mackiegalvez's photostream

Here, there is a difference between a restaurant and a cafe. Hanoi’s full of these street side places that serve pho, and nothing else. Coffee, you have to buy in the cafe next door. People eat, get up, walk a few feet, sit down, and then have coffee. I like that, how they separate the atmosphere between eating a meal and having coffee.

I really have a thing for empty seats.

On my first cross-country train ride from Hanoi to Nha Trang.

This is Ines and George, a Spanish couple we shared a cabin with on our train ride from Hanoi. George was a nice guy, spoke very good English, even bought me a beer. Ines wasn’t as fluent so she just smiled a lot. Their 18-day itinerary was going to take them all over Vietnam.

Oh, and they like to PDA.

How wonderful it must be to have so much heritage at your backyard. One must feel so secure when looking to the future, knowing that it’s possible to build something that time can’t chip away, that memory strengthens, that will sustains.

The view must be amazing.

December 19, 2010
Mandaluyong

I've developed (Hehe, pun not intended.) a fear of photography. I think it came when I realized how alone I am when taking a photograph. At most instances, its just me and my subject. Being a cinematographer and working within a team (director, assistant director, production designer) lends you a sense of safety. That you're really not alone, always collaborating, the final product always a sum of all our work. But in photography a great deal of the burden rests on my shoulders. A responsibility I'm not ready for.

I was actually ready to give up on still photography. Not that heavy a loss, I thought, since my work still allows me to take wonderful images. Until Kaity, a friend, gave me a book, "Once" by Wim Wenders, whose foreword changed my life, reinvigorating my love for the still image.

He says, "It is commonly assumed that whatever is captured in this act lies IN FRONT of the camera. But that is not true. Taking pictures is an act in two directions: forwards and backwards... A photograph is always a double image, showing at first glance, its subject, but at a second glance - more or less visible, "hidden behind it," so to speak, the "reverse angle": the picture of the photographer in action... Every picture indeed reflects the attitude of whoever took it."

I realize that what I'm missing is the honesty in photography. That there's so much you find out about me when you look at my photos. And that even if I were lying, it'd show.

So here's to being honest.