Rough Groove

Sleepless

A minute short of 1800H and I am still awake 36 hours straight without sleep. If not for the said deadline of the church pics that I was to submit today for the book project, I would’ve had my slumber last night. Instead, I was awake the whole time since 0600H yesterday when my phone clock alarm went off, trying to cover as much church facade and details as I can. As of last count, I have covered 94 churches nationwide and have already finished 80 of that. More…By finish, I mean having postprocessed a church facade with the corresponding details that ranges in number between 3 to 11! That’s 89% completion and as of now, I already have around 588 PSDs (that’s photoshop documents and just 1/4 of that I have done in previous weeks). I still have to do 14 facades that’s quite complex. From the monotonous and tedious cloning out of electrical wires and posts and people and cars to doing complex composites of multiple photos in order to have that clean, undisturbed full frontal shot of that colonial church. Whew! Such a tall order considering that I still have to go back to San Fernando and Angeles in Pampanga to do a 0500H photoshoot, the only time that it will be possible other than at night; go back again to Orani in Bataan to do another shot and venture to Batangas City and Taal to get a good shot of the old church in these places. Just last night, Fr. Galende, added a fifteenth: Tondo.

the front of the old church of Malabon converted into a parking lot

Curiously, I didn’t really feel sleepy even when it was already 0500H this morning and I was preparing my photogear for a church shoot in Malabon. A shot of I-on, an energy drink, might have done wonders. From LRT Buendia to the last station in Monumento, I was wondering if I will be able to get a good shot this time of the facade of the Malabon church considering that even this early, the church has already started preparing their Easter Sunday arch for the Salubong. Unfortunately, when I arrived, they have started covering portions of the arch with paper in gaudy green, thus making a full frontal shot impossible. Couple this with the vehicles parked in front and I was shaking my head, disappointed. Now, I don’t have any other options left but to attempt a photo composite from photos that I took a week earlier.
From the Carriedo LRT station I hopped on a taxi, heading to San Agustin Museum to submit the high resolution files that I have done the previous day only to find another request from Fr. Galende for help in preparing hi res colored and archival photos from the museum’s collection of images of Augustinian churches. It would have been a breeze except that when I checked the digitized archival images, these were in low resolution jpegs that I didn’t have much choice but to scan around 7 photos, clean it up, organize then submit it on CD which will be forwarded to the publisher who will then prepare dummy pages. Up until 1330H, I was clicking and cloning out dirt and scratches on these images, scanned at 600 dpi, burning these to CDs and printing out contact sheets. 5 minutes past 1330H and I was out of San Agustin Museum, hurrying to my next venue, the Ayala Museum in far away Makati for a lecture.

Taxi was rather slow because of traffic that I was able to arrive at my condo unit 1400H, quickly changed clothes and headed for Ambeth Ocampo’s lecture on Tsinoy: Mestizo art in Colonial Times, one of the major part. that he curated, that comprise the Chinese Diaspora exhibition at the Ayala Museum. Despite being late for almost 30 minutes, I was still able to catch his lighthearted and funny discussion.

This Chinese Diaspora exhibit is really one of the must see events in the country right now. Just imagine, a rich display of the Peranakan culture from the collections of the Asian Civilizations Museum of Singapore, various ceramic wares from the Roberto T. Villanueva Collection with items as early as the 9th centure, to an exhibit on the best known colonial era painter, Damian Domingo.

After the short lecture, I passed by Powerbooks at Greenbelt but seeing no new Photography and Graphic Design titles, headed out to Glorietta in search of something to eat only to decide to take a sandwich and some Bread Talk fare and eat at home.

Its now 45 minutes past since I started writing this and slowly, my eyes are getting heavier, I’ve been yawning sleepy from time to time but all I’m thinking now is to go to an internet cafe, post this at my blog, have dinner later and watch 300 the movie.