The true meaning of life

I was born and raised in the Philippines, the eldest of 5 siblings. I played soccer, sepak takraw and baseball in my gradeschool. And in high school, I learned how to play a bit of guitar and drums and together with my three best mates we formed a band, I played the drums.

This was the early 90’s the generation of alternative rock music, punk rock and rock’n roll. We played mostly cover songs from Nirvana, Sex Pistol and the “Juan de Lacruz band”, a Philippines rock’n roll band. That pretty much was my highschool and college, I’m a drummer in a rock’n roll band, playing soccer in the university varsity team. Music, sports and getting out of trouble, studying and finishing college. That was the goal.

Year 2001 after finishing college I was so eager to get a job, that a month after graduation I got my first job as a veterinary product salesman. Every day I’m driving from one town to another talking to people from all walks of life. Going to places and seeing a lot of landscapes, random street objects, old cars, old houses, street vendors, old people with white hair and those lines in the faces, all of them, I see them like at the back of my head they are in frame like a painting, not a photo. Clearly, in those days I was still ignorant about photography, I know what a camera can do, but the kind of visual experiences that I’m having is way more than taking a photo. I am witnessing and feeling the moments, fleeting moments, and my eyes are the lens, my brain is the sensor, and in one perfect moment, my heartbeat presses the shutter, and those images freeze, and suddenly, at the back of my head, they are in frame. Clearly, I am already a photographer, but I am not yet aware of it.

And it goes on like that for years, and there are occasions like gatherings, parties and work events that every time somebody has a camera I got so attracted by it, and many times the camera would find its way to me and all of the sudden I am the one taking photos. I am so elated and excited every time I’m taking the photo and I knew back then that I’m good at it.

Year 2011, working on sales and marketing for like a decade and in three different industries, veterinary, telecom and pharmaceutical, I realized I’m not getting anywhere. All that is happening is me watching my salary go up, and I am not happy with what I’m doing. And this was the time that cellphones were starting to have cameras and I was becoming more keen on taking photos using my cellphone. Plus a very good friend of mine, Glen Jaucian, a housemate and also a photographer already keeps on telling me to go buy a camera. Cause everytime I borrowed his camera, a Sony Alpha, when I returned it, he would look at the images and he would go “WOW”. 

So that’s it, I made up my mind, I quit corporate sales, and I went home to the province to my parents’ home. My mom’s brother has a Canon 450D, I borrowed it from him every time I could get a chance. And I started my journey.

First I took photos of landscapes, seascapes and random stuff in the street, and I am so blown away by the kind of images that I’m making. I’m so full of energy and excitement, as if I am making it up to myself for those years that I was seeing a lot of painting-like images, but back then, the idea of freezing and capturing or taking a photo was not yet in me.

For the first time in my life, I felt that I was doing something that was very important, and I knew that I had to pursue it, cause I knew that I was good at it, and I also knew that I could improve more. I am so pumped up, inspired and empowered, so much excitement every day.

Then one day an opportunity comes in, a good friend of my father working at the Department of Environment and Natural Resources office, a government office, is looking for a photographer. The job is to photo-document flora and fauna in one wetland area of Cabusao Camarines Sur Philippines. A taxonomy scientific study is needed to be conducted so that the coastal area of the wetlands can be declared as a Protected Area.

A wetlands estuary of some 10 hectares with different species of mangroves and other plant life species providing sanctuary to thousands of migratory shorebird species.

I got the job, and with the help from my Aunt Tess (may she rest in peace) I was able to buy my very first camera, the Nikon D3100 with the kit lens 18-55mm, and I also bought what the remaining money could buy, a Nikkor 70-300mm telephoto, a manual focusing lens (later I realized that the 70-300mm manual focus lens had helped me a lot in honing my skills in focusing and overall with my photography skills).

I did the job from October of 2010 the start of the arrival of the migrating birds from the north seeking the warmer climate of the south to feed, fatten and mate. And I finished the job the April of the next year, just the time that they were starting to fly back going up north again. All in all, I was able to photo document and identify some 30-plus migratory bird species and some 40-plus indigenous bird species and other wildlife species in particular mangrove species. I was like a Nat Geo photographer, I slept in the tent, immersed myself with the local fisher folks, learned their way of life, their foods, I drank a fresh warm Philippine cobra blood mix with the local brandy. The laughter of the community I will never forget that experience, that was one of probably the best days of my life. And if I would be offered again to do the same kind of job, I will never hesitate to accept the job. After the project, I did several more photo documentation jobs for the Department of Environment Protected Ares and Wild Life Bureau.

And my reputation as a wildlife photographer became appealing to other photographers in the city where I lived at that time, Naga City Camarines Sur Philippines. And they started inviting me to their gatherings and getting to know other photographers and working with them was also a wonderful learning experience, and eventually I got offered to shoot as second shooter for engagement, weddings and events. Then I have to part with my Nikon D3100 since amongst the wedding photographers in my circle all of them are in the Canon system. So I bought a Canon 60D body and a Canon 50mm 1.8 lens. The duo workhorse, I shoot engagements, weddings and events with only a 50mm with me, and I’m getting a lot of clients.

After maybe 6 months of being a freelance and doing gig shoots for other studios, I started on my own. I built my website using the platform Weebly, I did my own marketing and after maybe a year of planting, clients started to come in, mostly from word of mouth, recommended by my previous happy clients.

December 12, 2013, in a meeting with a bride and a groom getting married in two days, I met the bridesmaid, and she would be my wife. We click right away like two people who have known each other for a long time. A week after the wedding she flew back to San Francisco where she lives and works as a Physical therapist. We dated online for a year and she applied for my fiancée visa, finally after a year of dating online, on November 15, 2014, I was on a plane to San Francisco the soonest I landed I proposed to her and two days after we got married at the San Francisco City hall. And then she got pregnant and a year after we had our daughter.

Never in my wildest imagination that I would live and work and have a family here in America, in California. Photography takes me to where I am now, to what I am now and I think photography too will show me about how’s the future going be. Photography is my life and I owe a lot to it.

Having a family and starting a family could be very challenging, at times when I’m having too much of what is going on at home I need a quick 2 -3 hours escape, and that’s where I discovered Street Photography.

I go out, ride a train, and immerse myself in the streets of downtown San Francisco with my Leica M9. I’m like swimming and going with the flow until the street has accepted me and I could freely get loose amongst the crowd and yet I’m so exposed to fleeting moments. I became more audacious and tend to get more closer to people, the process of making the connection witnessing the gestures, feeling the energy and being carried away to what is going on is a beautiful experience, it’s therapeutic I am like in meditation. And for me, that is what I needed the most. It sustains me and it makes me the person that I needed to be so I can be the right element in our dynamic at home. It’s me, my wife and my six-month-old daughter, no family no support system, it’s just the three of us so we got to make it work.

I started doing research and watching YouTube videos of famous photographers like Joel Mayerowitz, Harry Gruyaert, Ernst Haas, Ara Guller, Fan Ho, Eugene Smith, Bresson, Yousuf Karsh, Robert Capa and many more. And it is Joel Mayerowitz and Harry Gruyaert that I was able to relate to more, to the style of Joel Mayerowitz, and the color of Harry Gruyaert’s film, they are both mind-blowing. I became addicted to old films. Their photographs become my soul food.

The Leica M9 teaches me a lot, the very simple and minimalistic design, the slowness of the camera and the few and very basic functionalities, enable my artistic instinct to flow out freely from within me. I guess not relying on the auto aspect of the instrument makes me a more focused and thinking photographer. Plus the magnificent image quality is so beautifully film-like, it’s like a film scan. And that is how I started to appreciate the JPEG Straight Out Of Camera shooting, I wanted to preserve the original color from the CCD sensor.

Then comes the pandemic, for almost two years our world stopped.

December of 2021, I was watching a YouTube video when suddenly there was a camera – the Fuji X-Pro3, I watched the review, and another review and another and more related videos.  And after days of research, I became convinced and I said to myself, this is the right camera for me. That same day I sold all my two Canon bodies and their lenses. I sent them all to KEH & MPB, and a week later I bought from Adorama my first Fuji camera, the X-Pro3, with the 16-80mm, the 23mm F1.4 and 35mm F1.4. And my life has never been the same again (and my wife’s too, because she got into street photography also and she also bought a Fuji X-T4 with 18-55mm F2.8 lens).

My first reaction was, why in the world Canon, Nikon or Leica did not make a camera like this, and I felt cheated for a long time. All the camera qualities that I have been looking for, for a long time, were all present in the Fuji X-Pro3. The triangle exposure, setting the f-stop adjustment in the lens ring and the ability of the camera to show me in my viewfinder the actual image that I’m getting, its like having a Lightroom inside my camera, full pack with 1-5 VSCO presets containing my all time favorite Fujifilm VSCO presets. What a creation it is.

Back in the days when was shooting engagements and weddings, while focusing on the subject, I was also thinking of what VSCO preset I would apply on post-processing in Lightroom, but now with the Fuji X-Pro3, I don’t have to do it, plus finally I don’t have to sit down for hours sorting and editing my photos until 3am in the morning.

“I AM IN THE MOMENT” and for me, that is the most important thing as a photographer, I’m in real time. I am in the moment I can feel what is going on, I am one hundred per cent present with no distraction, I can communicate with my subject and I can fully maximize my time with my framing and composition and that for me is the best workflow and the best learning experience that I’ve ever had. And I don’t want it to end.

Now I always have my camera with me, I drop off my daughter at school I have my camera, I go to work I have my camera, I go to client meetings I have my camera, I go to the grocery I have my camera, why? Because I don’t want it to end. I want the learning experiences to continue, I want to learn every day, and I want to go out and shoot more and more, and our weekends have never been the same again.

My wife bought her X-T4 and she got into street photography also, my seven years old daughter one day she said, “Dad, I want a camera”, so we bought her a small Lumix compact and she is also taking photos now, and she likes black and white. And I can say that she has the eyes to do photography. The everyday repetition of our lives mundane routine that usually leads to stress and negative energy inside our home is now spiced up with one common interest for the three of us “Photography”. What a joy it is.

My everyday camera is my X-Pro3 and my favorite lens now is the 23mm F1.4, but sometimes I would switch to the 35mm F1.4, but recently I wanted to go wider going in the direction of 28mm. And there were also times that I needed to slow down so I switched to my Leica M9 and I go slow and in a different mindset, thereby giving my eyes, my brain, and my heart a bit of a break and venturing into a different workflow, and by that time I go back to my X-Pro3, and I am reinvigorated, full of excitement again wanting to shoot more with fresh new ideas.

The disadvantage of the X-Pro3 is being filled by the Leica M9, and the disadvantage of the Leica M9 is being filled by the X-Pro3. It’s like a YING-YANG, two different contrasting characters that could clash and create friction, but if properly blended, they can create HARMONY, HAPPINESS and LOVE.

Thank you so much FUJI X PASSION for reaching out to me, I always wanted to tell my story and my inclination to Photography, which brings so much joy, happiness and peace to me and to my family.

We will only be here for a short period of time, and we have to find some peace within us. Then sharing that peace and contributing to other people’s happiness will make us find the true goal in life, the true meaning of life.