Of Posts and Plays

Last Sunday I headed out to join a tour around at some of the beautiful but forgotten places here in Manila. The itinerary was pretty long (we are supposed to go to Arroceros Park, Aduana and many more) but because of the inclement weather we just trimmed down the tour into two places. First was the Philippine Post Office or PhilPost and the other one was the Manila Metropolitan Theater both are situated in the Lawton area.

For this shoot I challenged myself not to use my trusty wide angle lens and explore the capabilities of my nifty-fifty. At first it was tough because I am accustomed to shooting the whole scene first rather than focusing on the intimate details specially when it comes to architectural details.

While waiting someone did a talk about the history of the PhilPost building. I kind of felt sad when I learned that the post office will be shut down in a few years time because they are not earning enough to keep things running. If only I had a million bucks I'd pretty much buy PhilPost and convert it into a museum slash hotel slash photographer's haven just to save this architectural beauty. The Manila Metropolitan Theater is a sadder story than the PhilPost because upon entering the building one can easily see the slow decay of a once magnificent building that  was considered as the gem of the city. Some of the rooms are being restored but the thing is that the restoration is more like a repainting job instead of following what the building used to look liked a few decades ago.

We concluded the tour at roof deck of the Metropolitan Theater to see a 360 degree view of Manila at sunset. It was a really great experience and definitely worth doing again.