Optimistic

Well, it's been almost a year since I've posted something that came out from my camera. But unlike Gino who would blame Instagram (which is something that can be found on the interweb), and Lee who would blame goats for repeatedly breaking his camera every full moon, I on the other hand blame only myself for being lazy. 

If you are an avid reader of my blog, which of course you aren't, you would probably know how much I patronize film photography. I still do stand for it, because everything about film photography is absolutely superb. Aside from the fact that if you don't have a dark room of your own and a machine to scan your films (like I do), you will find your self calculating the distance between your home and the film lab every time you want your films to be processed. Once you've done estimating the distance, the time and the money you'd have to spend, you will then find your self saying "well, I think I should wait until I've used up 1,000 films, then I'll go to the lab".

But let's not get bogged down on laziness. Let's start with Sam.

He's not so happy with his new tumbler.

Ah, Antipolo Church and The Shrine of Our Lady of Peace and Good Voyage. Marie's family attends a mass here once a year so I tagged along. Outside is where you can buy enough cashew nuts to make your whole body itch. 

CJ, wondering why the mouse has the skin of a cow.

Marie, inspecting pots.

Mall of Asia's ferris wheel. Each gondola has its own air conditioning system, which is convenient and will keep the passengers cool when the wheel gets stuck or begins disintegrating all of a sudden. 

Julie, Marie and Wyn.

 Marie and I went for a four day trip to Palawan, and on the first day, we toured the city.

It's like a monster eating a plane.

I did not know our package included a trip to the senate.

On our way to the underground river, I found these dried squids. I was about to taste one, but hesitated because they might still be breathing.

While on queue for a boat, we met two friendly dogs. We fed the other with ice cream and boy, did he liked it.

We were scheduled to go island hopping on our third day.

Marie, fitting some "aqua shoes" which later I found useless.

Ah, this was the part where we were told to swim to the other side of the boat station. I'm sorry, we paid for the boat yet they wanted us to swim?

We then reached the island were we stayed until after lunch time. I've forgotten what it's called, but I haven't forgotten how stunning it was.

Next stop is what they call Starfish Island where we found, uh, starfish.

Let me end this post with photos of my very lovely niece, Casidy. 

Isn't she the cutest thing?

Edge of desire

I'll be honest, this isn't my best set. I expected something, let's say "better". But they're still satisfying (in my mind). Now it kind of makes me want to go out on the streets again. 

Our good friends Salgee and Candice will tie the knot later this month, and I thought that it will be my first time to shoot a wedding on film. But to make matters worse, Salgee made me part of his entourage, so thinking of it, it's kind of difficult to take good photos of them while also walking down the isle. 

Marie

This kid was jumping around a restaurant. She liked being photographed, too bad I suck shooting at low light.

These photos were from the last time we went to Intramuros months ago. It made me think I haven't been taking photos very much lately.

Tito Fred

Melo

Shannen with baby Pia

Enzo

Ralph and Derick

Andre

Ramona

Kuya Paeng and baby Pia

Courage, eating something.

Sam and I went to UP to see their observatory. We were supposed to be there earlier that afternoon because I wanted to take photos of the streets of UP, but Sam was late, as usual, and always will be, as we all know, until the end of the world.

And because I suck shooting at low light, this was the only good photo I have of UP.

Our purpose was to try our camera's bulb mode. Again, I had expected results better than the two photos below. My settings were f1.4, 50mm fixed lens, and the shutters were open for 60 and 90 seconds. So if you have suggestions and tips on how to do this right, please let me know. Else I will cut Sam's leg off and beat him to death with it. 

The people at the observatory were nice to us and the other visitors as well. They have 2 telescopes which gave us a good look at Jupiter and it's faint narrow rings, a first for me, since I've only seen Jupiter and the other planets on  the internet and encyclopedias. 

They also have this 500mm zoom lens and they let us use it to have a better shot at the moon and stars. Unfortunately, those photos are not ready yet. So in the end, it was a good thing we went to UP. We plan to come back here soon. 

The end.