16 January 2010

Friends from the Pinoy Republic forum invited us for some church hopping, and because I am a big fan of the churches here in the Philippines, I immediately expressed my willingness to join. We were all supposed to meet by the Post Office Building in Lawton, Manila at 8AM, but I woke up late and I was still by the Mabuhay Rotonda at 8AM. I texted my shutterbug friends to wait for me, and Mark just asked me to go straight to the Manila Cathedral.




They weren't there when I arrived at the the Cathedral, but I was happy to arrive earlier than then, and I was happy that there wasn't any event, which gave people the priviledge to take pictures inside the Cathedral without restrictions. It was my first time to take pictures inside the Cathedral without worrying about church's staff asking me to stop. The only downside was that most of the Cathedral's lights were off, hindering me to capture the awesome architecture inside.
Mark met me a few minutes after, and he told me that he and Derek were part of a photography club, and their club's a part of the ongoing Photo World Cup. For this round, participants were given the theme, "Church Architecture," hence the invitation for this meet up. Mark wasn't able to take pictures inside the Cathedral, because a wedding was about to start.

When Derek arrived, we walked towards the San Agustin Church, but a wedding was about to start as well, and we cannot enter the church, as people involved in the wedding flocked outside the church. Mark expressed his willingness to walk towards the Pasig River because he saw some interesting subjects to take pictures of. Since both churches have ongoing weddings, we decided to go. But, we ate light lunch first at Jollibee were Halie met us.


While eating lunch, Halie asked if I brought an extra memory card. She already told me she would lend me her Nikon Coolpix P80 digital camera, so I would experience how to use a Nikon camera. It's a point and shoot camera, but leaning towards DSLR because the shutter speed and the aperture can be changed. They wanted me to use it on full manual mode, but because I still cannot get the harmony between the shutter speed and aperture, I just used it on P mode, which is the auto mode.

Us four walked to the river, and as we continued walking, we just found ourselves entering the Chinatown. Since the guys needed to take pictures of churches, we went to Binondo Church - a first time for me.

Aside from the church pictures, we were also able to take some street photography. And as if our feet and legs weren't hurting yet, we walked back to the Manila Cathedral, but the staff didn't want people with big cameras to enter as another wedding was about to start. So, we had no choice but to leave and try our luck at the San Agustin Church.


Lucky are we that the San Agustin Church was open to public. A wedding was about to start, so we quickly took pictures. Derek was mentioning about adding drama to the church's architecture, and we thought of the bride walking down the aisle, so we quickly went to the choir loft to wait for the wedding to start. After taking the pictures, we took some refreshments at the church's museum and talked about how the day went - all of us were complaining about aching feet and legs, but all of us were happy with how the day went.

Thanks for the invite, and thanks so much to Halie for letting me use her camera.

*** Jenn ***