ASSIGNMENT 1: KNOWING WHERE YOU'RE AT

Was taken last year 2024 in July wherein I had the opportunity to ride the Manila LRT for the first time. I took this photo at a moment where I saw the beautiful side of riding a train and the reason for this is because when someone is told to envision a train station or a train ride, many will say that they see trains as a cramped and tiring ride to be in because of the rush hour. But because I managed to ride a train before the rush hour and at a time when the sun was just about to set, I got to experience a cozy and bit emotional moment. Although admittedly, the photo would not pass for professionals due to multiple reasons, the photo I took is still one of my favorite photos taken as it captured my current emotion at that time, and for me, that is one step ahead into storytelling photography. I would say though that there were limits to my creativity and how I could have gotten a better shot with better composition, lighting, and more so since I wanted to keep the photo unedited as it expresses my real experience more effectively than the one with color presets. One thing that prevented me from taking a different angle or shot was mostly because I was afraid that I would disturb other people for trying to take a better shot. Most people on the train are quiet and do not like to be disturbed, I would get stares for trying to get the shot I wanted but nevertheless, the photo I have is more than enough for me. Hopefully in the future with better lighting and angle, I can take another picture of the train's beautiful scenery.

Was taken back in 2021 during my Senior High School years for a project that required a cover photo. The subject of this photo is my brother and idea was to envision a child happily reading Harry Potter like it's their first time indulging in Fantasy books. This shot took some time before I could not find the right angle and eventually out of all the photos I took, this one was the best so far. It is good in a way that shows the emotion of the subject and the subject's interest which is the book. 

However, as given the photo does not have a very pleasing background surrounded by a car and a building and because of this, we had to remove the background to replace it with something more pleasing. Although I cannot find the final output of the edited photo, my team and I decided to go with a sky with little bit of castle behind the subject and the reason for that is because we wanted to a photo wherein the subject's imagination is activated while reading. Furthermore, while editing the photo I had some dilemma if I should add some artificial lighting coming out of the book so that it looks like it's coming alive and glowing but in the end I decided to go with the original lighting I did not want the output to look heavily edited.

This shot was taken December 2022 when me and my friends decided to go to walk around intramuros. During our walk, we decided to rest for a second somewhere near the cathedral and that's when I finally managed to actually see the structure up close. Although, I am not much of a religious person myself, seeing the manila cathedral was an amazing experience. The engraving or details on the large structure fascinated me and given it's age, I wondered how it was made back then. Therefore, I wanted to capture the moment by taking a picture of the cathedral and I can definitely say that I am proud of the shot even though I know I could improve it.

If given the opportunity to visit once again, I would try to get a better composition of the cathedral. A longer and wider shot of the structure would be nice as my initial photo did not manage to capture the front of the cathedral properly. A more detailed and high quality shot would also be nice in the future, as the main reason I am captured by the structure is because of it's details.