Destination Cebu: Sinulog 2007
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 8th, 2007I will be in the proud land of Cebu this coming January 19 – 21 2007 with friends to shoot the annual Sinulog Festival. This will be my first time to attend this event – but not my first time in Cebu.
The days where I will be there are those days where the processions and more street parties are held. You can check the schedule here.
The Sinulog festival is one of the grandest and most colorful festivals in the Philippines. The main festival is held each year on the third Sunday of January in Cebu City to honor the Santo Niño, or the child Jesus, who used to be the patron saint of the whole province of Cebu (since in the Catholic faith Jesus is not a saint, but God). It is essentially a dance ritual which remembers the Filipino people’s pagan past and their acceptance of Christianity. – WikiPedia
I’d appreciate help from bloggers on neat places to go to, since I will only be there for a very short time. I guess most of the time will be spent shooting the parade and the celebration.
Tips for Taking Photos at the 2007 World Pyro Olympics
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 7th, 2007
Last night, Anton, Ka Edong, Abraham, myself and a bunch of other folk went to see the second day of the World Pyro Olympics.
I decided to post some tips I got from Anton as well as some of my personal thoughts if you decide to make your way to the other days. Click on the images for a larger version.
Logistics and where to park
- The best place to park would be in the Blue Wave area because of the abundance of parking space with the new field parking. Blue Wave is located at the Petron Gas Station at the corner that leads straight to Mall of Asia.
- There are many reasons why you would want to park there: it makes for a good meeting place for your other friends because of the many restaurants available, it has clean restrooms so you can do your business before going to the venue (the Esplanade has portalets – I doubt you would want to trust your ass sitting on a very dirty portalet in the venue area), and the place is walking distance from all the hubub that will be caused in the MOA area.
“Passion Sense”
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 7th, 2007Content is king. Conversation is kingdom. Passion is your crown.
A long time ago I started blogging as a release from technical writing – my MA thesis was taking up a lot of my humanity and I so needed a window to barf out all my frustrations. That window was “writing stuff online for everyone to read” which is now known as contextual advertising blogging.
This morning I was interviewed by Yvette Tan for Filipinas Magazine about the Filipino and the blogging industry. One of the questions she posed was “how could the Filipino blogosphere be improved?” and to that I said that there should be a change in mindset since most Filipino bloggers who are aware of contextual advertising are starting to lose the passion sense in the stead of blogging for profit. Of course there is nothing really wrong with this. We all need the money. But we also, according to Maslowe’s Hierarchy of Needs, have to fend for food, clothing and shelter. Only after these things are fulfilled can we go looking for fulfillment in other things.
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Argh!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 6th, 2007The worst part of your Internet based business is when the Internet connection refuses to cooperate. And it is a little sad too especially when the site that always cooperates and loads is … Friendster!
And when the sites I do need up do decide to go up, GMail decides to take a breather.
It’s back to the Ice Age for me!
A Portrait of Blogger As Filipino
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 4th, 2007
Joey Alarilla wrote a piece about the “Filipino and the Blogosphere” in his regular column at CNET Asia.
According to Duncan Riley, “Some of the worlds best as yet undiscovered bloggers reside in the Philippines.”
What then makes the Filipino Blogger Competitive in this International Industry? I have cited a few items here:
Good Command of Written and Spoken English
The Philippines has two national languages – the local Filipino and English. There are many other dialects spread throughout the islands but English has always been the “modern” language which Filipinos “spake” ever since the American occupation. The medium of instruction at schools is English and there has been, for some reason, a strict compliance to good grammar and language.
EDIT: I guess when I wrote about a strict compliance to English, I was referring more to a generation before the GenTXT craze. I remember back in grade school and high school we went through rigorous classes in grammar, penmanship, English and Filipino literature as well as composition classes. But maybe this was an isolated case since the schools I went to were very strong in the Humanities (we took 4 years of Latin) but a little poor on the Math and Sciences.
Affinity to Technology
The Philippines is the “SMS Capital of the World.” Probably next to Japan in terms of the cellphone craze, we are years ahead of the west when it comes to technology services. Several foreign companies set camp in the Philippines and hire them as programmers, network administrators and operations managers. The technology scene in the Philippines is quickly becoming a mainstream item as most Filipinos always want a new phone or computer every four months.
Good Compensation
Filipinos who start to work with blog networks are motivated to perform because of the cheaper cost of living here. As Darren Rowse once told me in a quick chat, your US dollar goes a long way when you’re in the Philippines.
Care to add / affirm / challenge these insights?
Hinge-Inquirer Publications does a YouTube
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 3rd, 2007The best moments I spent with the crew of HIP was spent behind the scenes. Yeah, behind the magazines are tons and tons of model photo shoots (both babes and gadgets – two things that geeks lust for), a lot of food and a lot of late nights.
You can bookmark this page which contains all the Youtube director videos of HIP including behind the scenes footage of our babe photoshoots.
Again, the address is http://youtube.com/hingeinquirer.
Losing My Memory!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at January 1st, 2007Literally actually! I’ve been shooting at Medium to Large format lately with my 350D. And it has come to the point where I’m losing hard disk space.
I’m in the market for an external drive in the 100GB++ range. Right now I’m thinking of a LaCie brand external HD mainly because it sounds cool and also because I seem to have a bad affinity with Seagate throughout my geeky years – they always break down.
For the budget, I am also considering a generic desktop HD with an external casing. The drawback is that it doesn’t look as cool.
I will be filling the drive mostly with all my media – songs, pictures, movies — all of these are really cool (the best of Kenny Loggins — what could be cooler that that??? 
) so the drive must look cool too!
