unfortunately, I injured myself the next day.  Early sunrise shoot, at Lumot cove, and as I was walking to another site to set up, I didn’t realize that there was an abandoned carabao watering hole directly in my path.  Since they weren’t using it anymore (they had fresh new ones), tall grass grew on it, camouflaging it so well, as for me to think it was level ground.  One step into it, and BAM!, next thing I knew I was on my back, in the mud, with a twisted ankle.  It was pain, pain, pain, the rest of the day.  During the lectures after, I was walking barefoot because the swelling won’t allow footwear of any kind.  Oh well, anything for the love of photography.  Anyway, these are the 3 photos I liked the best.