June 2006 Archives

December 16, 2005: Manila

We spent 5 hours shopping for childrens clothing in Manila’s Divisoria Street Market with the ProjectRice donated monies, and bargained for the best deals from the local vendors on t-shirts, shorts, slippers, jeans, pants - from infant size to about 12 years old, and ALL the poor children on Rosa’s street were gifted what they needed, and we tried to give them a Christmas to remember.

Rosa & her Auntie returned to my hotel with me (Rosa had never even been in a hotel before) & was enjoying some BBQ from a street vendor, when I took this image of her & some of what we bought for the kids that day - it covered the entire bed AND some of the floor…and was a humbling, satisfying & exhausting effort.

PJAMES

It was a very satisfying feeling everyday, to get Rosa, Edison & other local homeless kids their meals at a local street cafe, where they would find exactly what they liked: RICE, fish dishes & soups, and pork with veggies, etc.

I remember the first time I took them with me & they hopped up on the stools to order - the waitress came over with a bold look on her face, about to shoo them away…..I smiled at her & said: “…it’s ok - they’re with me….ask them to choose what would like to eat…”

She smiled at me, then took their orders……from that day on, the waitstaff there always took the kids food orders with a smile.

What bothered me then, and what bothers me to this day, is that Im not in Manila 9 months during the year to do this for them, to administrate the 55kg sacks of rice supply chain to the families, keeping the kids clothed - and Im also being asked to help support their schooling during the year, AND basic heathcare needs.

This past year, I’d been thinking of a way that I could be in Manila & Cebu for 10 months during the year, making ProjectRice a fulltime effort, and finally decided last month (May 2006) to commit myself to that goal; this month (June 2006) I began talking with my webmaster Steve Griffith about finding friends of ProjectRice willing to become benefactors to make that goal happen later this year, and Im happy to report we’re now taking ProjectRice to its NGO/non-profit status this month, and I’ll be reporting later on our efforts concerning this over the next few weeks.

Thank you to everyone who’s been emailing me & offering their support from seeing these children’s images on my pbase.com account: www.pbase.com/pauljames

PJAMES

A few hours earlier when I walked by and saw Rosa sleeping here on the black wood plank she’s taking her breakfast on - I stopped & went back to the 7-11 and bought her some fresh butter-bread while was still sleeping, and I put it inside the brown paper bag you see in the lower left corner in the photo - so she would see it when she awoke & would have something to eat.

In January 2005 Rosa was geting one meal a day from her auntie who cooked what you see her eating here - she was eating whatever she could early in the day because she was not getting any lunches or dinners.

This is when I began taking her & Edison to lunch & dinner for the time I was in town - I just couldn’t deal with how thin she was getting, dispite her smiling & all the playing she was doing on the street (Rosa always smiles & never ever complains about anything)

Later in 2005 through the generosity of a few friends of mine here in the USA and a few friends who saw my images of Rosa on my pbase.com Photography Galleries, I was able to begin buying 50kg sacks of RICE for Rosa's Family, and I'll always remember the look on her Grandfather Willie's face when I returned with a 110lb/50kg sack of RICE on a handtruck for the first time...I whispered in his ear "...this is from my Family & friends, to YOUR Family...Merry Christmas"

Willie's eyes started to fill up, and he began to cry - he said to me "Thank you...Thank You so much..."
...my own eyes began to fill up; I couldn't hold it in anymore....I smiled at Willie & left quickly, as I didn't want to lose my composure right then & there on the street.

That was the first time I'd been able to buy that much RICE for anyone, and right then & there I knew two things:
1. This was the right thing to do for those Families I knew, who were in need of food.
2. I needed to continue to do this.

PJAMES

I’m not trying to demean the photographer in the photg’s vest carrying 6 cameras (he’s a bonafide Pro who shoots on the PGA Pro Golf Tour, & this is what he chooses to get his images), but it does remind me of a day I was out shooting in my neighborhood in Cebu, and saw a very tall & heavy set foriegn tourist wearing “the photographers vest” that carried everything but the kitchen sink & carrying multiple cameras…like the PGA photographer. A local Filipina “guide” was leading him into a group of children & locals at the corner fish & vegetable market, and it looked like he was “street shooting”, or at least trying to.

Instead of walking in softly or slowly & maybe smiling a bit - he charged into the group of people & kids with this huge lens with all sorts of crap hanging off that rediculous vest - and instead of getting “spontanious” images, I noticed that the people all suddenly just stepped back & froze - they were intimidated and maybe a bit scared of his “approach”….he spent 30 seconds there before his guide pulled him away & they both marched off down the street, smiling & scrolling through the LCD on the camera.

He got nothing that time except images of startled people with blank expressions on their faces - I watched their faces while I heard his 5 frames-per-second camera fire off, and thought to myself “…you need to respect the neighborhood you’re in, and the people who are in it - do you really need to be dressed like that, looking like an alien? Do you see how the people are reacting to your mannerisms & dress code?”

If a Pro on assignment needs his gear, then he needs his gear - I have no issue with that…but with shooting people - trying to capture their emotions & reactions - I’ve always found that a smile, a subtle dress code, only necessary gear, and a friendly tone in your voice & movements will announce you in a much more positive way (resulting in many more “real” images) than rolling in like a bull in a china closet, dressed like a camera store garage sale.

Thanks for listening to me rant - now back to what’s real.

PJAMES

We photographers all have our favorite gear we use, but I’m passonate about my photography I wanted to share a few thoughts on what I’m currently using, since traveling & shooting in the Philippines presents its own issues.

*Olympus E1: 5MP digital camera & Digital Zuiko 14-54 (28mm-108mm equiv. lens) - both are Pro build quality (*mag. alloy & weather sealed) which lets me shoot in humid, dusty & rainy environments without issue, and deliver beautiful hi-resolution files. (in 2003 I was using the Olympus E10, but I sold it before my 2005 Philippines trip)
*Gateway 3550 notebook: thin & reasonably light, 1GB RAM, 60GB HD, 14″ widescreen, Pentium 1.73 Centrino, so it makes quick work of image editing on a Westinghouse 17″ LCD monitor that goes in my checked luggage.

*Western Digital Passport external HD: USB powered, it’s a small portable drive I really like.

*SureFire Lithium powered flashlights: I always travel with my SureFires; especially the E2D which is very small & throws 60 lumens of light - whether I’m walking in Manila at 1am, or traveling to some areas where electrical brown-outs are all too common, and where many streets are just not lit at all.

*Pelican 1510 hardside flight case: airline carry-on, waterproof, dustproof and built like a tank - I can’t say enough good things about this case - if you’re traveling with a notebook &/or cameras, it’s really the best protection, period.

PJAMES

One of my favorite images of them, even when they were both sleeping on the street at the time the January 2005 images were taken.

It was during this trip that I began taking them with me to lunch & dinner whenever I passed by…I remember being so completely taken aback when I saw Rosa sleeping on a wooden board on the sidewalk, when I walked by very early in the morning that same day…and then I came back and Rosa’s auntie was cooking them breakfast on the sidewalk, on a small kerosene stove.

PJAMES

…WP is just way too buggy & frustrating to deal with any longer (ie. these pages are not displaying correctly outside of IE; some images are horribly compressed with visible JPEG artifacts, etc)

Steve Griffith is my PR webmaster (also a good friend & Project RICE benefactor - he’s donated this host site & bandwith) who’s been working very hard to get this blog up & running on his own time, is overseeing the move to another blog platform - hopefully to be completed later this month.

* NOTE: until Steve is able to complete the move off WordPress to another blog platform - these pages are best viewed with MS Internet Explorer OR Netscape 8.1 (click the icon at the bottom-left of the browser window to display “like IE”)

PJAMES

When I arrived in Manila in late November 2005, I was so happy to find the kids finally off the street, Rosa & Edison’s Family are living in an abandoned building in Metro Manila - no water or electricity, but at the very least it’s some shelter.

The Family’s very close, and very loving - they’re all together and that’s the most important thing now….I stop by daily, and Rosa’s Auntie always invites me inside for whatever meal is handy; the soup she makes is positively delicious.

On December 3, 2005 the SEAsian Games were in town, and the Philippine National Baseball team was playing Thailand at Rizal Stadium, so I stopped by and asked Rosa’s auntie if I could take the kids to the game with me - they got ready & as we were leaving the dark building, my slipper got caught on a step & I fell like a ton of bricks, breaking my ankle.

I was on the ground for 5 minutes before I could get up, and my ankle was numb - but we grabbed a taxi & went to the game, I wasn’t going to disappoint them.

In the 7th inning, I got up to go to the bathroom and couldn’t walk; my ankle was swollen & starting to really hurt - but we stayed for the whole game, and I limped back to the hotel & picked up a cane later that day - I’d be using it for the next 4 weeks.

Even with the cane, I never missed a day going to the 7-11 to get the kids their milk & bread, and still took them everyday to get BBQ lunches & dinners - but I still had to locate a rice vendor nearby - I had a big shopping list to fufil.

PJAMES

Rosa is the inspiration behind Project RICE - while photographing local folk in Manila, I found that some of the most expressive were the street kids, and I remember seeing Rosa’s Family from time to time, in late 2003 & early 2004.

It deeply affected me when I saw Rosa & Edison sleeping on the street in Jan. 2005, and I began taking them with me to occasional meals when I would see them while I was out & about.

In the image below, Rosa would take her breakfast on the sidewalk where she slept - that black plank of wood she’s sitting on was her bed.

Quite by accident, when we arrived for the furniture shoot (an Aussie I’d met in Manila owned some factories in Laguna & had asked me to photograph some stock) I stopped by a local sari sari store for a cold soda and was totally captivated by the little girl on the sidewalk (I’ve nicknamed her ‘Laguna Little Girl’) who acted like a little supermodel waiting for me to shoot her portfolio.

I’d never shot informal portraiture of children before (never really shot anything in Philippines; it was my very first trip there) and I really didn’t look at the files from that day until I returned to the US…it was then that I realized how beautiful the kids were that day, and that I’d enjoyed the street-shooting there - because of how they reacted to me & welcomed me to their Barangay.

Laguna Little Girl (I don’t know her real name and have never seen her since that day) inspired me to delve more deeply into street shooting, and hence is directly responsible for the very type of photography I’m doing to this day.

Someday I hope to see her & her Family again…and thank them for opening my eyes to their world.

There are more images of her in my pbase gallery: http://www.pbase.com/pauljames/the_littleist_supermodel

PJAMES