One last infrared shot. After Anawangin and Capones island, we went to our final destination, which was a bonus, because there was supposedly enough time for only 2 stops, so we had to choose 2 of 3 possible sites. So we were elated, although at the same time exhausted, to find out that we could shoot in all 3. The final site was Camara island (or Camera, no one was sure…), which will also serve as our sunset shoot.
This time I had to move out of my comfort zone, which was shooting infrared, and use the MUCH trickier ND and ND grad filters. It was an arduous trial and error per shot, and it really tests your mettle as a photographer, patience-wise. I think it was the sunset shoot that ate up most of my memory space.
One noteworthy tidbit though: as we were setting up our tripods and cameras in different areas, trying to find the sweet spot, we were jarred by the thundering sound of an explosion. It was incongruous with the milieu we were in, which is an island in the middle of the sea. We turned quick enough in the direction of the explosion to see that it was a boat not very far from us, filled with fishermen engaging in the illegal practice of dynamite fishing. It was a gritty reminder that shocked us back to reality. There we were trying to capture the profound beauty of nature, and there they were, driven by need and desperation, destroying marine life and the fragile marine ecosystem that sustains it. They quickly spotted us, with our big-ass cameras, and they obviously got spooked and disappeared like thieves in the night.
It was hard to recover from witnessing something like that. It underlines the immense problems facing our generation, in terms of trying to save whatever is left of our planet. It’s no joke, it’s not a cliche, it’s a fact; a pressing need that demands addressing ASAP. It was hard to take pictures when you’re faced with a stark reminder that pretty soon, we might not have anything beautiful to take pictures of.
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