So I have finally managed to find five minutes and a (barely) working email connection to post this update on what I have been doing for the past days in the Philippines.
I’ve been travelling in Cebu with ace photojournalist Karl Grobl and visiting some amazing sites and picking up some great learning along the way. Karl often works here and has ferreted out some amazing places to explore and capture breathtaking images. I will tell you about two of them here.
Santa Mesa Underpass Community
Under a rail bridge in a suburb of Manila a group of unrelated peope have been brought together by their common need for shelter and security in numbers. Living in a mishmash of ‘homes’ made from assorted oddments, alongside two rail tracks and framed by highways with Jeepneys and so on driving through regularly to compliment the trains that run past every 20 minutes to boot.
We visited these people who were pleased to see us and did not seem to mind at all being documented. Here are a couple of images to give you an idea of how these people live.
Packing & Sorting Charcoal By Hand For Sale In The Market
This infant was born under the bridge, not in a hospital. He is sleeping on an old door in a motorcycle sidecar.
Flores Boxing Gym
Later in the week I visited a very small boxing gym called Flores Boxing Gym in Mandaue City. Four times a week, young men come to the gym to train and spar with one another under the guidance of Brix Florez, himself a talented boxer. Once again we were welcomed into the private world of people who barely knew us from Adam and made to feel welcome as well as being given priveleged access to photograph their workouts.
Fighters sparring at the gym
A fighter works the heavy bag in the gym
I leave for Vietnam again in a few days and have to say that I find myself surpised by how reluctant I am to leave the Philippines. I am sure I will return.
I will be meeting up with Karl again in Cambodia for a few days to do some very focussed one-on-one mentoring and shooting and of course you will be able to read about that here on the blog too!