It’s over a week now since 2013 had begun, and I’ve decided that I do want to set some goals. More specifically, I want to set some tangible goals for blogging+photography.

It’s short. But the goal was to do things I could personally achieve at this time of the year.

Clear backlogs.

Here’s a guy who have 500 GB loads of mostly unsorted photos. I can finally work on that portfolio. Yippee!

Meeting personal deadline.

A  must. I’ve been so slow in achieving this last year. I wasn’t actually lazy, just got caught up in a lot of mess again. Here’s hoping for a mess free new year. Let’s cheers to that!

No shoot, no blog. It’s that simple!

Shoot, shoot, shoot! I’ve got a couple of things in my mind right now that I wanted to do. Can’t tangibly say how many, but I know it’s gonna be pretty amazing this time of the year!

So here it is, my 1st post for 2013!

Last September 15 of 2012 I was privileged to have attended another photography workshop by a team of fine-art, wedding and portrait photographers.

Each one of them is an artist of his own and believe it or not I was so amazed watching their slide-shows of their past and recent works.

But before I could even attend to this workshop, we have a bit of a problem. The country is currently experiencing non-stop monsoon rain since early dawn on that day. I woke up worrying the workshop might get canceled or I get to sing and dance a Gangnam style if I got stuck in traffic due to the floods and came in late because of it. Hahaha! To add, I have another problem of my own and that is, I don’t exactly know how to get around Makati, seriously! Somewhere in Makati is the place where the workshop is gonna be held, and Makati is the place I mostly try avoiding to go to but when I do, I never bring a car with me. 1st of all, it’s hard to find a parking space there. Secondly, the roads there are quite a maze not to mention the one-way streets. Lastly, this place has it’s own traffic policies that is totally confusing for a motorist that hails from Quezon city.

A few hours before the workshop, I was up already reading a message I received earlier asking each of us if we should push through even with the bad weather. I was having mixed emotions reading the message. A part of me says, “Oh my, I wish the workshop gets canceled as it feels so good just to sleep around with this weather” :). Lol. But, the other part of me says: ” I hope it pushes through as I have a flight the next day and I can only come back until next year, waaah!” 😦

Fortunately, “A Workshop” had pushed through as soon as the rain slowed down a bit and the floods have already subsided in some parts of the metropolis. As for me, I took the MRT route and rode a cab which got lost by the way 🙂 thank you! I was only able to find the place right after I asked a very kind “tricycle” driver I saw. After braving through flooded streets here and there, we were able to find the place just in time before the workshop starts!  I said to him; “ayus ang galing mo, eto po extra at salamat na marami!” (you’re so good, here’s a tip and thank you so much!).

And so we came, the second batch of participants since “A Workshop” officially started. The “A Workshop” team consists of (in no particular order) Patrick Diokno, Nicolai Melicor, Jaja Samaniego, Toto Villaruel & Ms. Jill.

The workshop started off with the “Basics”. It was more detailed and individualized to cater each and everyone’s level of “knowledge” and must I include that this workshop mostly concerns portrait photography. One of the key reason why I liked it.

The handouts used was neatly presented. What’s more flattering is that, each page is a photo itself 🙂 It was clean and very precise. It so small, it can almost fit my back pocket and it could serve as a field guide— neat!

Moreover, I didn’t know that food was included in the workshop!

After the hearty meal, we rested a bit and had a brief of Q&A. A few discussions left and we are off to a shoot. Yippee!

The shoot is the second part of the workshop. It was still raining that day although it was an on and off scenario. The thick, black and large clouds are still hovering above us. A sure way to ruin a shoot. It didn’t stop us though 🙂

I was struggling a lot shooting in that scene. Things we enjoy having when we are out on a shoot are the auto-focus, programmed shooting modes like portrait, landscape, etc. or semi-auto modes like aperture priority, shutter speed priority, etc, auto white balance, auto ISO & all the auto features your DSLR could handle are set to “ON”… Life, then would be a breeze for us enthusiasts out there isn’t it? But this time, the weather isn’t so. The light coming from the sky is not even enough for us to have a spot on focus. I had to toggle that M/A switch on the lens for me to manually focus every time my lens hunts. Manual exposure is the only way to go with this tricky scenario. I’ve been shooting manual ever since I’ve attended Purpose Driven Photography (PDP) workshop in 2011. Although, shooting in manual is also covered and discussed very well with “A Workshop” this should come in handy for those who don’t know how to do it yet.

Here are the photos I took…

I hope you enjoyed viewing them as much I enjoyed post-processing them above 40,000 feet! Yes, I did the post work on most of these images while flying back here in the sandbox. The very next day after I went to “A Workshop”! Of course, I didn’t want to forget all of those things I’ve learned not just yet 🙂 Just to add, I was really lucky to have very kind seat companions on my flight. The persons seating beside me (I was in the middle) were total strangers. I did told them, that if they wanted to sleep already they could just let me know and I would gladly turn my laptop off anytime. Both of them actually didn’t mind at all and they were quite an audience too! They were watching me doing post work to the images I took. They both said, I was good at what I was doing… they actually thought I was a professional photographer! hahaha. I just said thank you and I’ll take that as a compliment! 🙂 By the way, one of the best things doing post-work stuff on an airplane, is you get to be served by the cabin crews every now and then — like a bottomless coffee and peanuts.

It was still raining when I left Manila. Something I’ve always miss when you are in a country that has less precipitation over a year.

Due to my scheduled flight, I didn’t had the chance to attend the 2nd day of the workshop which covers the post-processing part. Fortunately, “A Workshop” didn’t left me behind but instead, they’ve decided to extend the workshop for me on that very 1st day I get to attend which should only cover the basic and the shooting part. It was right after we had the shoot and they— the awesome, A Workshop team! decided to teach me what’s in store for tomorrow, lucky me! And oh yes, it was Mr. Toto Villaruel himself who have taught me that day 🙂

For an hour more, I did learn a lot from him.

It was an amazing experience for me in getting the chance to learn to one of the country’s finest wedding and portrait photographer like Mr. Toto Villaruel. The very main reason, I attended this workshop is because of him… Even if it was just a short encounter, it was well worth it! Don’t get me wrong, all of them from “A Workshop” team are great photographers as all wedding photographers out there too. It just so happened I kinda liked images that breaks the “rules of photography” and nobody else does it better non-other than Mr. Toto Villaruel himself.

To know more about ‘A Workshop’ team and also for you to see some of their works. You can do so by clicking the links below….

Toto Villaruel – http://totovillaruel.com/blog/

Nicolai Melicor – http://www.nicolaimelicor.com/

Jaja Samaniego – http://www.jajasamaniego.com/

Patrick Diokno – http://patrickdiokno.tumblr.com/

To know more about ‘A Workshop’ and inquiries you have in mind, you can do so by sending them an email with this address:

aworkshopteam@gmail.com

The best part of any workshop, is actually being able to gain friends who shares the same passion as you do. I can’t imagine myself more other than being surrounded by great people from all walks of life talking about the same language as you do and that is photography.

I know, that when I do get home again. I always have something to look forward to. Awesome people whom I’ve met along my journey into photography. Who knows, one day I might get an invite to back one of them for a shoot 🙂

Or maybe at this time around, I could get into an apprenticeship 🙂

Me thinks, it’s gonna be a bright and exciting 2013!