Who's Your Hero?

Who's Your Hero?

For me, it took a giant to open my eyes to the beauty of found objects, and I have not looked back since.

He was a giant in the world of photography. He was a giant to everyone in the industry, in a time when they were too few and far between, but whose conquests reached far far outside the realm of our world. He who was the only Filipino exponent of color posterization where in the rest of the world, there were probably less than a hundred (professionally, less than twenty). Color posterization was the photographic technique I wanted to learn (and eventually master) but could not find any technical literature save for two pages from an obscure issue of a photographic magazine. It took an introduction by Senor Leonidas Maloles for me to meet the giant who would one day be responsible for my decision to pursue photography in the degree that I have pursued it today.

I still remember the day (over two decades ago) when I finally completed learning everything about color posterization, which was a long-drawn process taking between 8-12 hours per photograph. He congratulated me for the months of hard work I put into learning the process. After which he said in the vernacular, “syanga pala, kalalabas lang ng Photoshop. Isang software yun na kaya nang gawin yung tinuro ko sa iyo ng 5 minutes lang....” Oh well. At least for the record I was the second Filipino to learn the technique...

Over the next few years, I would occasionally drop by his studio in between stints of corporate work. In those visits, I would unknowingly meet several other giants, and they would jokingly refer to me as Mister Posterized! It was then that I realized that giants look like giants only when in the company of us mere mortals. But among themselves, the giants are pretty much just like us too. Soon after, I started imbibing their visualizations. This process I call “OSMOSIS” for obvious reasons (from a region of greater concentration to a region of lesser concentration...).

Eventually, as I dropped out of the corporate world in favor of going into business with my family, I spent more and more time at his studio. It was at this time that I learned most of what I know from him and four of his fellow masters. It is from this interaction where I gained my technical knowledge; each one teaching me his field of expertise. I, the sum of 5 masters, from a brew by 5 masters.

He is an architect by education. Perhaps this is the reason why his photographs seem so cleanly assembled as if they were lain out with a design already in mind. All this he accomplished in the camera, way way before the advent of imaging.

Since his youth, he has been into music. Perhaps this is the reason why there is dynamism in his photographs.

He loves the warmth of the sun. Perhaps this is the reason why his early works have often been compared to a painter named Amorsolo. (incidentally, his studio sits on a street also named Amorsolo)

He is simplicity personified. Often we tend to dabble in the complicated, hoping it will show our mastery over a lot of elements; It takes a master to just make everything look so simple and clean.

And he has done more international book projects during the time where the only people invited to do book projects were people of international stature.

Although he towers over most of us, he has never been loud about it, preferring to stay out of the limelight if he can avoid it. But in January 31 2011, he has graciously accepted an invitation by the Federation of Philippine Photographers Foundation, Inc. to do a slideshow and give a talk on some of his iconic images during Photoworld Asia 2011.

This giant is Emil V. Davocol, and I will be his assistant.

I am Jesus Paul C. Yan.