Prologue
I was never one to plan anything. Everything I am now--what I've seen, what I've done and everywhere I've been thus far, I hadn't really planned on. As a kid, I wanted to join the Air Force and fly fighter jets as I had a fascination for anything that had wings--rotary or fixed. In my adolescent years, I wanted to be in the Philippine Military Academy, be a soldier or something. When that failed, I set my sights on architecture because I didn't think I had what it took to be a painter. That too, never materialized so I turned to photography which was a hobby since I was 9 years old. Somehow, that went well for me but I never really had my own camera until I was 21--a secondhand Nikon 35mm. For a couple of decades, that was to be my life and behind the camera seemed a good place to be. My first paying gig was covering a neighbor's wedding in Sta. Cruz, Laguna. I hadn't set my sights on photojournalism just yet but seeing life away from the city was interestin...