Yodis Phere: mobile phone photography

Showing posts with label mobile phone photography. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

[Mobile Snapshot] Seeking Serenity After the Storm

Spider web catching beads of dew after the rain

O Seth, son of Nut, god of storms,

We offer these beads of silver dew,
To appease thy wrath.

Monday, September 19, 2011

[Mobile Snapshot] » Rambubetlog

Rambubetlog: Rambutan for the green minded.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Mt Pinatubo Hiking » Capturing Beauty out of Chaos: Mobile Phone Photography

This is another attempt on mobile phone photography and I think it shows through a little bit of improvement from my previous photos so I´m going to post my Pinatubo set almost entirely, and as such I would like some feedback and advise on my shots because I still find them lacking composition. Sorry about this being such a wall of greens and ashes but the background story in text is rather complex, and deserves a separate post - I’m still editing it (meaning I’m still on lazy-mode) so please bear with me.

I took these photos using my very handy Samsung Galaxy S smartphone during our “Akyat Pinatubo Bloggers Climb for A Cause” last month. Mt. Pinatubo became synonymous with death, destruction and mudflow when it erupted but after a few years, it became a tourist attraction, hence my title “Beauty out of Chaos”

Here take a look:

"Out there"

"Bumpy ride"

"Race to the Horizon"

"Ash Desert"

"White Phantasm"

"Ash Symphony"

"Pinatubo Collage"

"Monuments of Destruction"

"Mystery Mountain"

"Against the White"

"Catching the Fallen Leaf"

"Baptism of the Solitary Wanderer"

"Death of the Evil Tree"

"Ash Caves"

"Pebbled Harmony"

"Rocks in Bloom"

"Escape of the Ash Leaves"

"Colored Conformity"

"Metamorphosis at Rest"

"Beautiful Lucifer in Paradise"

"Lost Flock"

"Where is Moises"

"Mystery of Death"

"Femme Fatale"

P.S.

Well, it looks like Google got irritated at me for not writing for so long a time and for my intermittent posts and kicked my adsense and traffic round a bit. As a result I review my dusty drafts folder, cringed a lot for the long list of pending articles and decided to go backwards and abandoned chronological posting of my travel adventures.

I’m still editing my “Spiritual Walk to Pinatubo” so I posted this photo set as teaser. After this, I will post something about my recent trip to Hong Kong going all the way back to my pending post about our Quezon and Vigan escapade.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bangui Windmills » Catching Scattered Memories Beyond the Wind

Have you ever visited a place for the first time that instantly triggers memories of your happy childhood? A far-off place with totally different landscape and foreign scenery but with an ambiance that evokes a familiar “feel” within your subconscious. Sometimes it could be the place’s scent that instantly exhumes buried and long forgotten memories. Childhood memories that you think you’ve lost when you discovered the adult world.

It would be nice to once again feel that carefree feelings right? So folks, let me show you the Bangui windmills of Ilocos and at the same time let me also share pieces of my treasured childhood memories.

Windmills of the gods

On our recent Ilocos tour on our way to Pagudpud beach, we made a pit stop at the Bangui area where the famous “Wind Farm” of the NorthWind Bangui Bay Project is located.

After parking at the Kangkang café, a solitary mini-restaurant conveniently located just a few meters behind the windmills, we excitedly head for the beach and greeted by gusts of hot and salty wind.

I am immediately awed by the Bangui windmills, which are neatly lined up, tracing the romantic curves of the Bangui shores carved by the agitated and forever grumbling waves. Against these waves, the windmills are trying to push back the playful north winds back to the sea but to no avail, yet they seem very happy because they can’t.

This is a scene where time stands still.

It’s like the Ilocanos built the windmill towers to honor and appease Boreas, the purple-winged god of the north wind, thus they made it huge powerful and towering like those sacred temples and towers dedicated for the Greek gods.

However, aside from the expansiveness of the place, the windmills, the gusts of wind and the roaring waves, the place also summoned up something more powerful within me.

The memory of the waves and the wind

Then I felt small and light. Carefree. That familiar feeling suddenly surged up when the first white bubbles carried by the snaking wave touched my feet. I just stand there, barefoot, feeling the gray pebbles against my feet, eager for more waves and white bubbles. I felt the salty air rushing through my lungs and it tickles me.

Another big wave came, but a few inches before it touches my feet, I jumped and ran, crazily laughing while catching my breath. While running, I saw the wind passing the spinning windmills burst into amazing colors, exploding like a sudden drop of ink on still water.

I am happy. I am child again.

In search of buried memories

I spent my whole childhood days in my hometown province in Occidental Mindoro. I spent it playing on the beach, running on the field, jumping and rolling on haystack, swimming on rivers and picking guavas, duhat and other wild fruits during summer and mostly playing street games with other kids.

There is also a special season in my hometown called tag-amihan. It is the time when gusts of strong wind visit our town, which happen sometime during the harvest season but intermittently come blowing till early December. This is the time when we happily fly a saranggola and play paper windmills.

I suddenly missed everything from my hometown. I miss my home. My playmates. Lala, my dead dog. Mang Felix’ homemade ice cream. But do you know what I really miss? The smells of my childhood memories. I never thought each memory has a distinct odor to it, but it does. I could taste it in the Bangui air, just like our amihan. Unusually fresh.

And I think I seldom taste any of those memories because the adult world robbed it from me. Hence, I travel to search for those lost memories.

Travel and the gift of forgetfulness

The adult world can make you sad, this is what I realized. This is the time when you worry about so many things – career, money, love life, gadgets, facebook likes, twitter mention, traffic, earthquakes, summer heat, salary increase and sex performance.

Moreover, we live in a world so obsessively, and crazily concerned and devoted to looking forward that we frequently forget to take the time to look back. Nevertheless, some of our best happy memories reside there, in our childhood. Memories which can guide us much about to where we are heading.

However, no matter how rich or successful we struggle to become, I learned that it is always important to remember the joys of our childhood. This is the best thing travel can offer. The gift of forgetfulness - which the Bangui windmills and the Ilocos wind bestowed on me. I who seemed lost in the chaos persistent in my adult world. A gift that let me forget the awful remembrances of the arduous climb to the corporate ladder, and the haunting stampede of adult responsibilities.

We all need this gift, in order that we should be happy and lighthearted again.

To forget. That’s why I travel.

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Related Posts:
HERE ARE THE DETAILED POSTS ABOUT OUR Ilocandia Time Travel

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Credits and Citations:

» Photos taken by the author, Yodz Insigne via Samsung Galaxy S {mobile phone photography} except for the jump shot (last photo)

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse » Death of Elegance, Creepy Tales and A Spark of Wisdom

We expect bright sunny day on our visit to the majestic Cape Bojeador Lighthouse but no, egotistical weather decided to give us gray clouds and gloomy rain showers. It seemed that the weather was trying to make a point - solitary sentinels of the sea are best visited when the circumstance has the aura of immense loneliness. Well I got the point, and I love it.

I looked up, and saw the outline of the towering Bojeador Lighthouse, hazy due to the drops of rain falling like tears on my old eyeglasses. It was like Severus’ giant wand ready to cast the unforgivable Imperius Curse to the world – hoping to control its chaotic ways. And I was like an elf, climbing the cold stone steps, diminutive, weary and nonchalant.

Towering Cape Bojeador Lighthouse

The lighthouse is the old queen, standing high and proud on top of the Vigia de Nagparitan Hill in Burgos Ilocos Norte. She is keeping vigil since March 30, 1892, so far away from the chaos of civilization yet her job was very important.

Dying elegance

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse view of the balcony from the courtyard

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, also known as the Burgos Lighthouse must have once had certain elegance and a nice dose of Spanish hubris. The romantic series of stone steps connected to the once ornate iron gate, now rusty and creaking, will lead you directly to the balcony, courtyard and main pavilion.

Stone steps from the main tower going to the living quarters with rusty decorative grills and woodcarvings.

The whole structure is made of bricks, complemented by decorative grill works and woodcarvings. But the violent roaring winds, sea salt and ravages of time stripped it of all its former glory.

View from the romantic Spanish Balconaje

Stairs leading down the courtyard

Also, the place must have been the favorite romantic spot for lovers during the Spanish era - a Filipina in her maria clara giggling with her abaniko while her lover sings old kundiman at the balconaje. Hmmmm, romantic eh.

The living quarters

But no, the living quarters of the lighthouse is now a dungeon for old ghosts. Red bricks are now falling off the walls, capiz windows are now patched by wood planks, ornate iron railings are rusty and deformed.

The tower, which constitutes the highest level situated in the rear a few meters higher than the pavilion is also suffering the demise of Ferdinand Marcos. No restoration efforts was visible and climbing inside the tower going to the overhanging balcony is no longer allowed due to rusty spiral metal stairs.

Entrance going to the elevated main tower

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, also known as Faro Cabo Cape Bojeador, said to be the most photographed and filmed of all Philippine light stations is slowly losing its elegance. Its light is dying. Somebody from the government should do something.

Creepy tales of the light keeper

Awe-inspiring view of the ocean from the foot of the lighthouse's main tower

I thought lighthouses catch the most awe-inspiring aspects of the ocean alone. There can be immense loneliness if you can’t share the magnificent view with anyone. But I’m wrong. Cape Bojeador Lighthouse was never alone. She has Mang Ruben.

the barefoot light keeper telling his scary tales

While inspecting the dark alley of the lighthouse’s living quarters and taking pictures at the veranda, a stout looking old man with no slippers appeared at the gate. No, he’s not a ghost, he is Mang Ruben, the light keeper. ( I don’t know if I got his name right.)

We are the only group that time and he enthusiastically showed us the place like welcoming us on his own home. He felt sorry because he can’t allow us to go up the tower. He said it’s dangerous, and it’s fine with us.

There are four big rooms in the living quarters, each with huge creepy doors. First he allowed us to inspect the first room which served as the mini museum. The room is musty and dark with old photos inside glass cases.

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse Museum which includes a replica of the lighthouse tower, old photos of: century old foot cabinet; the manual machine; the site of the "Urno"; the prism; the "birdcage"; structure where the prisms are attached; the rock monument believed to cut patiently and diligently by Burgos forefathers; the pulley room; the "weight"; and the FA250 Lamp producing three white flashes every after five seconds. The room also has a few newspaper clippings, souvenir photo of Ferdinand Marcos at the Parola and a top view diorama of the whole Nagparitan hills.

The next room was really creepy. He said there’s a family living there a long time ago but it was abandoned now. What were left are old wooden bench, a bed and a vintage bicycle - hair-raising yet interesting.

Old window from one of the rooms

The adjacent room, which he did not showed us holds spooky tales. Mang Ruben said that one time, he was trapped in the lighthouse due to a typhoon, and he swore that he heard voices coming from those rooms – a crying child and a lady. Mang Ruben also said he saw a ghost of a really big snake gliding inside those big rooms.

Fantastic view from one of the rooms

I don’t actually believe in ghosts but I still got goose bumps whenever I remember that rainy morning, on those cold, dark dungeon-like rooms listening to Mang Ruben’s creepy tales.

Never miss talking to Mang Ruben when you visited Cape Bojeador Lighthouse. He himself is like a living old relic of the Faro Cabo making the lighthouse a real blast!

Lighthouse reflections

Emo Anjho waiting for her dead lover

"Darkness reigns at the foot of the lighthouse"

-Japanese Proverb-

Sometimes just visiting a place gives me a sudden spark of wisdom – that’s the beauty of travel, makes me lapsed into an introspective state. While touring and camwhoring at the Cape Bojeador Lighthouse, I sensed that it was trying to tell me something. It’s not like those creepy sensations but a peaceful one.

Cape Bojeador Lighthouse is a perfect metaphor for many things in our life. It is a perfect metaphor for my life. I would definitely love to go back or visit other lighthouses. Or perhaps buy an island with an old lighthouse and live out there. Immense loneliness will be there but intense spiritual connections can be made only on those places.

Our favorite Lighthouse boyband shot [courtesy of Bar's smartphone]. From left: Aldan, Bern, Bar and Yodz

“Why you’d rather be on the center of chaos, fast-paced life and temporal ambitions than looking for silence and inner peace. Why you consider sitting and thinking a waste of time?” the lighthouse whispered.

I am a sinner on the run; this is what the lighthouse told me.

HERE ARE THE DETAILED POSTS ABOUT OUR Ilocandia Time Travel

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Sources of Facts and Citations:

» Wikipidia Article. "Cape Bojeador Lighthouse" [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Bojeador_Lighthouse] Retrieved: 03 May 2011

» Cape Bojeador Lighhouse Images and Photos (via Mobile Phone Photography - Samsung Galaxy S I9000) : Taken by Yodz Insigne: 26 March 2011

» Philippine National Historical Institute - Cape Bojeador Lighthouse Historical Marker

Complete Historical Inscription Reads:

"Idinesenyo ni Inhenyero Magin Pers Y Pers, 1887. Isinaayaos at natapos ng Servicio de Faros sa ilalim ni Inhenyero Guillermo Brockman, 1890. Itinayo bilang Faro de Primera Orden na may tore at mga pabelyon sa burol na Vigia de Nagparitan ng bayan ng Burgos. Nagsilbing gabay-tanglawsa mga sasakyang pandagat mula 1892 hanggang sa kasalukuyan. Natatanging halimbawa ng parola at arkitektura ng ikalabinsiyam na dantaon. Ipinhayag na Pambansang Palatandaang Pangkasaysayan ng Pambansang Suriang Pangkasaysayan, 13 Agosto 2004, at Pambansang Yamang Pangkalinangan ng Pambansang Museo, 20 Hunyo 2005."