STAR LIGHT, STAR BRIGHT…THE STAR THAT I SEE CAN BE ME TONIGHT

One of GMA Network’s prime television artists

I shot this portrait of ravishing GMA actress Kris Bernal in 2010 when I worked with a skincare brand on the invitation of a friend. This is my favorite shot of her. At that time, I was 7 years into my photography work, and have just been shooting mostly stars from ABS-CBN (the other big network.) I said to myself, what brilliant young lady — beautiful, very talented, with a “light of her own” wherever she walked. At that time, Kris had just starred in “Koreana”, a top-rating GMA TV drama. It helped that I liked Korean stars, and was totally inspired during my photoshoot with this young drama diva.

Two years later, I would find myself in a conference room with Ms. Kris Bernal and the handsome actors Aljur Abrenica and Benjamin Alvez for a motivational viewing for their upcoming teleserye, a Filipino version of the hit koreanovela “Coffee Prince.” I was in the meeting on the capacity of Head of Talent Development for GMA Artist Center, and Kris, and the actors are now my artists. I would remind Kris of that photoshoot session (one of very many for her), and we would beam in joy in the reality that we are indeed, working together again, and will be so for the next many months and years. In the many days that followed, more and more I realized what a true STAR Kris really is.

In “Coffee Prince” she would tape for three days a week (for up to 20 hours a day) in wet Tagaytay weather, playing the role of boy, and wearing a short wig for all that time. One cannot know just how difficult that all was — there were times she’d get sick, and still work until the taping is finished. The production crew and her co-actors have only good things to say. She is highly professional. But what’s really special about Kris Bernal is that in between tapings, I would ask her to attend workshops back at the station, and she would come looking as ravishing as she did in the photo above. I don’t mean “all made-up and hair-styled”, I mean, that light that follows her everywhere she goes — she still has it. After 20 hours of taping, she was happy, radiant, and seem ready to take on another day.

I know television production. It changes the way people look after a while. I think Kris transcends that because she knows she has to, and she has to look like she has control over it, and not the other way around. A true Star is always up in the sky for us to look up to, and should never be seen touching the ground. The rest of the showbiz world would argue — “it’s the acting awards” or “the box-office hits”, or “the many commercials”, or the “many famous flings..” that makes a Star. Not to trivialize all that, but one could have all that, and still would not LOOK like a Star. Beyond all the trappings, we must see the radiant attitude and masterfully-maintained image despite the arduous work and mind-boggling stress. Many have mastered this technique, not just in showbusiness, but in other businesses everywhere, in other worlds, places and situations. Everywhere, people are judged for how they looked, and often, it’s a great boost if you looked as good as you are. It should be an ideal to always ambition for. Kris achieved it.

And now, if we can all just stop complaining about how hard the stuff we do is, and we begin to LOOK the part, well, something must be learned here.

Do Your Thing Very Well.

Look Like It’s So Easy.

Wash up and rest a while.

Shine brightly and dazzle them.

FINE, IT’S ART!

Hut By The Sea. November 2011. Photographed by David Fabros.

I joined the collective of Filipino photographers called Blanc Worldwide sometime middle of last year, and was quite excited with the prospects of working on a new collection of fine art photographic works. I was in excellent company as well, with illustrious names such as Dominique James, Kyo Suayan, Lester Callanta, Randy Tamayo and Michael Mariano — all fine gentlemen with unique eyes for what is beautiful and photographable. ( http://web.me.com/dominiquejames/BLANC_WORLDWIDE/Blanc_Worldwide.html )

For a while, i struggled with the delineation between photography (which is plainly the capture of images one sees in real life), and fine art photography (which deliberately mixes in inspired combinations of color, theme,mood, composition and lighting drama to achieve a certain response.) These days, when the line is blurred all the time by photographers (and painters), we get all the more confused while we continue to be mesmerized by both media — evident from framed art that I see in glitzy homes and austere museums where I live. But then, I realized that while being ART requires something to fall into certain categories and follow certain rules. how different people respond to a work of art determines how “beautiful” or how “fine” the artwork is. I think of that everytime I shoot — whether it be for a shy debutante sitting for her first glamour portrait, or dainty cupcakes in a row on peach satin, or an imposing stone monument on a dreary afternoon — I try to see the art in it, in whatever way..and then, I click the shutter.

Art for me I found, and quite simply, is what feeds my soul, and makes me feel good everytime I see it.

WHY WAIT…SAY IT NOW.

Repertory Philippines stages the Tony-award nominated NEXT FALL featuring some of Manila's finest theater actors. Photo by David Fabros.

It was not a rollercoaster, but more of a seesaw…a quiet festering of opposing emotions and opinions about a touchy subject, at a time when people are still struggling with it. But it did shake me to my core. I love not only how the dialouges engage me, but also how the actors made everything truthful and romantic at the same time.

“NEXT FALL takes a witty and provocative look at faith, commitment, unconditional love and what goes beyond a typical love story. The play takes place between 2000 and 2005 in New York City. The present narrative takes place in a hospital waiting room where Adam, Brandon, Holly and Luke’s parents have gathered after he is hit by a runaway cab. Interspersed with these chronological scenes are flashback scenes showing how Luke and Adam met, fell in love and constructed a life together with the final flashback occurring the day before Luke’s accident. Luke is a devout born-again Christian, which creates tension in his relationship with Adam and in his friendships with Brandon and Holly, and leads him to hide both his homosexuality and his relationship with Adam from his equally devout parents. In the present narrative in the hospital, Adam, Brandon, Holly and Luke’s parents deal with the fallout from these conflicts and secrets, while also struggling to understand what it means to be faithful in the face of the immense unpredictability and fragility of human life. NEXT FALL plays until February 5th at Onstage at Greenbelt 1, Makati.” (–from http://www.clickthecity.com/events/details.php?id=13414 )

I let myself go witnessing NEXT FALL  onstage, and I’m a better man because of it…with a better grasp of what relationships are and how beautiful they become when we know better.

THE SHOW MAKES US GO ON

The stars of the BoomBoom Room, in Singapore, circa 2003. Photographed by David Fabros (on self-timer).

In Singapore back in the early 2000s, there thrived a night spot where the most garish and flamboyant entertainers of the country put on a show of music and mimicry. Boom Boom Room was the only place of its kind in the locale when I was living there, and I had the honor of immortalizing these stage gems right when I was just starting to go pro with my photography. The experience was a gleaming moment in my mind.

As all of the performers are men, it makes the project even more unique. I was allowed to watch them dressing up and do their make-up but we all decided that part was best left to speculation. And then onstage, number upon number, in their fabulous gowns, feathers, and eyeshadows, they re-enact the brightest performances of tinseltown’s icons, to a happy audience lost in a mild alcoholic stupor.

Entertainment on stage, or even on television and film, is a product of modern-day magic. A show — a labor of absolute love, a fruit of intensified imagination, an event that influences minds and changes lives — is a magical event. As soon as the audience is seated and house lights are turned off, they are thrust into another plane of reality, where people are more beautiful, places are more exotic, and passions are more disturbing. For an hour or two, we forget our woes and fixate on someone else’s, and at times, even see or learn something we can totally relate to.

For the performers, it’s a chance to be someone other than themselves. One may be a lowly salon attendant downtown, but here onstage, he becomes the iconic Shirley Bassey in her slinky, sequined gown. Another might be a bank teller at some humdrum office, but at night’s, he is applauded as the sultry Marilyn Monroe in her colorful rendition of ‘Tropical Heatwave.’ If there’s anything of psychological importance with what these performers do, I think it shows the benefit of ‘playing other roles’ sometimes –breaking through the ice of passionless routines, and refreshing the tired spirit.

The Importance of Being Important

David pays homage to Avedon. At the background, Dovima with Elephants, Evening Dress by Dior, Cirque d'Hiver, Paris, 1955; gelatin silver print; courtesy The Richard Avedon Foundation; © 2009 The Richard Avedon Foundation

At the US exhibit of celebrated photographer Richard Avedon in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art back in 2009, I spent a good three hours oggling at the famous portraits that crystallized the stature of the world-renowned image artist. He was an enormous force and a fearless rebel who believed that he was doing something very different, yet something very right.

In the video “Darkness & Light: Richard Avedon,” the photographer spoke at length about his trials and travails, his philosophies and his triumphs. His work for the illustrious Vogue Magazine placed him in the high fashion category, but apart from that which was obviously “work for the money,” he spent years of photography work inside hospitals, war zones, and crisis institutions to bring to the printed media and the public eye the cries of help and the desperate calls for life. It wasn’t all bling and poses for him. He wanted to show wrinkles, tears, and madness, to focus people’s attention on what they’re “choosing not to see.” He believed it was important for people to see and know. He has dozens of photos of his own father, and at stages where cancer was slowly ravaging his face and person. They showed an interplay of emotions between father and son, the feigned intimacy and seeming resentment. He believed it was an interplay that a lot of people can relate to, and would lead to a deeper understanding of the relationship. Most of all, he believed in only the truth.

The New York Times in his obituary said that “his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half century.” Eight years after his death, and 3 years after I got to know more of Richard Avedon through the SanFo exhibit, I experience an epiphany about my work as a photographer. For images to graduate from mere printed or digital visual delights into important pieces of art and communication, it has to serve some higher purpose — a cause beyond one’s self, one that offers comfort and relief, one that touches humanity with the will to be better. Actually, you could be a writer, a make-up artist, an engineer, or an accountant, but once you willfully use your work and expertise into raising money for typhoon victims, spend time helping build houses for the poor, or help new artists in marketing themselves and in gaining professional experience, your work transcends into something FAR MORE IMPORTANT than just another day at the office.

It must be great to be the richest photographer who ever lived. But Richard did MORE. Making your work mean something more can be a force much stronger than the will to just survive. Importance as it turns out, trumps success.

LOVE AND APOLOGY

After some time in the States, I come home to my family in Manila, both excited to reconnect, but at the same time, missing the comforts of my life in that previous locale. It’s true that I got impatient with things here, critical of the way things have stayed the same, and on the most part, quite the arrogant a-hole. I’m not really sure if the States made me that way.

I remember an incident when I came home after a business meeting, and found some of my books in my room in disarray, and some with the covers slightly soiled and folded. It seems my niece Sarah, then 3 years old, had an adventure in my room without the adultts’ knowledge, and played with some of the ‘new’ objects in there. I had a fit. With the family at the dining table, I was so peeved about it while trying to eat dinner, I started to reprimand the people in the house for allowing the toddler in my room in the first place. My mother, who was watching my niece that day, tried to reason out that she thought the child was asleep, but in my room, nonetheless.

I screamed at my mother, in a shrill, condescending voice that was never typical of me, but with a level of rage i’ve never allowed myself to show.

All was quiet for about 15 seconds. My mom’s lips were trembling in disbelief. I imagined a camera do a swift 360 degree track around us at the dining table with an absolute, tense silence. I was suddenly struck by a stinging reality. This is not me. I never raise my voice to my mother. I felt all dark and black inside I wanted to disappear from that scene, and wish that this was all a bad daydream. But it wasn’t.

I said a soft apology, and looked at my 54-year old Mom, and held her hand, “sorry, I didn’t mean it.” Modest tears trickled down from both their eyes. I have never seen her cry up close, and because of me. Suddenly, nothing else mattered…not the soiled books, not my niece’s misdemeanor, not my mom’s lapse in watching my niece….all I felt was a deep remorse for what I have done to the most important person in my life.

I thought about this terrible moment while I looked at my Mom’s face under the glass of her coffin at her wake in 1994. It was a sadness that burned me to the core. But it was important to remember too that I had apologized right at that moment, and owned up to my mistake. Of course, it never happened again. But it did happen. And she got hurt.

In the following years of my life, I would be hurting other people in this manner, and I would cower in guilt, and dispense the apologies right after. While I made a conscious effort to change, I realized too that it was part of my weaknesses — i give in to anger too easily sometimes. I heard the saying ‘love means never having to say you’re sorry.’ But indeed, it is LOVE that makes me say it. To to be human is to judge, and to falter. But to be human is also to love and to be sorry if you hurt the one you love. I may never be at peace with myself while I still remember that screaming incident with my mother. But it would always remind me to love for real, to get past myself and my anger and my vanities, and to reaffirm my love by saying ‘I’m sorry,’ whether I’m wrong or not.

Lourdes and a 6-month old David

GET UP AND GO

Timex Run 2012. Piolo Pascual and Coach Rio. Photographed by David Fabros, November 2011 in Makati City.

“Push yourself to the limit
Don’t ever quit.
Work till your legs are going to fall off
Or you fall apart.
Live for the games
Long for the practices.
Hate running because it isn’t your fault
But love it because it means you’re part of a squad.
Be struggling to breathe
Because you’ve done the dance twenty times getting it perfect.
Stunt with everything in you
Even when your flyer falls on your face.
Get up, wipe yourself off and say
“Okay let’s do it again.”
Do it till you get it right
Not until you start to hurt.
Never stop until you have nothing left to give.”
Quote by Victoria Leann.
OK. I’m not training for the marathon right at this moment. I am perusing a beginner’s running program, as I started to late last year. I SHALL NOT FLAKE.
It’s time to re-affirm my commitment to my physical well-being and continue what I started. So I’m checking on the yoga classes and the running clinic tomorrow so i could dive back in, after one hapless month of culinary gorging and fabulous late nights. I’m wondering at what age I can keep doing these things.

So whatever happened to “moving at your own pace” and “finding your own rhythm?” My thinking is that it’s the necessary start of whatever one’s trying to achieve. Ever had that resolve to sign up for an expensive gym and buy all those pricey workout wear, only to give in to the absolute luxury of sleeping and getting up late, and of course, dinners with friends and clients? How many times did you promise yourself, ‘this is the last one, this is the last time…that’s it,” only to fall into the same exact rut the next day.

It’s hard! No one is saying it’s not. But maybe, we’ve been spoiling ourselves too long, taking too much time ‘finding our rhythm.’ What happens if we try and put just a LITTLE bit more pressure on ourselves, knowing that the result will be this HUGE impactful change — a better-looking body, a happier disposition, resilience to disease — teenagers are oblivious to this, but at our age (you know what age), we should stop kidding ourselves.

I don’t think i’ll ever survive in the Army, but I totally believe in what they try to achieve in there. BE THE BEST THAT YOU CAN BE. You could be in army fatigues or just in track & field attire, and YOU CAN DO THAT. Hell, you can be wearing your office suit, or your school uniform, and YOU CAN DO THAT. Yo don’t have to be the next Mother Teresa, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey. I remember a brilliant young actress named Mylene Dizon, whom I had the honor to work with in my days at ABS-CBN. Looking a bit like the actress Aiko Melendez then, the reporters at the press conference kept referring to her as the ‘Next Aiko Melendez’. She politely stood up and declared she was going to be the ‘First Mylene Dizon.’ Today, she’s a very prolific television and film actress, well-respected, and the envy of many for her beauty and dedication. She didn’t sit and wait and take her time. She never stopped running.

So, I’m tossing my running shorts and sneakers into my knapsack, and getting off the computer now, to do just that. With any luck, i can maybe join the beginner’s events at Piolo’s Timex Run on the 22nd. Maybe, I won’t. But I’m getting off my butt just the same.