Agfa Building

I'm just fascinated by this old building standing unobtrusively, almost obscurely, along City Hall Drive and caught my camera on Independence Day. While waiting for the VIPs to arrive, my camera felt very impatient and explored the vicinity of the square some distance away. We were allotted a standing space without any chair to sit on so it really tested my endurance, especially as my hipbone was hurting that morning. So, the camera roamed around and happened to look up at the trees--there were about eight full grown trees left standing at the City Hall grounds, had they cut all the others? and beyond the trees, this particular building, so fascinating because it looked so old. What story could it be telling me? The drive on its ground floor was often crowded with people milling around, doing some business with City Hall, vendors hawking, or selling fruits like sliced papaya, singkamas, raw mangoes; or banana cues and later, siomai, binignit, used to line up the sidewalks outside the camera shops next to this building, photocopiers, laminating shops, photo studios and Davao's oldest bookstore, the Velasco Bookstore, lining down the entire stretch of the drive that ends at the Jaltan outlet where it meets Magallanes Street in the corner. 

Is Agfa Building the real name of the building? And why is it named Agfa in the first place? Yes, I know it had something to do with Agfa film but I want to know exactly what and how. 

That conversation with my father

I posted this on social media, exactly three months after we brought him to the hospital and we grappled for the first time with the seriousness of his condition. By this time, he must have already been staying with me somewhere in Novatierra; or, was he already taken to that rented room in Ecoland? I could no longer remember exactly. I only knew the days during this time had bled unto each other, I could no longer tell when one ended and the other one began as I precariously struggled to eke a living, while at the same time, trying to face up to that reality that was Pa. 
But I took this picture some time in October 2012 or 2013, when he was still relatively strong. I decided to post this here because that conversation I had with him the night before was probably the last sane conversation I had with him. Perhaps, it was the only conversation in my entire life when I told him what was on my mind (or my heart, actually); what I've been longing to do for a long time; but which I never got the courage (or the time, the resources) to start:

July 1, 2015. He was still strong when I left home to take these pictures. He walked three kilometers, looking for me, thinking that I had gone away to the farm. He did not know I was only crouched in a neighboring ricefield; so, when months ago, I first saw him being wheeled to the x-ray room unable to get up, I looked back to this particular day, when he walked three kilometers looking for me; and when he did not find me, he walked back another three kilometers to the house; and I said, wow, Pa, you're still strong to cover all that distance in one morning!

Things that fascinate me

NOTES FROM MY JOURNAL
September 13, 2012 

What did photographer Nick Onken say in his book “photo trekking?” 

Choose the subjects that interest you. 

Don’t only photograph subjects just because you are paid to do it  but explore also those that naturally fascinate you and attract you for some reasons.

This is how you develop your style, he wrote. 

Just a bit like writing, I think. But what are the things that really fascinate me? 

Alleyways. Skies (although I just found  how their colors change at different hours of day, as Ja used to point out to me). Mirrors. Doors. Windows. Labyrinth. Churches. Buildings. People. Roads. Shapes. Sillhouettes. Books. Shadows. Ceramics. Jugs and Jars.  Signs and writings on the walls. Cats.

Roads. Especially roads.

Rivers.

I discover this journal because I was looking for traces of Pa among the things I wrote before.

How it Dawned Upon Me

Of course, I consider myself lucky, even privileged enough, to be surrounded by so many photographers, photojournalists in their own right, who wield their cameras like seasoned warriors in the Trojan War. Standing by the doorway, awed by the color of the sky, I would aim a point and shoot, and over my shoulders, Ja would say, "Not too much of the sky, Ma, look at the dome, instead. There should be more of the dome and less of the sky." "But the sky, I want the sky, can't you see its color, how different it is from yesterday?"
In another place, another time, I'd look over the window on the third floor of Marco Polo, fascinated by how the Ateneo de Davao building looked from there. So, I'd aim my point and shoot again, near where Tatay Rene was engrossed over his aerial shoot; then, unwittingly, he'd take a glance at what I was doing and say, "Why do you include the windows, Day, that would clutter the picture, you can do away the windows." "But I want the windows, Tay, I want to take a picture of that building through the window of another building." He would give me a puzzled look; and shrugging his shoulders, leave me alone.
At the lobby of a new mall, fascinated again by how the speakers creatively used an overhead mirror, instead of an overhead projector in making their cooking demonstration visible to a larger audience, I aimed my camera again to capture the scene. Keith, with a calculating photographer's eye, noticed my distance from my subject; and nudging me, said, "Get closer. You won't get anything there." In another forum in another mall, Bing Gonzales noticed how I was focusing my camera at the cords on the floor while a press conference was going on. "What are you trying to capture? What story are you trying to impart?" "I don't have a story here," I said, still focusing on the stupid cords. There is no story here except my endless search for stories.
Then, finally, I found solace on what photographer Nick Onken said in his book “photo trekking”: Choose subjects that interest you. Don’t only photograph subjects just because you are paid to do it but you should follow your guts. Explore subjects that naturally fascinate you and attract you for some reasons. This is how you develop your style.
It's just a bit like writing, I guess.