Last week me and my friends most of which I met over at flickr, went photo tripping in Antique province. We visited a few spots in Southern Antique (Anini-y, Hamtic, and San Jose) for a day trip. We first met at Molo Terminal, Iloilo City where a few van drivers were squabbling for our attention, we had to choose between a spacious new looking Mercedes Benz Van and an L300 van, which looked like it had experienced too many trips. We picked the L300 van because the driver promised to leave immediately for us. We were lucky enough because the driver was very friendly and even made a deal with us to take us to where we wanted to go until Hamtic and San Jose and then take us back to Iloilo City.

Travelling to Anini-y (two and a half hours from Iloilo City, fare = P100)

Mainland Anini-y Coast, Antique

Nogas Island, Anini-y, Antique (10 minutes travel time from Mainland Anini-y, Pumpboat Fare = P50 round trip)

Siraan Hot Springs (10 minutes travel time from Nogas Island, Entrance Fee – P20)

Anini-y Church / San Juan de Nepumuceno Church (Travel time from Siraan Hot Springs)

Ingwan Batangan Waterfalls in Bry. Ingwan Batangan, Hamtic, Antique (1 hour away from Anini-y, 30 minutes inland trek)

Newly opened Gaisano Grand Mall of Antique in San Jose Antique (15 minutes from Hamtic)

San Sebastian Church at Dusk

We took the RORO (from Dumangas Port) and spent the night in one of the pension houses in Bacolod to save on costs. We had hoped to visit more spots in Bacolod City, but because of the rain we didn’t get to visit some of them.

Dumangas Port in Naluoyan Dumangas

Montenegro RORO Vessel – P60 (Iloilo-Bacolod)

Bacolod Pension Plaza – Double Room (P800)

Inasal at Manokan Country

Bacolod Central Business District

West Negros University Exapnsion

Familia Luzuriaga Cemetery

Chinese Temple in Bacolod

East Block

New Bacolod Government Center

Bacolod Adventist Medical Center

Lacson St. in front of Negros Occidental Provincial Capitol

PNB Bacolod

L’ Fisher Hotel Bacolod

Starbucks Coffee Bacolod

21 Restaurant Bacolod

Salvacion Building

Riverside (Pablo O. Torre) Meical Center

Colegio de San Agustin Bacolod

Terra Dulce Underconstruction (rumored site of T.G.I.F. Bacolod)

Horizon Tower

Pavilion Hotel and Resort

Weesam Express Terminal in BREDCO

Oceanjet Terminal in BREDCO, Bacolod

Montenegro RORO Iloilo – Bacolod Scehdule of Trips(P60 oneway)

Tristar RORO Iloilo – Bacolod Scehdule of Trips (P40 oneway)

Cebu is calling me!

BREDCO Port

Back in Iloilo at Dumangas Port

Things visited and done: Ate Chicken Inasal in Manokan Country, coffee in Starbucks, a few beers in Goldenfields, Eastbloc Area, new Bacolod Government Center, Cakes in Calea, Cinnamon Wheat Bread in Bacolod Adventist Medical Center, Coffee in Kuppa.

As I make more blogs, my “Starting a New Blog” Mindmap will also have more improvements and edits, which will enable me to carry over what I’ve learned from making previous blogs and apply successes to the next one.

Further Reading:

• Increase Your Blogging Productivity through MindMapping

I was looking forward to see the Pacific Plaza Towers because it looked good in pictures but when I was there, I ended up noticing Deutsche Bank more. I think it looks really good at night.

Market! Market!

Bonifacio High Street. Dog Walking is really popular there, I wanted to squish all the dogs, they’re just so cute and so many of them..grr…

High-rises in FBGC

I was with my friends from Skyscrapercity. They were supposed to take me to the American Cemetery, which is actually just a battle monument and not a real cemetery, but we got there too late. I’m still looking forward to visiting the place when I visit Manila in the future.

View of Brgy. La Paz, Nueva Valencia

We traveled from Jordan Port to Brgy. La Paz, Nueva Valencia by renting L300 van for P1,600 round trip and then renting out a pumpboat, which took us to Taklong Island, for less than a thousand RT (I forgot the exact price). We had arranged for the transpo to pick us after our trip to take us back.

Going to Taklong Island

Exploring the Taklong Island a bit

We didn’t get the chance to swim very long because there were a lot of jellyfish on the beach, as in there one every 2 square meters. We dared to swim anyways because we soooo wanted to take a dip but we got off the water after someone in our group got stung by a jellyfish real bad. We had to put vinegar over the site and let her scrub over it with sand to "remedy" her pain. It was also raining that time so I didn’t get to take a lot of pictures of the scenery, instead I entertained myself with shooting other things like this tree dog that we found, which is endemic to Taklong Island:

Just before dusk, we climbed on top of a lighthouse nearby and saw a great 360 degree view of the place. The next day, we went "boating" on the other side of the island so that we could get away from the jellyfish. Unfortunately upon getting there, we not only had to deal with the jelly fish, we also had to be careful we don’t step on sea urchins. It was awful but we had a fun time trying out "jellyfishing," now I know why Spongebob and Patrick enjoy it so much.

The installation time of Smart Bro was quick! It was setup after a few days of application and their support team also responds very timely. Even during strong typhoons, my connection doesn’t flinch.

There was a time lately that I lose my connection even during a hint of rain. I complained about it and the support people came over to check out my antenna/canopy the day after. They had to extend the height of my antenna because they said a tall tree was blocking the signal (lol). I had it extended from 10ft to 20ft for P700+ (GI Pipe = P300+, 1KG Wire = P40+, Service Fee = P400+).

I just hope they increase their bandwidth soon, they’ve not upgraded for a long time already! 384kbps is really low nowadays, you can’t even continuously view youtube videos with that. I found out from their website that their "plug-it" prepaid plans are already 1mbps, that’s so unfair

Payment is super convenient, I just have to go to SM City and drop an envelope with my payment in a computerized payment counter in the Smart Wireless Center. During my subscription to SmartBro, I’ve amassed 34,965 rewards points, which entitles me to a P100 rebate, which is kind of insignificant compared to the total amount that I’ve paid them. I’m thinking of just collecting the reward points for future promos.

If you’re also living in the same area as me – Housing, Mandurriao, Iloilo City, I have my thumbs up for SmartBro

They can juice us for now if they must but there will come a time that these newspaper will become extinct and blogs will replace their outdated and unethical methods. We’ll be on top of search engine results when that happens.

Three of my works are also currently displayed there. I was at first apprehensive about joining since I was not confident that my works can pass the “art crowd.” Lately (that I’ve been using an SLR), I’ve been feeling that my artistic passion is diminishing. Like every time, I press the shutter, I don’t feel the spark and excitement as much (when I was using a point and shoot camera).

Tara was the one who invited me to join. I didn’t know who else was going to exhibit or what the nature of their photography is. I was anxious that maybe I will not fit into their more artsy/conceptual types. In my inner consciousness, I also wanted to join, so I browsed through my photos and picked something that I think is visually “safe.” It is a sunset shot taken from Fort San Pedro in Iloilo. I added two more photos after finding out that I still have time to produce them before the opening date.

The three photos on the rightmost are mine. The photos are somewhat related to my take on what’s happening to the heritage sites of Iloilo. I’m sad that the glory of Iloilo is being left to decay, if left unaddressed they we will ultimately lose them to modernity together with the deep seeded identity of Ilonggos.

Here are the works from the other photographers:

That’s Me and Cara posing together with our works ^_^

I hope I’ll have more chances to do things like this. It’s always nice to hang out with other like-minded people who are into the same things as I. I’m also the kind of persons that does not talk too much, I divert more into other forms of expression to convey a message so having a venue and audience for my works is something that I really appreciate. Getting to see the works of other people is nice since you get to know more about them especially becuase their works are most likely very personally attached to them.

Lightroom works like Picasa but is much powerful. I like that it’s able to edit RAW photos since I now exclusively shoot in RAW format. Another  thing I like about Lightroom is that you can apply “preset effects” to a photo, which means you can edit/enhance photos with just one click of a button.

Example

This is an unedited photo I took during a recent trip to Taklong Island in Guimaras. Due to the undesirable settings I had and the lighting conditions, the photo I took looks dull, which doesn’t give justice to the beautiful sight in real life. I wanted to emphasize the vibrant colors of the boat and the scenery so I had to brighten the photo, and increase the saturation and contrast. Though … before going on with the image I had in my head, I wanted to tryout some other effects. Using the preset option, I came up with these:

The mood of the picture had changed dramatically and it didn’t require much knowledge in editing or photography. After tweaking the photo some more in Lighroom, I came up with this final image:

“First Arrival” (Taklong Island, Guimaras)

These photos were posted with my permission. I noticed that the prints are very blurry and pixilated. I don’t know how that happened because the photos I sent has enough resolution for those small prints. Oh well!, I’m still ecstatic that they appeared in a national daily.

You can view the Online Version of the Page herehttp://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=472063&publicationSubCategoryId=81. If you want to view more pictures of Amalfi, I’ve made a post on my food photography with them here.