I was at the 7th Anniversary Celebration of Pinoy Photography Organization (PiPho) last Sunday at the Music Hall of SM Mall of Asia (MoA). I arrived around 2PM and I was able to catch up with Jim Paredes, one of the guest speakers.
Jim Paredes of Apo Hiking Society is also an established photographer
We all know Jim Paredes as one of the members of popular Original Pilipino Music (OPM) band Apo Hiking Society. Apo is actually a shortcut of Apolinario Mabini, one of our national heroes. They have a very successful and colorful biography as one of the country’s premier bands. This photography session with Jim Paredes is a chance to get to know him as a photographer.
One of the advices that I got from him is that we need to tell our audience a story (through our pictures) in a way that it’s fresh and that our audience haven’t seen yet. He stated an example like in a photo shoot wherein several photographers are taking a picture of the same model. We as a photographer must have a photo that is fresh from the rest of the photographers.
Jim Paredes also emphasized the need to read photography books and to learn from other photographers.
Although I only saw the last few slides of his portfolio as a photographer, I was able to listen to some of the questions asked by the audience. He was asked here did you learn photography from. Jim Paredes replied “from everybody”. He told us that he learned from his friends like Raymond Isaac and he frequently visit the photography section of the National Bookstore.
He was also asked questions like: What is important, what you want others to see or what you want to see (in the pictures)? He replied by saying “what I want to see” saying that you’re taking pictures to please yourself first.
At the end of the Q&A portion of his workshop, he was asked “If you could only select one from either Music or Photography, what would you choose?” He replied by saying “Music”.
You may take a look at the works of Jim Paredes by visiting his account at Red Bubbles by clicking here.
I was also able to listen to other speakers like George Tapan and Jay Jallorina during this event before I went to the MoA Esplanade to take pictures of the Manila Bay.
George Tapan gave some very useful tips on coming up with great images without using much Photoshop.
Jay Jallorina giving his 5 Ideas for Stronger Landscape Compositions
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