Street Tales: Around With A Rangefinder

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Been to a lot of places recently, and everywhere I went, I brought my Konica Auto S2 with me. Testing it in a real world situation where familiarity with the camera, fast eyes, being observant and guts are needed. Honestly I don’t trust it that much yet. It’s only been with me for a couple of months and I’m still adjusting to it. Maybe I need to go out more often, and take more pictures with it to get used to it.

Anyway, I been to Palawan last holy week with my girlfriend and her family. Here are some shots I took from that trip.

I took this at a souvenir shop there. A lot of smiling faces smiling at me.

There were a lot of palm trees, and a lot of fallen coconuts. This one was fresh, put alongside the dried up ones, cracked open from the force of impact.

I just love palm trees. Everytime I see one, it reminds me of the beach. And I love the beach!

We went out for a little island hopping. Its a bit expensive, but we’re in Palawan, might as well enjoy it.

A closer look at the boy at the back of the boat in the photo above.

And a bar in one of the islands we visited which doesn’t have anything to sell but water. LOL

On our way back to the hotel, at the pier, I saw these kids playing with bicycle tires, and using a piece of wood stick to make it go forward. I used to do this back when I was a kid when I visit my province. It is fun. Just don’t let the tire go faster than you or you’ll eat it’s dust. Haha.

At the airport, waiting for our flight home. I just love airports. There’s a lot of things going on. People waiting, eating, sleeping…

My favorite photo from that vacation. Twilight. Photographers and painters refer to it as the “Blue Hour” after the French expression “l’heure bleue”. It is the time between dawn and sunrise, and is also the time between sunset and dusk.

Then off to Baguio for a weekend summer bonding with my family, the summer capital of the Philippines. We’re not expecting it to be really cold, that’s only wishful thinking, but we didn’t expect it to be really warm especially at midday. But it pays off to be there during the nighttime. It’s cold. But not as cold as it used to be. Blame it all to Global Warming.

Anyway, here are the photos from that vacation.

Baguio Botanical Garden was the first stop, so yeah flowers. A sunflower, reminds me of the scorching heat of the summer.

You just got to love that Hexanon sharpness. Damn.

A wooden craftsman, putting finishing touches on the wooden carving.

Baguio natives posing. Seriously they make a living out of this. Posing with them or any picture taken with them, they will ask for a fee. I don’t know how much, we were leaving and I sort of ran away, good thing that man didn’t throw his spear at me. Haha. But he was pissed off. Seriously.

Then we went to Session Road. A famous road in Baguio where you can find the restaurants and malls, and an Anting – Anting. An Anting – Anting is some sort of an amulet that protects the bearer from evil. It is a Filipino belief that if you have one, you possess some kind of magic that makes you immune from everything bad that can happen to you or can bring you luck.

I had the chance to talk to this lady after taking this shot. This old lady sells stuffs from stones, dried plants to oils, and some beads. She is a very nice old lady, full of stories.

The most interesting story she told me was the power of the stones. I will never forget that she said it will bring me luck so that Iwill not use old cameras anymore and ill be able to buy a new camera. Of all things she could talk about, she talked about my camera. Seriously.

Global warming has truly made a huge impact in our environment. Imagine being in the summer capital of your country and needing a huge 7-11 GULP to coold you down. Unbelievable.