114th Independence Day— A Day Worth of Risk

I risked and therefore I conquered and captured images. These are my 114th Independence Day Collection. All are captured using my 10-22mm on a 500D body and a CD-R King flash/Godox Flash trigger by a Yonguo CTR.

For my 2nd independence day celebration, I have decided to do something I haven't done before. First is photograph people in the street with a speedlight. The second one is to talk to strangers, complete strangers and ask them to pose in front of the camera. In all honesty these are no street portraits. These are still images of the 100% Juan.

All of these images are copyrighted and cannot be used in any means without my permission and the permission of the person in the photograph.

This guy was giving the real owner of the ice cream stand a lesson in posing.

One of my favorite shots during the day.

Wish I had a dog that big too!

Yes even security guards didn't escaped my camera.

I waited for almost 3 hours for the fireworks but its all worth it.

I'm really happy with the results but I think that to be able to create better and more compelling portraits, I need to practice this for 1,000,000.00 times.

113th Independence Day

This was my first time to attend the June 12th Independence Day celebration at Rizal Park, It was fun because the weather was cooperating as well as the quality of light. I also had the chance to take a photo of the WWII veterans  who attended the celebrations, It was overwhelming for me to see these people who fought for the country and lived to tell the tale. I was also awed with the parade of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, despite the fact that they have a lot of controversies with huge amounts of money involved but let's not delve deeper into these topics, what irked me is that the presentation was very inconvenient because only the VIPs, LGUs and other government sectors are the only people who get to enjoy in watching the different presenters (dancers and such) without the heat and the crowd and also the presenters are facing them. I mean c'mon! this is a celebration of our independence everyone is entitled to a cozy seat or a nice spot for them to see all the action, not in some dusty and crowded area blocked by photographers, cameramen as well as their ov-vans. Wait let us not forget the fireworks, I wonder why did they have it shown while there is still the sun up? Fireworks display is best watched at night and everyone will agree with me. Bah! Oh well hopefully next time everyone gets the same chance to watch and enjoy the celebration.

Onwards the Le Femme Fatale of the Armed Forces of the Philippines

Man that is a lot of leg power

The Flag Bearer, I forgot how much was the flag
because I was busy taking his photo

The real crowd who wants to watch and enjoy the presentations
but to their dismay the view was blocked by a stage with photographers
and cameramen on top.

Does Juan Dela Cruz know why are they there at Rizal Park 
apart from celebrating independence?

Poor Lola she slipped and slide hurting her back, good thing
there were medics on alert, Wait is that mangga and bagoong?

A foreign tv crew interviewing a family about
the independence day celebrations.

The men and women who sacrificed half of their life to
give us what we are enjoying right now.