a visual poem
by loven ramos
Showing posts with label iloilo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label iloilo. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Monday, April 6, 2009
11 reasons why i havent blogged in ages
1.Did photography work for a New Zealand Magazine
I was commissioned by a Kiwi Magazine in Auckland to shoot Dean Williams, who used to be a big media personality in New Zealand before moving to Cambodia to open a funky cocktail bar called Miss Wong.
2.Sent my son to school for the first time
Yup, he’s officially a student at the International School of Siem Reap as we’ve been trying to convince him for the longest time that he is NOT Yet an adult.
3.We’re building a new store
We’re expanding and we’ve just opened a new store at the Alley West called POETRY. It’s a total lifestyle experience offering Don’s clothes, vintage finds, original jewelry from designer friends like Jor-el and Tita Jaki all the way from Iloilo, Philippines and a gallery for my work on “words” as well as for other up and coming artists based in Cambodia and the world over.
4.Opened up a solo exhibition at the Angkor National Museum
The Saffron Spirit makes its way to the Angkor National Museum alongside the kingdom’s ancient treasures. I couldn’t have been more thrilled!
5.Prepared for a trip home
Spent two weeks in Iloilo picking up pieces of my childhood memories and rebuilding our home after the devastating flood last year. Most of our family pictures were gone and my paintings and artworks have vanished into oblivion, but all is definitely not lost…
My mom, lost 90% of her garend and plants which is her source of life and income... but she has moved on quite well....
We had a reunion with relatives on my mom's side so we are slowly rebuilding our connections and lost memories.... all the lost pictures, books and what nots would have to be relished again... on a new perspective....
6.Turned another year older in Cambodia
Celebrated my 31st year of existence on this planet with family and friends. I actually shared the birthday week with Vincent, one of my photographers and good New Yorker friend Elizabeth Kiester.
7.Am being featured in a magazine with two great friends
Fah Thai Magazine, Bangkok Airways’ inflight magazine, is doing a feature on me, Don, and Elizabeth on our efforts to make Siem Reap the next best fashion destination in the planet. Hehehee.
8.Did a load of wedding shoots and temple shoots
Work work work. Need I say more?
9.I’m helping redesign the National Museum in Phnom Penh
One of the projects I’m really looking forward to do! Got in through the help of American friends John and Narisa McDermott!
10.Did a Suitcase Sale
One of the cool stuffs we’re doing on the Alley West…
11.Prepared for my sister’s graduation
After 4 years of gruelling tuition payments, and other miscellaneous out-of-this-planet expenses, my sister Love Grace has finally finished her Nursing degree...
The ceremony in itself was more suffering that you could bear than 4 years of school combined... the graduation lasted almost 7 hours and the keynote speaker spoke for more than 2 hours! To top it off, there were almost 500 nursing graduates alone! There were around 300 honor graduates (cum laudes, summa cum laudes and magna cum laudes)... the reddeming point is that my sister got an award for outstanding nursing graduate from the Baptist Church Organization in Ohio. She also got a loyalty medal for going to the same university from kindergarten.
I think they ought to give awards too for those who endured the entire ceremony...
I was commissioned by a Kiwi Magazine in Auckland to shoot Dean Williams, who used to be a big media personality in New Zealand before moving to Cambodia to open a funky cocktail bar called Miss Wong.
2.Sent my son to school for the first time
Yup, he’s officially a student at the International School of Siem Reap as we’ve been trying to convince him for the longest time that he is NOT Yet an adult.
3.We’re building a new store
We’re expanding and we’ve just opened a new store at the Alley West called POETRY. It’s a total lifestyle experience offering Don’s clothes, vintage finds, original jewelry from designer friends like Jor-el and Tita Jaki all the way from Iloilo, Philippines and a gallery for my work on “words” as well as for other up and coming artists based in Cambodia and the world over.
4.Opened up a solo exhibition at the Angkor National Museum
The Saffron Spirit makes its way to the Angkor National Museum alongside the kingdom’s ancient treasures. I couldn’t have been more thrilled!
5.Prepared for a trip home
Spent two weeks in Iloilo picking up pieces of my childhood memories and rebuilding our home after the devastating flood last year. Most of our family pictures were gone and my paintings and artworks have vanished into oblivion, but all is definitely not lost…
My mom, lost 90% of her garend and plants which is her source of life and income... but she has moved on quite well....
We had a reunion with relatives on my mom's side so we are slowly rebuilding our connections and lost memories.... all the lost pictures, books and what nots would have to be relished again... on a new perspective....
6.Turned another year older in Cambodia
Celebrated my 31st year of existence on this planet with family and friends. I actually shared the birthday week with Vincent, one of my photographers and good New Yorker friend Elizabeth Kiester.
7.Am being featured in a magazine with two great friends
Fah Thai Magazine, Bangkok Airways’ inflight magazine, is doing a feature on me, Don, and Elizabeth on our efforts to make Siem Reap the next best fashion destination in the planet. Hehehee.
8.Did a load of wedding shoots and temple shoots
Work work work. Need I say more?
9.I’m helping redesign the National Museum in Phnom Penh
One of the projects I’m really looking forward to do! Got in through the help of American friends John and Narisa McDermott!
10.Did a Suitcase Sale
One of the cool stuffs we’re doing on the Alley West…
11.Prepared for my sister’s graduation
After 4 years of gruelling tuition payments, and other miscellaneous out-of-this-planet expenses, my sister Love Grace has finally finished her Nursing degree...
The ceremony in itself was more suffering that you could bear than 4 years of school combined... the graduation lasted almost 7 hours and the keynote speaker spoke for more than 2 hours! To top it off, there were almost 500 nursing graduates alone! There were around 300 honor graduates (cum laudes, summa cum laudes and magna cum laudes)... the reddeming point is that my sister got an award for outstanding nursing graduate from the Baptist Church Organization in Ohio. She also got a loyalty medal for going to the same university from kindergarten.
I think they ought to give awards too for those who endured the entire ceremony...
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
coffee with supermodels
Having spent twenty three summers of my life in a suburb in Iloilo, I always thought living in this provincial threshold meant you are left out from the rest of the world. I remember the time when even newscasts were broadcast a week late on our tv sets and the only sign of civilization you find in the city is the rickety SM department store (Iloilo had the 1st SM outside of Manila in 1979) and a Dunkin Donut store.
Living in a lazy, middle-of-nowhere former Spanish colonial outpost, who would actually think that I'd be rubbing shoulders and spending coffee breaks with future supermodels and super designers who will eventually grace the face of global catwalks? And what more do their first photo shoots?!
Grendel Alvarado, originally from Bacolod City, won the Robinson's Iloilo Fashionista Search. A year later, she tried her luck modelling in Manila and was eventually chosen as a finalist and grand winner of the hit reality tv show The Philippines' Next Top Model - hosted by Ruffa Guttierez.
She is now a regular face on most fashion magazines in the Philippines and globally.
This shoot was for my friend Don's magazine called OWN where we tackled musings and inspirations from the final last days of the Berlin Wall. Pieces by visiting designer Gian Romano who a year before had won the MEGA Young Designer of the Year Award and had just returned from New York on apprenticeship from the fashion collective AsFour.
Military-tinged dresses by barangay-kagawad-turned-jetset-designer Bo Parcon, uber cool and devil-may-care finalist to the Philippine edition of Project Runway in ABC 5. Episodes can be watched via You Tube. Apparently, he is one of the most memorable charcters in the show... and in real life, he really is!
Pieces here are by Yohji Yamamoto and the unimitable Don Protasio - otherwise known in the blogosphere as fuchsiaboy. Don has been designing art (he doesn't design clothes, dear friends - he designs wearable art pieces!) since we were in college and has grown into a fashionable monster since then - regularly showing and capping great reviews in Philippine Fashion Week and has even showed a full collection in Cambodia by invitation from the Kingdom's Silk Forum. Although he is now based in Cambodia like me, he goes home every season to showcase his work. Grab any copy of Mega or Preview and you'll sure to bump into his name!
The team during the Berlin-inspired shoot: Nonoy Mosquera, Bo Parcon, Shoebe, Grendel Alvarado and Don Protasio
Another supemodel who is a familiar face in Philippine and international fashion is Ria Bolivar who Don discovered in a Salbakuta concert in Robinson's Iloilo. Standing out from the crowd like a sore thumb at 5'10 and with an unbelievable body frame, Don asked her to model for him. The rest as they say, is history.
Ria first broke into the Manila scene after winning one of the top prizes in the MTV Fashionista Search and representing the Philippines in Turkey. Now, she is a regular face in Philippine Fashion Week and Fashion TV.
Ria has also appeared in countless ads and fashion spreads in several publications from home and abroad. Her catwalk stints range from shows for Inno Sotto, Monique Lhuiller and even as far as Hongkong. The last time we had dinner with Ria, she was being courted by agents for the Milan Fashion Week.
I did these shoots with them right before they hit it big time - way before when I was still doing my photography on a borrowed analog film Yashica camera...
Now, it's just overwhelming to go back to these and say "Whew, I used to drink coffee with them!"
Living in a lazy, middle-of-nowhere former Spanish colonial outpost, who would actually think that I'd be rubbing shoulders and spending coffee breaks with future supermodels and super designers who will eventually grace the face of global catwalks? And what more do their first photo shoots?!
Grendel Alvarado, originally from Bacolod City, won the Robinson's Iloilo Fashionista Search. A year later, she tried her luck modelling in Manila and was eventually chosen as a finalist and grand winner of the hit reality tv show The Philippines' Next Top Model - hosted by Ruffa Guttierez.
She is now a regular face on most fashion magazines in the Philippines and globally.
This shoot was for my friend Don's magazine called OWN where we tackled musings and inspirations from the final last days of the Berlin Wall. Pieces by visiting designer Gian Romano who a year before had won the MEGA Young Designer of the Year Award and had just returned from New York on apprenticeship from the fashion collective AsFour.
Military-tinged dresses by barangay-kagawad-turned-jetset-designer Bo Parcon, uber cool and devil-may-care finalist to the Philippine edition of Project Runway in ABC 5. Episodes can be watched via You Tube. Apparently, he is one of the most memorable charcters in the show... and in real life, he really is!
Pieces here are by Yohji Yamamoto and the unimitable Don Protasio - otherwise known in the blogosphere as fuchsiaboy. Don has been designing art (he doesn't design clothes, dear friends - he designs wearable art pieces!) since we were in college and has grown into a fashionable monster since then - regularly showing and capping great reviews in Philippine Fashion Week and has even showed a full collection in Cambodia by invitation from the Kingdom's Silk Forum. Although he is now based in Cambodia like me, he goes home every season to showcase his work. Grab any copy of Mega or Preview and you'll sure to bump into his name!
The team during the Berlin-inspired shoot: Nonoy Mosquera, Bo Parcon, Shoebe, Grendel Alvarado and Don Protasio
Another supemodel who is a familiar face in Philippine and international fashion is Ria Bolivar who Don discovered in a Salbakuta concert in Robinson's Iloilo. Standing out from the crowd like a sore thumb at 5'10 and with an unbelievable body frame, Don asked her to model for him. The rest as they say, is history.
Ria first broke into the Manila scene after winning one of the top prizes in the MTV Fashionista Search and representing the Philippines in Turkey. Now, she is a regular face in Philippine Fashion Week and Fashion TV.
Ria has also appeared in countless ads and fashion spreads in several publications from home and abroad. Her catwalk stints range from shows for Inno Sotto, Monique Lhuiller and even as far as Hongkong. The last time we had dinner with Ria, she was being courted by agents for the Milan Fashion Week.
I did these shoots with them right before they hit it big time - way before when I was still doing my photography on a borrowed analog film Yashica camera...
Now, it's just overwhelming to go back to these and say "Whew, I used to drink coffee with them!"
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