photographing photographers

How do you make portraits of professional photographers? The thought of matching wits with them on making the lighting perfect and setting your cameras to the most foolproof priorities is enough to give one a creak on the neck. That's probably how one would feel when surrounded by the world's top contemporary photographers like last week during the Angkor Photography Festival here.

We had a chance to hang out with the six photographers from the Philippines attending the festival and who are also vying for the festival's top prize - $1,300 cash and a chance to publish their winning photos to the Paris Match Magazine.

While throwing a party for them in the house, we thought of giving them a dose of their own medicine through photographs we probably would never want to have... mugshots!


Charles is a commercial photographer who works for an ad agency in Manila. He literally slept his way to the festival and is perhaps a walking irony for coffee ads. His affairs on the mats made him notorious here.


Carla is a fierce fashion photographer who does editorials for glossies in the Philippines. Well remembered for her emotional spells throughout the festival.


Akira Liwanag made history in the festival as the youngest photographer ever to qualify for a spot in the festival. At seventeen years old and still in high school, this kid who has barely gotten past his puberty is years beyond his age and is amazing with the lens.


Former London resident Sarah Encabo returned to the Philippines to further pursue her passion for photography and is now with Manila Times.


John is this festival's Romeo - breaking the hearts of countless Indian photographers during the festival with his wild antics. This shutterbug is the ultimate pro - on the roll with Reuters, which just happens to be the biggest news agency in the universe.


Candice is perhaps the most socially-relevant photographer in the group who believes that a photo is powerful enough to instill change. But that doesn't mean she can't be the wackiest as well!


Although not part of the festival, Vincent is a shutterbug who can give any Magnum photographer a run for their money.


Don is an avant garde photographer armed with nothing but a camera phone... but beware... his images are as potent as a Nikon D3X could deliver!


The gang before the storm... they are probably all back in the Philippines as of writing while Don, Vincent and I are left back here in the eye of a cyclonic week of countless photoshoots, editing, meetings, and endless work!

helluvaweek!

High season has officially cast its blessed spell in sleepy Siem Reap and hopefully, all of Cambodia. Proof of this is the fact that I haven’t touched my blog in a week or even read any blogs at all! It started late last week with a photoshoot at a new boutique hotel that's opening soon - The Sothea.


Aside from the shoot, we are doing all of their marketing collaterals and promotions. This is a tough one since my client is actually my wife who is Senior Sales Manager of the hotel, so there is definitely no escaping this one! This shoot is for her sales trip to Australia in the next few weeks.


It's also the start of the 4th annual Angkor Photo Festival which brings in the best photographers around the world for a weeklong festival and series of exhibitions around. This year, I was helping out with two galleries - the McDermott Gallery with their marketing collaterals and the Friends Center Gallery of which my team handled a handful of things for - from the interior design to the marketing and even the installation of the new exhibition. The new artist featured here is Steve McCurry, whose portrait of "the Afghan Girl" is the most recognizable photograph in the history of National Geographic.

A team of six young Filipino photographers are also present to represent the country and we are making sure that they feel at home here!



We are also married to our cameras these past few days (and for the next weeks to come!) with a series of more photoshoots along the way. Yesterday, we did a wedding shoot for a Japanese couple at the Orient Express hotel. With shoots on the temples and a full day affair to cover, it was a back-breaking work.

We have two more hotels next week due for a shoot and a couple more weddings and corporate events to cover.


The Spoolworks photography team - Brewster, Kristian and Vincent. I don't think I will ever survive this season without them... and more so keep up with blogging!

It was definitely a tough week and more so in the next weeks to come. I now miss the times when I could linger longer in the office ogling though everyone's blogs or messing with mine. With my hard drive crashing down to oblivion last week, I also have to work double time to redo those lost files. These are definitely the times when you wish that there are 48 hours in a day!

So if I haven't updated my blog in the next three months, I hope blogger doesn't give up on me and delete my blog for good...