Punctuating all those photo shoots this year was a chance to facilitate in a summer camp for Compassion Philippines leading a topic on Retreat and Reflection. Since most of the events I end up shooting takes me away from church, it was timely and appropriate. Nevertheless, even as I was informed of the venue for the camp, my mind fritters off to the photo opportunities that can be found in the area.
The camp was the Rizal Recreation Center which was just off San Pablo City which was known for its seven lakes. I have been there to shoot more than once in the recent years so it was familiar territory. Even more familiar because I was traipsing around the area in the early 1980s when I attended those Conservative Baptist camps in a nearby resort in Nagcarlan, Laguna then later teaching an extension class for Penuel School of Theology in San Pablo City proper during the early 1990s.
NET ASSETS
Pentax KM + SMCP K 50/1.4 + Fuji ProPlus II
So I planned a sunrise shoot in Sampaloc Lake with my son, Khalil, accompanying me. I wanted to shoot a sunset as well but time would not allow it. The other times I shot a sunrise in Sampaloc Lake was a bit of a letdown because it was raining. This particular time the sun was out and the lake was pleasantly calm.
And quiet.
Quiet enough even as Khalil and I conversed about camera settings that something comes to the heart in that communion. Echoes faintly whisper something from the past; not literal as there is an eerie quiet as if in a silent movie where fishermen in the lake and joggers start appearing and doing their thing but without a sound.
The yellow ball of the sun reminded me of a time in Cadiz City where during a missionary sojourn, I looked out one morning to the mist just slightly covering and hiding the sugar cane fields with the sunrise in the horizon. The still waters reminded me of my youth in my dad’s fishpond in Mactan Island in those doldrums when the wind was still.
It was a retreat.
Not because I learned something but because my heart was somehow ‘home’ again.
It was refreshing.
Not because I was empowered but because I was loved again.
CAPTURED COLOR
Pentax K10D + SMCP FA 20-35/4 AL
The camp was the Rizal Recreation Center which was just off San Pablo City which was known for its seven lakes. I have been there to shoot more than once in the recent years so it was familiar territory. Even more familiar because I was traipsing around the area in the early 1980s when I attended those Conservative Baptist camps in a nearby resort in Nagcarlan, Laguna then later teaching an extension class for Penuel School of Theology in San Pablo City proper during the early 1990s.
NET ASSETSPentax KM + SMCP K 50/1.4 + Fuji ProPlus II
So I planned a sunrise shoot in Sampaloc Lake with my son, Khalil, accompanying me. I wanted to shoot a sunset as well but time would not allow it. The other times I shot a sunrise in Sampaloc Lake was a bit of a letdown because it was raining. This particular time the sun was out and the lake was pleasantly calm.
And quiet.
Quiet enough even as Khalil and I conversed about camera settings that something comes to the heart in that communion. Echoes faintly whisper something from the past; not literal as there is an eerie quiet as if in a silent movie where fishermen in the lake and joggers start appearing and doing their thing but without a sound.
The yellow ball of the sun reminded me of a time in Cadiz City where during a missionary sojourn, I looked out one morning to the mist just slightly covering and hiding the sugar cane fields with the sunrise in the horizon. The still waters reminded me of my youth in my dad’s fishpond in Mactan Island in those doldrums when the wind was still.
It was a retreat.
Not because I learned something but because my heart was somehow ‘home’ again.
It was refreshing.
Not because I was empowered but because I was loved again.
CAPTURED COLORPentax K10D + SMCP FA 20-35/4 AL
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