RP Embassy in Holland shows off works of in-house artists

RP Embassy in Holland shows off works of in-house artists

By LOUI GALICIA
ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau

The Philippine Embassy in the Netherlands proudly showed off the works of its "artists in residence," at a photo exhibition in The Hague.

It was not common knowledge to Dutch Pinoys that some of their favorite diplomats are also into arts.

It was Ambassador Romeo Arguelles's idea to showcase to Filipinos and the international community in Holland, the beautiful photographs taken by the diplomats who have become slaves to their cameras.

The three Filipinos are Maynard Montealegre, Michael Yturriaga and Maria Citadel Cruz.

"They are our artists in residence. They belong to our Philippine foreign service. They are not professional photographers. They have no formal schooling. It was simply aiming at taking pictures and they turned out to be good photographs," Arguelles said.

In the exhibition entitled "Captured," many popular places in Europe like Austria, Italy and The Netherlands can be seen at angles particular only to the eye of a Filipino.

"How a Filipino looks at a landscape or views about Europe and looking at it from that vantage point, from a Filipino vantage point, so I think that's what the exhibition is all about, capturing that moment in Europe from the Filipino's eyes," Consul General Montealegre told ABS-CBN Europe News Bureau.

The diplomat from the Philippine Embassy in Austria is the only one who has experience among the three. He has been well travelled in Europe and America and was more than willing to share his prized photos to the audience in Holland.

Montealegre admitted that he remained "old school" in photography until just recently.

"I just started with a digital camera only in December so I'm still in the experimental stage trying to learn about the new gadget. But I would say that I was entirely satisfied with my analog camera before and my past exhibitions before in New York and Vienna were successful," Montealegre said.

Although the embassy’s in-house artists consider themselves as amateurs, their photographs looked like they were shot by pros.

The angle, color and depth of each image show the meticulous side of these Pinoys and reflect each calculating eye.

"Well my style, I'm more of a curious type of photographer. When I take a picture, what I do is when I think that this particular thing or place is good enough, I go there, I stay there and take pictures of it, like around one hundred to two hundred pictures to capture the perfect moment.

So in this particular picture that I took in Scheveningen, it took me about two hours to be able to get this one picture that I like. From about two hundred to ten to three to one," explained Cruz, the wife of Consul General Adrian.

She loves photography but she said that it's a passion that can be very expensive.

"It is an expensive hobby or passion as I would like to call it because to start with a camera, the camera that you have to buy especially if you want some more options, you simply just cannot settle for a simple compact camera. In my case, from a simple digital camera I moved on to an SLR. It's not really that professional but of course you have to invest on the paraphernalia and accessories and of course if you want to print it, the amount of money you spend on printing it is a lot," Cruz said.

The most amateur of the three, Yturriaga who is an attaché at the embassy, however does not think that one needs to invest in the most expensive camera to take good photos.

"Kahit yung pinakapangit basta maganda yung pagkaka set-up mo ng camera, tapos tama yung lighting, tama yung scene, yung angle ng pagkakakuha mo sa scene, lalabas na maganda," Yturriaga explained.

But being new to this art, he is bent on improving every shot.

"Six months pa lang ako sa photography. Gawa kasi nafrustrate ako. Nung una kasi meron lang akong digital camera. Tapos me scenes akong gustong kunan. Di siya lumalabas na gusto ko so sabi ko try ko. Nagtry ako using professional camera. Lumabas naman yung gusto kong kunan," Yturriaga said.

Guests at the exhibition, which ran the whole month of March, were impressed with the photographs of Europe that were caught by the eyes of Filipinos and they were touched literally.

It's because one can feel from the photographs the different emotions of the artists at every shot.

"They are very impressive. Parang lumalabas talaga ang artistic side of the Filipinos. Capturing very foreign photos that make them feel happy, some are feeling sad and lonely but it's all about their emotions and how they feel about the place, very impressive," Pinay guest Debbie Pascual said.

Cruz confirmed that in photography, emotions do play an important part.

"The essence is to capture the perfect moment. At the end of the day, you only have memories to keep so you might as well make good memories of it," Cruz said.

SOURCE: WWW.ABS-CBNNEWS.COM

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