The Sky, Land, and People in Photographic Sojourn Exhibit
By: Nonnette C. Bennett
A week-long trip through Baguio, Benguet and Mountain Province by three photo masters make up “Photographic Sojourn” an exhibit at Luisa’s Café. Noli Gabilo, noted for his celestial photographs, Joey de Castro, noted for his landscapes, and David Leprozo, Jr., for his Cordillera heritage themes, presented their colored and black and white photographs in this October show.
Batanes native and multi-awarded photographer, Gabilo sets his camera towards the heavens in “Vanishing” with the sunrise as light rendering the details of a landscape in Atok, Benguet. His best works have combined illumination from the stars and moon as backdrop to his landscape photographs from high vantage points. An image of a tree’s silhouette amidst the starry sky is enchanting.
Artisan potter and photo hobbyist, De Castro takes black and white images for his expressions that capture landscapes and other visuals seen in the seven-day travel across the mountains. His photo of gongs arranged in concentric fashion catches one’s attention. The visual arrangement stops the eye and makes the mind figure out what it is about. He has a stream running between soft cliffs with the light brighter on one side and the other side with ripples contrasted.
Photojournalist with a string of international Cordillera photo exhibits, Leprozo is able to account the lifeways in the mountains that preserve the material culture and crafts of the tribes. “Gong Maker” is about the craft of smelting the brass and forming it into the gongs used by the different villages and individuals in the region. The painstaking metalwork is not a common sight in all the communities. In “Wedding Feast” the community cook is shown minding the pots of rice for the meal. There are other villagers butchering and preparing the meat for boiling and grilling in another area.
Three sets of eyes and their cameras or phones make this display of the varied grand and colorful views of the different places between the city and Mt. Province. With a small van as their living and sleeping space, the adventure through those not so travelled spaces in these mountainous parts of the country can be suspended in the beautiful sights forever.
