Trip to Batam Island

A Freelance Job!

I was commissioned by a US company to do a service job on a Final Test system at Unisem in Batam, Indonesia. Batam is an island near Singapore and the way to get there is to take a plane from Manila to Singapore and then take a Ferry from Singapore to Batam.

This is the night view of Jodoh area in Batam from my 12th floor Hotel room.



These are pictures from Airport in Singapore to Harbor Centre.

View fr taxi just off the airport

Towards Harbor centre

(Singapore Flyer)Famous Ferris wheel near the Harbor
at the background is the Marina Bay Sands

Ferry to Batam

Visita Iglesia

It has been a tradition for us to visit various churches during Holy Thursdays. The visit starts around 6:00PM and we hop from one church to another and offer a short prayer, with the goal of going to as many church as we can up to 12MN.

During this day of the Lenten season, the Holy Eucharist is taken out and displayed in a special place and this year, I let my daughter take the pictures of these various places in every church we visited.

This the UST chapel.


OLAP church


Lourdes


Sienna


San Pedro Bassilica

Malate Church
                                                                                                  

                                                                    San Agustin Church

 

San Isidro Church

Paint Araneta Yellow

Yesterday, my wife and I went to Araneta to join thousands of "Yellow" fans celebrate the 24th year of the People Power revolution. I was of course lugging my camera and I was informed by security people that professional still cameras are not allowed inside the Araneta Coliseum so only my wife entered and I stayed outside and joined the thousands who were not fortunate to go inside the coliseum.

I took this picture because it reminded me exactly of what I did with my son during the actual people power revolution in 1986, we were then with the people guarding Channel 4.

Anticipating that not everybody can not be accommodated, a stage was set up outside where another program was conducted and hosted by among others Jim Paredes.

A familar face in every gathering of the yellow army

This is another familiar volunteer for Noynoy.

And one of the lead organizers of yesterday's event.

Gown Competition (Miss San Manuel 2010)

An essential part of every beauty pageant is the Evening gown competition where the contestants demonstrate their ability to dress up for a formal occasion and show their alluring way of carrying one's self  in the world of glamour.

The swimsuit stage

This page is for the Swimsuit stage of the search for Miss San Manuel 2010. I was shooting with a 70 - 300mm zoom lens from the audience stands and I didn't have a good angle so I will post only the few better pics that I captured. I will start right away with the winner.

The best in swimsuit was Nina Erica Peralta.

She was also chosen as Miss Friendship (their version of Miss Congeniality) by the participants themselves.

Here are some selected ramp shots

2010 Search for Miss San Manuel

Last weekend, I went home to our province to attend our annual town's fiesta. Just like any fiesta, part of the festivities is a beauty search for Miss San Manuel 2010. This was held last Saturday night, Feb 20, 2010.  It was a beauty pageant composing of a swimsuit competition, gown competition and an interview. There were fourteen candidates representing each barangay of the town, from whom three beauties will be picked as Miss San Manuel, a first runner up and a second runner up. Culmination of the event was of course the coronation of the top 3 beauties.

Citystreet shots

It's been a while since my last post, I haven't had the chance to shoot the past few days, so I am giving you a few street shots that I took sometime ago. I will be presenting them as Black and White images although they have been taken originally as colored pictures.

Welcome Rotunda is a familiar landmark in Quezon city. It is now a common venue for rallies and demonstrations.

 The "calesa" is still an attention drawer, this woman
is probably wondering what those horse driven rigs are doing in this street. This shot was taken along the intersection of Forbes and Espana streets.

Reunion's group picture

One of the challenges of taking a group picture, specially if you're not the only one taking the picture, is to see to it that the group is properly lit and all faces are seen, in this particular group pic, I failed to do that. I have cropped the group picture into 3 so taht the images are bigger and can be seen better in this blog.

All faces are properly lit
but VME is partially covered
by Josie, who in turn had her eyes closed.

Rowena in this crop is partially
covered by Cely, the rest are ok.

This is a disaster because EJA was fully covered,
if not for other pics, one wouldn't know who that
guy is.

Verdict: Reshoot!


The angle of Cita's camera who is in the middle would hopefully yield a better picture.

Casa Davis

Last Saturday, January 16, 2010, I drove to Silang, Cavite for a much awaited reunion of past and present employees of Zilog Philippines. The reunion's venue is Casa Davis at Ponderosa Leisure Farms, the residence of Norma and Dave Davis. It was scheduled for lunch time, but because it was my first time to go the place I decided to be early. I was the first to arrive so I had the chance to take a few pictures of Casa Davis.

Casa Davis as seen from across the street.








Casa Davis garden side

Street life

Manual Film Development
Even in this digital age, images captured by analog means still have their own appeal, specially the Black and White film. I am attracted to B&W images and so I am venturing into this old school photography as an alternative hobby. I recently attended a workshop on B&W film developing and I am posting here 2 frames from one of the films that I developed during the workshop. So, even if the source is film, it is being posted here as a digital image because the negative was digitally scanned.

It was my first developed film so there were so many scratches, probably during the washing or drying stages. Of course, I hope to improve on my next development job.

Christmas Lights

I have been searching for a good Christmas light display to photograph and post on this blog and on our way to the province during the holiday break, we passed by Moncada, Tarlac. This town offered two photo opportunities, one was the town's interpretation of the Nativity scene which was displayed in front of their town hall, and the other is an ancestral house of the Villanos family which was bedecked with lights and Disneyland characters with Christmas costumes. These two can be seen along the McArthur Highway and will not be missed when you travel north to Baguio or Pangasinan passing by Tarlac.

Taken accross the highway
Moncada Town hall






A closer shot of Moncada's Nativity scene display









The ancestral home of the Villanos family in Moncada