A Crowbar and some Bruises

Before the summer ended I went back to the abandoned building at Betty-Go Belmonte station to do another fashion shoot. Better watch out for the crowbar or get hit. 

Graffiti & Demonstrations

I'm having a great week and hopefully it will end that way. Last Sunday we did a shoot at an abandoned building in Betty Go Belmonte and just this evening I took some photos during the Labor Day demonstrations at Mendiola.

My 2012 in Images

2012 has been both a good and a bad year for me in terms of photography work. Good because I believe that I have improved at least, acquired new gear, got heaps of books and learned new things. Bad because I wasn't able to shoot that much unlike 2011. 

Now that 2012 is coming to a close I would like to commemorate this one hell of a year by recollecting some of my favorite images that I have taken and the stories behind it.

Photography Inspiration: Helmut Newton

Lately I have been studying the works of classic photographers in my quest to improve and push my craft further. This time I'm featuring Helmut Newton which I consider to be one of my main sources of inspiration. Newton's provocative black and white photographs are often dubbed as innovative that he has become one of Vogue's mainstay photographers and acclaimed fashion photographers of his time.

I couldn't help but compare Araki and Newton since both share the same penchant of mostly shooting women subjects while infusing nudity and sex in their photographs, but both photographers differ in terms of how their subjects are portrayed in the photographs.

Photography Inspiration: Irving Penn

I just recently discovered the great Irving Penn while I was researching things for a blog post at work. I was actually taken aback after seeing the photograph of the Ballet Society and the image of Lisa Fonssagrives. His images are just so powerful and poetic that it feels like the eyes of the person in his photograph is looking right at your very essence. Most of his photographs are stripped off color and elaborate backgrounds which makes his work so direct and emotionally charged.

Vogue's 120th Anniversary Photo Shoot

Vogue, the most influential and most sought after fashion magazine is going to celebrate its 120th year on September and the best way to celebrate its 120th years is to do a massive photo shoot features some of the most influential people like Florence Welch, Rooney Mara and Jennifer Lawrence to name a few. While the list is filled with A-listers in their respective industries it is inspiring (and pressuring) to know that all of them are all under 45 years old! Norman Jean Roy was the man behind the lens in this editorial shoot who is also a top dog in the fashion industry.

Here are some of the photos:

Raf Simons

Sarah Burton, Christopher Bailey & Stella McCartney

Peter Copping & Erdem Moraliogu

Ricardo Tisci & Rooney Mara

Phoebe Philo

Jennifer Lawrence

You can view all the photos with a detailed description about the people in the photo here.

After seeing all the photographs I was naturally psyched to see the BTS video and Vogue was good enough to post one on their Youtube channel.

So what do you think? I'd love to hear what you guys have to say so hit the comment and let's discuss. (Source: Vogue) Cheers!

Victoria Secret's Unretouched Photographs

This recent set of images of VS Angel Doutzen Kroes that was released by mistake in the Victoria's Secret website for a upcoming September catalog has rekindled the age old discussion of real beauty and heavy photo retouching. In my opinion these images are good to go and to be honest its refreshing to see raw commercial photographs of women and most specially the models of Victoria's Secret in a raw and unedited photograph.

Maybe I'm just lazy or this photographs are really good to go after tweaking the exposure on the skin just a bit and cloning away some of the blemishes. What do you guys think? I'd love to hear what you have in mind so bring those comments in. 

(Sources: Fstoppers, Jezebel)

Photography Inspiration: Patrick Demarchelier

I have been following Patrick Demarchelier's work since I first saw his photographs in a back issue of Vogue July 2011. I really love his work because the his images are always stunning and clean to the very last detail. After doing my bit of research I was awed to learn that he was able to worked with the great Henri Cartier-Bresson as well as Terry Gilbert while he was building up his career. With a client list that comprises some of the biggest names in the fashion industry, Patrick Demarchelier is one hell of a fashion photographer

Images by Patrick Demarchelier

Shifting views.

I have been taking photographs close to 4 years now, from portraits to product photos I have been always a happy shutterbug lugging my gear no matter what the situation is. Recently I am immersed in fashion shoots but I wanted more and by that I wanted to shoot on a weekly basis, sad to say coming up with a team to do a fashion shoot is not an easy task and most of the time it gets frustrating. Creating the image for a fashion shoot is no joke too its not just looking at the pegs but rather how will you make the photo interesting enough so that it will not be just another photograph. 


As of this moment I am working on my last fashion shoot, not that I am giving up but rather I'd go on a different field in the meantime and find my vision somewhere else. I am happy to announce to you that I am going back into shooting live concerts and will stick to it for quite awhile. It somehow feels like seeing an old friend of mine with a beer, jeering and asking me how's life.


Hello gig photography, its nice to see you again.


Inmates by Black Kath Productions | Feb 25, 2012 | Bartolina Bar

Urduja

Urduja vox Kei

The Squibs' telecaster

The Squibs

The Mighty Miscellaneous' CTRL+ALT+DEL video launch | Feb 29, 2012 | Pablo Cubao X

DJ Tibbz and DJ Umph

Switch x D'Tech

D'Tech

Delphi x Switch

Update: Check out their video!

Jelly for Cinth

Did another shoot for Jelly's thesis but this time Jelly is the model, we did the shoot in Tarlac (where the food and the people was great) and it was my first time to do a fashion shoot with water (the location was under the bridge and it was gorgeous and therapeutic). 

Thanks to Jelly and to the Limos family :)

My favorite photo from the set. I did intentionally
made it out of focus for some unknown reason.

In case you are wondering we shot this one in the middle of a cornfield

Cheers to Cinth!

A big congratulations to Jelly for the successful thesis defense! But before you guys go and check out the photos I would like to take the opportunity to thank her for inviting me to the shoot for her thesis because I was able to work with really really wonderful, awesome and gorgeous people, I had such a great time with them because there was no dull moment during the shoot (thank you Karla for your witty punch lines and I really think that you should write a book). 

I would definitely love to work with them again in the near future. Cheers to Cinth and to future photo shoots with you guys :)

Models: Karla, Zaira & Rhij

Styling & Clothing: Jelly Henson Limos

Art Direction: Jelly Henson Limos

Photography: Patrick Jude Ilagan

Special thanks to: Gerome Neil Soriano & Jonathan Lazaro

On a completely unrelated note I haven't done my Christmas shopping yet and it really bothers me because all my nephews and nieces are kind of expecting gifts from me since I got a job so I am asking you guys if you have a wonderful gift idea for kids please do drop your suggestions in the comment box because it will definitely help me a lot.

Cheers and a happy holidays to you.