IN TIMES OF CUARESMA.....

Before.....





After.....





Before.....





After.....





Before.....





After.....






If there was a time in the life of Jesus that can be so dramatic and epic in its depiction, it is His life story leading to the events of His death. Even Hollywood has delved in the life of Christ with Mel Gibson's "The Passion of Christ" being the last one.

I look forward to the Lenten Season every year. The usual sounds of the hustle and bustle of the streets of Manila turn into a quiet rumble of church goers who flock to the churches and prepare themselves for the observance of the holiday. And it also happens to be a season worth taking photographs of. But one also has to search for it though.

Places like Angeles and Cutud in Pampanga are sure places where photographers can really expect to have great pictures of Lent. But it does take a special mental frame for one to do so. Squeamish people are advised to back away as the blood and gore may be too much for them to handle. And if you also happen to be someone who abhors extremely hot weather while shooting, then better stay at home too. Lent is associated with summer and summers in the Philippines nowadays are getting hotter and hotter, perhaps a result of global warming. Too bad though that these places, Cutud in particular have turned into a tourist fiesta, what with the sheer number of people, both local and foreign trooping to the site to watch a few men get crucified to the cross.

An alternative to shooting live penitential scenes are to shoot statues and tableau that depict the Sorrowful Mysteries of Christ. I remember watching in awe the Good Friday procession that featured life sized statues that told the story when I was young. What impressed me was the attention to detail and the realism that the sculptors of these statues showed. How does one sculpt teardrops and blood drops? A statue of a suffering Christ that showed distended veins in His hands and neck used to scare me a lot. And who can forget those menacing looks of the Roman soldiers? But my all time favorite is a statue that shows a human expression, whether it be about anger, sorrow or any other emotion. A statue may be made out of wood or marble and are therefore cold, but the expression it exhibits in my eye, makes it human.

The group Hermandad de la Sagrada Pasion de Jesus asked the club to take pictures of their Lenten statues and some of the photos shall be used for a coffee table book that the group is pursuing to publish in the future. The group is composed of families who own and take care of these life sized statues and are usually being taken out of their respective houses to be paraded around their community during the Good Friday procession. We accepted their proposal and took the job seriously. The cramped space proved to be a big challenge though so a lot of post processing work had to be done for each. Some turned out to be hits, some were misses. Pfffffttttt!