Monday, January 28, 2008 Photography as a Passion By Jenara Regis Newman
HE IS making waves as the sole photographer of the newly launched elegant coffee table book, Cebu – Pride of Place.
The art photographer is Billy Mondoñedo, and if his name does not ring a bell as among Cebu’s top-rated photographers that’s because he is from Manila. He is in Cebu mainly to do business: he owns the Tinder Box outlets around Metro Cebu, and Aziza.
Photography, for him, is an avocation, a passion he acquired in his early 20s. He spent most of his growing up years in the United States, which was when he first acquired a camera, a Nikon FM.
He says he got hooked on photography when he saw the works of Henri Cartier-Bresson and Ansel Adams while in a book store.
In his words: “Henri Cartier-Bresson elevated ‘snap shooting’ to the level of a refined and disciplined art…Ansel Adams made me see what we once had, what still remains with us, and what we must not lose in the future.”
Though he took up a workshop in photography in Seattle, he photographic skill is mostly self-taught. Today, his favorite camera is a Leica “because of the simplicity of its design and quality of optics. Although the equipment plays an important role in photography, I still believe that the eye takes the picture. I do not have a favorite subject per se. I believe that any subject is good to photograph. One can make a cake look artistic.” But yes, he has to be inspired to make photos: “I have to first see, observe and connect.”
Being a Manila-based photographer, Billy is a member of the Camera Club of the Philippines, which is the oldest camera club in Asia. He joined the club in 2003 and, during the club’s competitions, captured the much coveted club award, Master Photographer, in 2005.
Right now he is not just into photography but also into black and white printing. He printed all the black and white by Rudy de Leon and Emil Davocol in the camera club’s touring exhibit titled “Black & White Rainbows,” recently shown in SM City Cebu.
For the book Cebu-Pride of Place, he said he was given a list of places to see and take pictures of.
He said, “It was not a walk in the park because I had to veer away from the postcard travel books. I had to show Cebu another perspective of the things people have never seen, to show the textures that represent Cebu. I put in a lot of texture of the subject matter: the color of the leaves on the ground, textures of the ground itself. I had to capture the ambiance of the place, of the structures, of the textures of the houses where I shot interiors.”
Billy was also very much hands-on in the selection of the pictures and of their placement. Lacking in text, the book, Cebu still “creates the feeling of Cebu as a very important place in history of the Philippines.” It’s an effect that shows the master photographer, the artist that is Billy Mondoñedo.
