Photography-at-large

Dr Abe V Rotor 

Living with Nature School on Blog 

Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid (People's School-on-Air) with Ms Melly C Tenorio

738 DZRB AM Band, 8 to 9 evening class, Monday to Friday                                                

Hasselblad - state-of-the art camera

Point-and-shoot. That's how easy photography is today. 

And anyone can have access to this once exclusive instrument that captures scenes and actions. Because of easy manipulation and readiness to shoot, the digital camera is perhaps becoming abused. 

It is used indiscriminately. Sometimes it crosses the boundary of privacy. There is little analysis, if at all, before shooting a subject.  For what purpose or reason? Does it follow some basic rules like balance, contrast, lighting, distance?

The technology is in fact a total deviation from that of the conventional technology. Today it comes with the cell phone, tablet, digital notebook.  There are surveillance cameras, monitoring, miniaturized, space probe, UV, and thermal, cameras - name it and technology will find a way. Social media relies on digital camera and because it is linked with the computer, photographs can be freely edited, they can be made into e-book, they are materials for artists like painters and architects, they can be sent, millions and millions everyday, to all parts of the world. 

Even if I belong to the old school, I found myself joining the countless ardent photographers and enthusiasts. I'll try to link photography - the art and media tool, the  serious and leisurely, conventional and modern, ideal and down-to-earth.  Perhaps, professional and amateur, modern and abstract. To think of photography's 101 functions today, its seems there is no place on earth where the lens is not watching us. In fact, it is us who wish to picture the whole world.

Typical palm size digital camera, easy to 

operate and convenient to carry. 

Here are photographs I wish to share as lesson to our pageviewers, and participants to Paaralang Bayan sa Himpapawid. 

Light up your life, Matabungkay, Batagas: flowers girls, stag man, Fuerte, Vigan City 

Dimorphism, a rare find of 4- and 5-arm starfish, Matabungkay, Batangas

Who is afraid to enter a man-made cave? International Exhibit Center, MM

Leaning fire tree, 45 degrees. Regalado Ave., Fairview, QC (The tree was cut down to give way to drainage construction)

Agro-tourism. Try yur hands in picking cowpea pods. San Ildefonso, Ilocos Sur.

Goat bear the long summer, nibbling on dry bark, Fuerte, Vigan, Ilocos Sur

Golden Kuhol (Pomacea caniculata), No. 1 pest of rice on the field. San Vicente, I. Sur

 Lazy man's crop so-called "plant-forget-harvest" - okra (Abelmoschos esculentus), gabi (Colocasia esculenta)

Sargassum (S. crispifolium), brown seaweed - most plentiful of all seaweeds in tropical reefs.  Vigan I. Sur

Bark of siniguelas (Spongias purporea) for minor wounds. San Ildefonso, I.S.

Balimbing (Averrhoa balimbi), Family Oxylidaceae (contain oxalic acid, which when taken frequently in large amount may cause osteoporosis)