Warning: if you are averse to looking at “idols” or “statues” or “graven images,” I suggest you go see other parts of this website now and skip this particular entry. Thanks!

The locals of Barangay Poblacion in Makati claim to be the original when it comes to making Stations of the Cross structures for the Lenten season. Funding for this, they claim, comes from donations of devotees who are members of the “samahan” and the local government. This had been going on since the late 1950s, they also claim.

I attempted to find all 14 stations last night but couldn’t find the rest. I’ll share with you here photos of ones I got to see. During my sojourn, I wasn’t surprised to notice that instead of pray and meditate, people flock the stations to camwhore instead LOL. These structures/scenes are made by locals with a time frame ranging from three weeks to a little more than a month. Said structures either take the form of churches or some scenes reminiscent of Lent.

Hover above the photos to know which street they can be found and click on them to see bigger sized images.

• Poblacion Makati Lent 2010
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Something I never thought I’d like THAT much was shoot in black and white but as my subject’s colors got washed out by my pseudo lighting, I figured, the only way to not expose the colors is to not shoot in color. Thus, this set.

As I’ve explained in tumblr, nothing gets me more excited to snap away like a madman than a really great toy (as seen from here, here, and here). I got the “Batman on Gargoyle” by Keiji Iwakura as a late Christmas present from a good friend. This limited edition, pre-painted ceramic statue had masterpiece written all over it. It was just begging to be snapped at.

As I took the first few shots, I was underwhelmed with the final outputs. The lighting drowned everything and only much later did it occur to me to use not make use of color at all. By much later, I meant in post prod. For now, take a look at and compare the photos I took using the Nokia N82 and the Canon Ixus i5. As both of them are 5 megapixel cameras, they’re pretty much head to head in terms of capacity. I promise to share with you a Photoshop technique on how to better convert your colored photos into black and whites in my next post. By technique, I’m not merely referring to that convert to “grayscale” button, you silly. Think “gradient map” and “channel mixing” in monochrome. Excited yet? You should, moreso as I show you how you can stretch the component values out, giving you that high contrast look in your final output.

Without further ado, here’s “Batman on Gargoyle” taken using the Canon Ixus i5.

And these were taken using the trusty Nokia N82.

As for the camera settings I used, nothing could blur some details out better than “macro” mode. I used the setting liberally with both cameras. At one point while using the N82, I accidentally had the flash on but it still turned out great IMHO LOL.

I think those of the N82 were far better than the ones I got using the Canon, not? I’m guessing, maybe it’s just because I got lucky with the N82 compositions. Stay tuned next time for the “black and white” tutorial, whoopiedoo!!

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