WITH the aid of technology, photography has become a popular art expression. But hardcore photography buffs have a few legends they aspire to, and they include the Ybañezes of Cebu.
Every year since 2005, members of the Ybañez family have won awards during the Sinulog photo contest, besting thousands of entries from amateur and professional photographers around the globe. Since they started joining the contest in 2005, the Ybañezes have bagged a total of 65 wins in various categories.
Such is their reputation that during the Sinulog Grand Parade this year, Marc Daniel Ybañez recalled that when he and his cousins arrived at the Cebu City Sports Center, he overheard a group of photo buffs remarking with a mixture of admiration and frustration: “Nah. Nia ang LightZone, wa na ta ani (Here comes LightZone (the Ybañezes’s photography club). There goes our chance of winning).”
Marc landed second place in the 2017 Sinulog Photo Contest, sidelights/on-site décor category. His mother, Elizabeth, bagged third place in the fluvial/solemn procession category. His father, Daniel, won fifth place in the float/higante/puppeteers category this year.
Daniel’s cousin, architect Rene Ybañez, bagged fourth and ninth in the sidelights/on-site décor category. Daniel’s brother Teresito and niece Katrina, placed ninth in the float and contingent categories, respectively.
Daniel (Danny to family and friends) won his first grand prize in 2016 in addition to his 13 other Sinulog wins in the past years.
He remembered being unsure of himself during his first Sinulog photo contest in 2006. Armed with a point-and-shoot digital camera he inherited from his brother, he set out to shoot during the fluvial parade and grew desperate that he could not get past the cordon because he did not have the right ID.
He took photos where he could. One of his entries bagged first place in the fluvial category.
Finding opportunity
His win got his entire family excited and soon, his wife Elizabeth became interested in photography as well. When they were old enough, their two sons, Marc and Michael, joined too.
Danny later upgraded to a DSLR camera, but he said he still felt small. “Every time I stood next to those guys with their huge and high-powered lens, I got intimidated,” he said.
But it seems that for the Ybañezes, equipment is not an issue. Elizabeth, a cashier at Aboitiz Equity Ventures, Inc., won her first photo contest during the Mantawi Festival in 2006 with a point-and-shoot digital camera. She could not stand next to photographers with powerful lenses and expect to get a good shot. So she looked for opportunity elsewhere. Her photo of a child praying bested other entries.
Her win encouraged her to join the Sinulog photo contest. Apart from this year’s, she bagged four awards in previous years.
“You can take thousands of good pictures but in the end, what matters most is picking the best,” Danny said, quoting SunStar Cebu photojournalist Amper Campaña. “I never forgot those words. It is what I think of when evaluating my photos.” (Campaña has won the contest’s grand prize twice, in 2004 and 2006.)
Elizabeth said that the Sinulog has become the venue for the family to get together.
Photographers in the Ybañez family come to Cebu to join the Sinulog photo contest, lugging their gear to every major festival event. They set out as a group, wearing uniform shirts with the name LightZone, and the slogan, “One family, one passion.” They would stay up late to evaluate which photos will be submitted to the committee. Marc said that if family members happen to have similar photos, they would pick the best and submit that.
He said that the Sinulog contest is unique. “Winning in the Sinulog is an entirely different experience no matter which award you get,” he said.
Elizabeth said that she is both awed and inspired by the faith of devotees during the Sinulog.
“Every year, I tell myself, I’ve had enough. At my age, it’s become risky. But then the excitement in the family gets to me and I end up preparing for it,” she said. Every December, Elizabeth and Danny would walk for kilometers, sometimes every day, to try to be fit for the Sinulog. “After the Sinulog, we’d go back to being sedentary.”