For some reason I find it hard to explain why I got into this type of gadget-dependent, money-munching hobby. There are many other hobbies which I could have dived into without having to wipe out half of my lifetime savings, such as, let's say, cross-stitching or collecting weeds. However, I chose to get into this a-picture-is-worth-a-thousand-words thing, and you don't want to hear the reason why.

But I'll tell you anyway. First off, I always wanted to be an artist. You know, a painter, like Rembrandt. But as things went, I ended up in the University of the Philippines majoring in Political Science, and then moved on to a Japanese law school (horrors!) majoring in International Law and Politics (horror of horrors). Blame it on lack of talent, but I gave up painting completely by the time I was out of high school. Every frustrated artist, however, must find creative ways to vent out his or her vexations, and I found mine in one way or another (e.g., making backdrops and photo collages for church anniversary celebrations). In Japan, free access to the Internet introduced me to web art, and so here you are looking at my pathetic excuse of web artistry.

So now you know where I am heading. If I can't paint it then I might as well instead capture it on film. On 35mm film. Using a lens. Make that lenses. And a tripod. A strobe, and some filters. A steady hand, a keen eye, and lots of patience, the latter of which I am dangerously short of.

But getting into photography was not just a means of opening up creative channels. Like my other hobbies, photography has a deeper meaning for me, because what truly drove me to pursue it was a passion more than artistic frustration. It was my...

sumo craze. *GRIN* Isn't life full of surprises? Ha ha ha! Here I am, again looking for an excuse to put sumo in the picture. But it's true, and proof of this is my first real shooting excursion, which was the 1999 Nagoya Grand Sumo tournament. *More GRINS* He he he. In fact, I bought the bulk of my equipment just in time to practice before the tournament started.

Still, from simply wanting to capture the sumo guys on print film, photography has become a little bit of an addiction. Now I want to shoot everything: both the living and the non-living, the sentient and the nonsentient, the lovely and the ugly, fact and fiction, real and imagined. And with camera at hand, as a foreigner in Japan I end up looking like a tourist for life.

So what is photography? According to Ansel Adams...no, let me not quote the famous Mr. Adams. Instead, give me the chance to talk about what photography is for me. Being a person with a horrible memory (oh don't we all, you say, but my memory is really degenerating as the minutes tick by), capturing images on film is not just a hobby, but perhaps a necessity. There are dozens of memories in my mind that could have been much more well-preserved if there was a roll of film and a decent camera. Memory problems aside, photography, I think, has taught me some things about people. About a little street psychology, and getting to know more about a person according to how he or she responds to the camera, to being photographed. It also taught me the importance of not panicking, of keeping my wits about me. Not to mention a lot of contrasts: for example, the need to run, crawl, jump or move real fast when the subject demands it, and on the other hand the need to keep as still as a mortified mouse when the subject demands such immobility. All of these from a beginner's fresh and ignorant--but honest--perspective.

As of now, my equipment consists of just the basics for starting amateur photography with an SLR (single lens reflex) system: a body Canon EOS 55 (Elan II), a standard Canon 50mm/f1.8 lens, a zoom Canon 28mm-105mm/f4.5-5.6 lens, and a telephoto Tokina 300mm/f4. Add a Canon 380EX strobe, a lightweight tripod, a couple of filters, a camera backpack, plus of course rolls of color negative film and slide film, and off goes the greenhorn to shutter-bug land.

Unfortunately, photography being a relatively new hobby, I have not yet come up with a meaningful portfolio. Whatever photos I have taken are distributed in my other websites. Photo Path is a website that talks about photography, not a site that displays my works, although I hope that someday it will evolve into one.

So why talk about photography? When I decided to take up the art of capturing moments on film, what helped me a lot were the websites on photography. As a person starting from absolute scratch, with no previous knowledge or experience whatsoever, my first teacher was the internet, and boy what a great and convenient teacher it was. Before buying anything, I read all I could, and I have to say that the information I got on the net was really very helpful in helping me pick a system, a maker, and not to mention the basic techniques of photography, and a handful of other helpful hints.

Thus, in the spirit of the web as a teacher, I'd like to add my penny's worth of no, not advice, but samples of very bad photography (^o^), including a self-evaluation of my mistakes (a mountain) and some self-analysis of the shots I am happy with (a molehill).

I'll be mentioning frequently a friend, Andy Boone, a professional photographer based in Nagoya, Japan and who has helped me tons in getting started and figuring things out. I know that his wisdom--accrued from years of shooting--will also be of help to other beginners. I consider myself very lucky because I have direct access to a pro photographer who is willing to spend time with me to discuss the problems or questions that novice amateur photographers go through. Luckier even is that his advice is tailored specifically for my needs, which I think is not far from the needs of any other student photographer anywhere in the world. Andy has been, and continues to be, unfailingly generous with his time and knowledge, despite his pretty busy sked as a free-lancer. This website I hope will be a way of my sharing (publishing) his advice, because it would be a pity to keep it all for myself.