Create Travel Blog
May is the month of fiestas. Our culture celebrate feasts in order to honor our patron saints, and pray for their intercession in order to receive blessings. In our country, each fiesta is held similarly in essence but uniquely in expression. It is not uncommon for one barangay to have the same patron saint for a different one. However, every barangay makes it a point that each year of festivities has a unique quality from the previous one.
Aliwan Fiesta is an event that brings to the city nearly all the colorful festivals and performances from all over the Philippines. From the northern tip down to the southernmost islands, groups of Filipino students representing their region and their unique celebration of the local festivals come to the city and showcase
their region's festivities, dressed in elaborate but finely made costumes and dancing to the African-esque but truly Filipino festival beats and sounds.
It was a pleasure and a great honor to capture the young, vibrant youth participants while they were preparing for their parade and their performances. With an assorted number of photographers ranging from tourists armed with point and shoots to hobbyist toting beginner SLRs to professionals fully geared up, they smiled, posed, greeted and obliged all of us, ecstatic and overjoyed at our appreciation of their appearances and dispositions.
As they fell in line, the true Filipino spirit was in the air - performers helping each other out prepare their costumes, displaying courtesy and hospitality to tourists and foreigners who were mesmerized by the performers willingness to smile and pose with them while fully dressed in their costumes in the middle of the summer heat, and respect towards their elders - teachers, choreographers and guides - by listening intently and following their every instruction, despite their eagerness to showcase their best efforts.
The parade hasn't even started when my camera's batteries gave out. Not having captured much, I stayed around to soak up the air of the event. When I'm behind the lens, being the beginner that I am, I tended to think about my current subject and worry about where my next shot will come from. I have much to learn in this craft, and hopefully the next time it won't be so much as a learning experience as I did learn much today.
Eventually, I reached my limit - I grew frustrated with the fact that here were all the reasons to shoot pictures and I couldn't because I wasn't prepared enough to do so. I went home and got on a bus back to my home town of Las Pinas, and realized that in those few hours spent shooting the fiesta, the best shot and souvenir I got was the feeling of not being anywhere in Manila - I felt that through all those performers that I met, I had partly been to where they came from. In my moments of interaction with them, that I had seen the wonders of their world, traveled and experienced their culture, heritage and their history.
