Photo Updates & Events

Breaking it down with ‘Grain’–

Rachel Rillo, a graduate of the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, is now holding her latest photography exhibit dubbed as ‘Grain’ at the Silverlens Gallery in Makati City.

Her latest work is a meditation on paring things down to their material source: plaster, wood, plastic. Objects photographed are small figures that are visual representations of something real. With the use of light alone, Rillo intentionally alters and deletes backgrounds and other contextual hints. Size, the environment and any other relationship the object photographed could have outside of the material from which it is made and what it symbolizes has been negated.

“Photographically, this particular work was a challenge because I had to get rid of all clues surrounding the object. The task was to make the photographs as minimal as I could get them to be without touching them up or altering them with light,” says Rillo.

Grain is a glimpse into the quiet truths in the most basic of equations. A cube with a triangular top is instantly a symbol of a house. A rounded figure on a shaft is a bust symbolizing a human form. It is a meditation on the elusive gestures of form and material – the nuanced expression, the violent confrontation, the abandoned and scarred. It is a reflection of the disjunctive spaces between symbolism and spirituality, memory, and possession.

As a freelance photographer, her clients include FOX TV, UPN, CBS, and NBC shooting publicity photographs for the news and shows. Her photography has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine, La Opinion, and other major publications in the LA area. In the15 years of living in the U.S., Rachel Rillo has shown her fine art work in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Houston. Her work has also been shown at the Silverlens Gallery in Manila, UTS Gallery in Sydney, Australia, and will be shown in Pulse Miami this December.

For inquiries, please contact Cathy Paras-Lara at tel. nos.: 816-0044, or e-mail at: communications@silverlensphoto.com.

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Photoworld Asia 2010 at Glorietta

Photoworld Asia 2010, the biggest and longest running photography event in Southeast Asia, will once again gather amateur and professional photographers at the Glorietta, Ayala Center in Makati City from January 28 to February 2, 2010. The trade show, featuring the latest cameras and other photography products and services, will be held at the Activity Center of Glorietta. The educational series of photography seminars will be held at the Asian Institute of Management. Additional venues will include the Art Space (3rd floor, Glorietta 4) and walkway of Glorietta 5 for the art and photo exhibits, which will feature vintage cameras and iconic photographs that herald the history of Philippine photography from 1840s to the present.

Kevin Ames, a U.S. master photographer, will be one of the guest speakers who will reveal his secrets on photographing women and his masterful Photoshop tricks. Ames is a master photographer famous for his portraits and a prolific author of books on digital photography. His books include “The Digital Photographer’s Notebook,” “Digital SLR Photography with Photoshop for Dummies,” and “The Art of Photographing Women.”

He is a highly sought-after trainer for both the photographic and the digital arts. His assignments, workshops, and seminars have taken him to art schools and conferences around the world: Fotographia Orvieto, Italy; Arthouse in Dublin; the Commercial and Industrial Photographers of New England conference in Boston; and recently, The Art of Photographing Women in Iceland.

A professional photographer for over 30 years, Kevin is the president of Ames Photography Illustration, Inc., a studio that specializes in commercial photography retouching and post-production services. Based in Atlanta, Ames’ clients include Westin Hotels, AT&T, and Coca-Cola.

Other speakers are Thailand-based photographers Manny Librodo, who will share his portraiture techniques and Jose Librodo, an artist and photographer who will delve on design elements; Hugo D. Yonzon III on harnessing the creative energy; John Silva on Philippine photography history; Jason Magbanua, John Tronco, Isa Lorenzo, and Bernie Ledesma (the Filipino flash wizard who will share his strobist techniques).

For inquiries, contact FPPF at tel. nos.: 5247576/5280371; e-mail: pablobeltran_39gmail.com/fotoatwork.gmail.com; or visit www.foto-at-work.com.

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Perspectives

Perspective is one of the most important aspects of photography. Many times, a simple shift in perspective can make all the difference.

For Alex Constantino, Joey Gatmaitan, and Chris Linag, perspective is not merely the position from which a photograph is taken. For them, it also means the photographer’s attitude or manner of looking at things, particularly at their subjects.

United by their common passion for the photographic art, Constantino, Gatmaitan, and Linag will showcase their works in Perspectives, a photo exhibit at Likha Diwa Café and Gallery (#1 Lt. J. Francisco St., Krus na Ligas) in Quezon City. Their works are manifestations of how these three artists see things around them, their worldview, their thesis, their perception, their sentiment.

The exhibit will run from December 1, 2009 until January 2010.