History, philosophy, photography, art, memories, food, books, movies, technology, cultures, friendships, conversations...
Born in the Philippines, living in the U.S., I straddle East and West in interests and desires. I am fascinated by cultural patterns and seek to understand their source in personal and communal histories and in people's beliefs.
Contact me at creator81@gmail.com.
Comments [0]
My sister and brother-in-law left on Wednesday. I re-organized the house and office yesterday and today resumed work. I am going to first process the images and video clips from their visit into a small movie and slide show on duendearts.com and Flickr. Meanwhile I want to resume doing tutorials for Photoshop and start tutorials on videomaking, for starters, Final Cut Pro. I am joining my family again October 29 to return mid-November. The remaining two weeks I have in October I plan to use to clarify my work and career goals, while also rethinking what I call my "sabbatical." This is probably too much for the time I have considering that I want to continue the repair and re-organization work on the house and garage started by Arturo. All I know is that I need to get back to working on photographs and videos, while resuming my learning curve.
Comments [0]
Families at Play, La Alameda, Santiago de Compostela
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leaves us nothing but grief and pain,
Instead of promised joy!
Comments [0]
How quickly the reality of the present moment overtakes memories no matter how precious they seem to us. For thirteen days we were traveling through intoxicating landscapes of verdant mountains and valleys, crystal streams, rolling farms and quaint towns of Northern Spain. Our destination was Santiago de Compostela, a medieval center of pilgrimage that even today attracts hordes of people now coming from all over the world. Traveling the highways and roadways through Navarra and Galicia we caught apparitions of staff-wielding dark-clad pilgrims, with their nylon backpacks and space-age hiking boots as the ancient routes periodically emerged from the forest and farms into the modern age.
Comments [0]
Comments [0]
The tour of Spain, highlighting the green, mountainous north, ends today. I am flying back to the States on Delta at noon.
Travel is exhilarating. I love sampling the breads, cured meats, cheeses, and pastries of various parts of the world. Food encapsulates the culture of a country and its people, and reflects the regional experience which fascinates me no end. Some people on the tour spoke of how they didn't like Spanish food. For me Spanish food is the dark side, the opposite side of food I knew as a child in the Philippines. I love the spices the Spanish use because they are the same as those used on the islands they once ruled. We're in Madrid, cosmopolitan and stylish in the area around the Cybele fountain, touristy and historical around Plaza de Oro but I can understand why the early Filipino illustrados largely lived in Barcelona where art is softer and divergence from the mainstream is cultivated.Comments [0]
This is the second hotel we've been in with free WiFi but I have not posted to the Internet except for some photos to my Flickr photo stream. This one was shot at a public park near the Old Town area of Santiago de Compostela. A co-traveler, Wil, and I took a walk the afternoon after we arrived in the pilgrimage city. I enjoy visiting tourist spots, the remarkable features of the cities we visited, but I am most interested just in seeing how people there live.
In Spain, by five or six in the afternoon, public squares, parks and pedestrian malls are full of families enjoying themselves. What a refreshing change from the States. Children run and play while their parents, often both father and mother, watched them and chatted with each other. The public spaces become Spain's giant living room. We're flying to Madrid at noon, then back to the U.S. tomorrow.Comments [0]
On the eve of my scheduled travels the next two months, these photos of my previous trips bring up even more feeling. I look at landscape images from other photographers and marvel at the quality of their images. In particular I like the vividness of the images, not so much the composition i.e. the crop they choose to make of the 360° world they are standing in. On the other hand I believe I've improved my own skills at both photography and processing the images after the shoot but the way to where I want them to be is very long, shrouded as always in clouds and mist!
Comments [0]
In his 1995 book, Becoming a Chef, coauthored with his wife, Karen Page, sous chef Andrew Dornenburg wrote: "This profession requires a tremendous amount of hard work. There is more to being a chef than creativity, just as there is more than creativity to being an artist. As in any other craft, chefs must practice, practice, practice. Perfection is the only acceptable benchmark."
Reading this was reassuring. We have our innate, gut sense of what looks, sounds, tastes, smells or feels good but as human beings that mostly do things with their hands, art is also craft, the manipulation of objects to align with what we see in our minds and hearts.
Comments [0]
Comments [0]