around the campus

Trees at the sunken garden

My favorite corner in UP. I don’t know why. But I love the corner–the stoplights and the intersection:

And the pavement. I love taking shots of the ground. I always make it a point to show a part of the pavement.

an empty EDSA

Went to EDSA again a while ago to check it out–they’re finally done taking down the billboards (at least according to them). Managed to shoot some pictures before it rained hard.

An empty billboard stand set against an ominous sky.

Some were still up, though.

It was a bit strange, seeing EDSA so… empty.

our living room

I’m a book whore. A book lover. A book worm.

My shelf in the living room:

Closer look:

There are two layers of books there, meaning there are more books behind the ones you see.

The ceiling, in our living room:

man versus the street

Two pictures on the modern-day, urban Hamlet:

pictures from the past month

Been quite busy going around the past month. Fortunately, I was able to take pictures of the places I’ve been to.

Blocked off from Rizal in Luneta. What’s the purpose of a monument if you can’t come up close?

This beautiful picture was taken by a dear friend of mine who accompanied me in UST. We took shots of the overpass for my bridges paper.

Students sketching the fountain in UST. I’ve always wanted to see students hanging at open spaces in universities. Such, I believe, provides a stimulating and friendly environment.

~*~

The following are pictures I took at Sapang Palay for my paper on Spatial Organization:

The house beside the creek. Here’s a full shot of the shack:

Intertwined with the trees, as if part of the environment.

Ingenious, don’t you think? The bamboo, the ad banner, the powdered milk can. And the door mat that keeps the house free from dirty shoes and slippers. I was quite embarrassed to enter with my rubbers on.

When you see how people have made the best of what they have, you can’t help but feel that as they piece together broken and discarded materials, meaningful lives are fashioned out of these as well.

The house with a makeshift second floor (carboard and G.I. sheets) but which is actually a beautiful and cozy room inside:

Angela, daughter of the owner of the house who kept trailing after us! =)

On a post beside the stairs, one of the children wrote:

Hapi bday
Dad
kain tayo
Jolibe

What is interesting about this is the fact that Jollibee has just opened (last June) in San Jose, and that for these families, fastfood establishments are already treats for them. I wish I could’ve even treated the kid(s) out.

city

Had a rather fascinating conversation a while ago with someone which made me think back on my filmmaking days, and my photogs, naturally.

I’m falling in love with Manila more and more; yesterday I saw a couple of street signs, and I wanted so badly to take shots of them, to preserve them, somehow. I have a bunch of phone pictures here on people’s feet while walking, as well as a rainy Manila, but I haven’t sorted them out yet.

The city holds you, whether you’re up there,

or down.

blurred vehicles

for Nix

Flyovers in EDSA

And my new object of fascination, foot bridges:

Singapore

Somehow, I still prefer our rugged LRTs and MRTs here.

But check out their train station:

train

Yes; that blue line on the upper left is a speeding MRT.

“The train generalizes Durer’s melancholia, a speculative experience of the world: being inside of these things that stay here, detached and absolute, that leave us without having anything to do with this departure themselves; being deprived of them, surprised by their ephemeral and quiet strangeness. Astonishment is abandonment. However, these things do not move. They have only the movement that is brought about from moment to moment by changes in perspective among their bulky figures… they do not change their place any more than I do; vision alone continually undoes and makes the relationships between these fixed elements.“

–Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life

(Do read de Certeau’s poetic writings if you want to fall madly in love with cities.)