The Logbook
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Light Notes #22: Camila Mendes, Charriol Philippines 2016
2021-08-14 07:07:00 UTCThrowback to March 23, 2016, the day I decided to buy myself a Rime Lite Fame 6 set, which was a package of 2 lights, 2 stands, an octabox, and a strip box. Everything looked and smelled new, until I plugged in one of the lights and my old home…
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Light Notes #21: Freida Pinto, Love Scotch 2017
2021-08-14 06:53:00 UTCThis was one of the first shoots in my career where the pressure wasn’t on the layout count, but more on the amount of time I had to shoot my subject. In the Philippine landscape, having at least thirty minutes to an hour to photograph a high profile celebrity or…
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Light Notes #20: Rustan’s Summer 2021 (pt.2)
2021-06-25 06:29:00 UTCOne of the bigger challenges a photographer would face when shooting with strobes outdoors is competing with the sun. If depending purely on the exposure triangle, we’d have to push our shutter speed up, tighten our aperture, and put our ISO on the lowest settings. If we push our shutter…
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Light Notes #19: Rustan’s Summer 2021
2021-06-01 09:46:00 UTCThis was one of the last layouts we had on our shotlist for Rustan’s 2021 summer campaign. With the sun no longer providing that bright summer light, we had to rely on artificial assistance.
My Godox AD400 was set on the edge of the pool, with no light modifiers attached.…
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Light Notes #18: Atalier Patty Ang, Iridescence Collection
2021-05-24 10:38:00 UTCThis was a bare bulb lighting setup. A Godox AD400 was placed to the left of the setup to serve as the main light—mounted high, angled down, and positioned to make a clean defined shadow on the floor and not the background. The bare bulb allowed a widespread amount of…
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Light Notes #17: Ballet Philippines, CCP, Esquire Magazine, 2017
2021-05-17 11:24:00 UTCTo be honest, I can’t count the number of times I’ve gone back to this shoot—revisiting the unmarked, looking for new gems, re-editing. The reality of the situation was that if it weren’t for Esquire Philippines and their reputation, shooting Paul Morales and three of his ballerinas around the Cultural…
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Light Notes #16: The Terry Richardson Effect
2021-05-17 11:11:00 UTCIf there is a photography styled that is named after you, then you know that you’re obviously doing something very unique. Terry Richardson will go down history as one of the most influential and controversial photographers of the century, not just for his approach in shoots (not to mention all…
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Light Notes #15: Single Light Set-Up with Gab de Leon
2021-04-30 14:23:00 UTCJune 2016—got myself a birthday gift of a Sony A7rii, with no other reason than the conceited idea that it was “r2”, I guess with the small perk that it was THE BEST CAMERA IN THE MARKET AT THAT TIME. This was the 78th photo I had taken, moments after…
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GetCraft’s Manila Creators Meetup: One Snap at a Time April 2021
2021-04-30 02:03:00 UTCOn April 27, 2021, GetCraft hosted their April 2021 Manila Creator Meetup, entitled “One Snap at a Time”. In this virtual meetup, GetCraft Philippines’ Network Manager Nina Lopez discussed with photographer Matt Lee and myself on how we were navigating the photography industry during the pandemic and our predictions for…
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My Dad Got Covid
2021-04-22 07:47:54 UTCThere are a handful of word combinations that have timelessly proven their gravity, regardless of their circumstance. “I have cancer.”, “[name of person] just died.”, to name a couple, have been the most brutal confrontations many of us have had to face in our lives, and we have never really…
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Light Notes #14: Leon Gallery Fashion Editorial for L’Officiel MNL, 2016.
2021-04-07 11:25:00 UTCI remember the pre-production meeting we had for this shoot. Toby’s Estate had a pop up in Whitespace, and in one of the tables were Pam Quinones, Patrick Galang, Patrick Diokno, and myself. Our upcoming fashion editorial was going to deal with very special ingredients: the beautiful pieces of Ricky…
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Light Notes #13: Marionette Fashion Editorial, Esquire Philippines, 2016
2021-04-05 07:59:00 UTCEver since the pandemic/lockdown started, I dedicated a good portion of my time going through all my archives. Instead of focusing on creating new projects, I used the time to study my work, and even find pieces that I didn’t think carried any value back when I took them. A…
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Light Notes #12: Charriol, March 2021
2021-03-16 10:00:00 UTCOur most recent content shoot for Charriol Philippines, under Jigso Digital Solutions. One of the challenges when shooting for a jewelry brand is literally how tight your frame must be to showcase the products. Especially in this day and age where even the biggest campaigns generate the highest view count…
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Light Notes #11: First Editorial for L’Officiel MNL, 2016
2021-03-11 10:00:00 UTC2016. My first editorial with L’Officiel Manila. This shoot was one of the most technical setups I had done during that time/year, considering that we were photographing only half a body of a single subject. Three lights: a main for the face, one for the hair, another to provide an…
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Light Notes #10: Rustan’s Iconic, Spring/Summer 2019
2021-03-08 10:00:00 UTCFor Rustan’s Iconic, Spring/Summer 2019. We had covered a lot of ground this day, with the requirements of creating majority of the content for a full look book. This was our last layout, after finishing three other completely different setups. Ricardo Preto had this idea of hanging these cellophane party…
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Light Notes #9: Test Shoot with Bronija, Meg, Nicole
2021-02-24 10:00:00 UTC2016—first ever test shoot with Bronija Ales, who I had met almost in passing during a basic linesheet shoot. My growing love for cinematic fashion all began through a series of test shoots with the wife Meg Manzano, who introduced me to Nicole Ceballos, who became my core makeup artist.…
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Light Notes #8: L’Officiel MNL, 2015
2021-02-21 10:00:00 UTCL’Officiel MNL, 2015. My first ever assignment for LO MNL, or you can say my “audition” to the magazine. I can admittedly say from my experience that your first shoot with a client or a magazine determines your future with them—never ever assume they know your work (even if they…
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Light Notes #7: Thirdy Ravena for Zalora Philippines, December 2019
2021-02-20 10:00:00 UTCCover shoot for Zalora Philippines, featuring Thirdy Ravena. 2019. In 2017, photographer Andrius Burba released a series called “Under-Dogs”. It was a collection of dog portraits taken from underneath—black background, studio lit, shot through a floor glass. The concept was very inspiring, but not within reach due to the estimated…
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Light Notes #6: Malasimbo Festival 2014
2021-02-17 10:00:00 UTCMarch 2014, Malasimbo Festival. My late grandfather taught me how to understand and read light. YouTube and Photojojo were one of the few online platforms back then that let me really check if photography was something I was really interested in. St. Benilde became the space in which I could…
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Light Notes #5: Matteo Guidicelli for Esquire Philippines, August 2019
2021-02-15 10:00:00 UTCCover for Esquire Philippines August 2019, featuring the brother from another mother Matteo Guidicelli. This concept had been in my bucket list maybe since the beginning of my career, but being able to shoot it for a magazine I had invested myself in and shoot someone like Matteo made it…
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Light Notes #4: Sojourn Collection, 2019
2021-02-12 10:00:00 UTCOriginally planned to be shot at the roof deck of a building, bad weather forced us to completely revamp and create a new concept for the campaign. Luckily for us, the house of one of the clients was offered as a the new shoot location, which was way better than…
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Light Notes #3: Basti Artadi for Esquire Philippines, September 2016
2021-02-11 10:00:00 UTCCover for Esquire Philippines, September 2016, featuring the one and only Basti Artadi. There was just so much Great Gatsby energy all throughout the shoot—location, styling, Basti himself. It was just natural that the lighting and editing would run with that theme.
The location was a lighting fixture store, and…
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Light Notes #2: Isko Moreno for Esquire Philippines, July 2019
2021-02-10 10:00:00 UTCIsko Moreno, one of the three mayors that became cover for Esquire Philippines, July 2019.
This particular shot was taken in between layouts. We had just finished shooting a couple of indoor shots when we were walking up a spiral staircase to the roof deck/tennis court of Diamond Hotel. As…
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Light Notes #1: Phoebe Walker for FHM, April 2017
2021-02-09 10:00:00 UTCConsidered as one of the upcoming stars in the Philippine Indie film scene of 2017, FHM had the privilege of having actress Phoebe Walker for their April cover; and I was given the assignment to photograph her. As we were working with someone familiar with movie sets, it was only…
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A Letter to My Future First Born
2020-05-24 12:54:01 UTCHey, kiddo. It’s been a rough last few days. I’ve tried talking to your godparents, your grandma, even your mom. I just can’t seem to find the right words or be at the right state of heart to tell what I’m going through. This is the first time in my…