Gala Pinoy Redux

Evening. My friends and I were taking a walk along the streets of Singapore. We passed by an underpass and saw this old man, playing his guitar. There were no spectators, only a few passersby like us. I took a photo, and captured the moment as his fingers flipped through another page in his song book, ready to perform another song.

I’m not sure how long he’s been doing this. But his shirt of choice, the badge on his cap, the ring on almost every finger, and his pair of Pumas, tell me he’s quite a classy guy. Would’ve been great to trade a few guitar licks with him.

First off, it is a common practice already for travelers not to put all their money and other important stuff all in one place. So just in case your bag gets lost, for example, you don’t lose everything you have with it.*

Lucky for me, the only time so far that I lost all my money was when I was in 1st year high school, and I was also lucky enough to be traveling with a friend and his mom. She paid for my fare during that trip, after which it was reimbursed by an uncle whose money was then reimbursed by my mother. Hey, this was before the SMS era, and cellphones were still a rich man’s toy, thus the complexity of it all.

Long story short, I apparently left my wallet at a relative’s house before I left for the trip. I’ve learned my lesson since. I hope.

But if I lost all my money during a trip (that includes cash, my ATM and debit card), I would have to call any friend or family member near me and send me money through places like Western Union (WU). Just made me realize that something as old as WU still has its place in a world dominated by credit cards. If that doesn’t work I probably would risk my ass and go busking. Now if they people don’t like my talent at all, I’ll ask them to throw money at me instead of the typical tomato, just to make things a little different.

Anyway, how about you, what would you do if you lost all your money during a trip? Crazy, creative ideas are totally welcome. :)

* – If you don’t have this kind of habit yet when traveling, then this is one good habit you must try to have.

Want to increase the number of beautiful photos you want to take home after every trip? While luck and talent do help, there are other things that come into play here. And that’s what we’re going to talk about in this post.

The keyword here is preparation. But what do you need to keep in mind when preparing for a shoot? Here are some of them:

1. Do your research. It all begins here. You should of course do your research before anything else. During this stage, find out the interesting spots, events, or people that you might want to take photos of.

While doing your research, also try to find photos taken by other travelers of the same things you want to shoot. This will give you an idea of which angles work, and how to make your shot different from those that have been done already. This is especially important if you’re shooting very popular spots, such as the Eiffel Tower, for example.

This shot is a product of doing my research on interesting spots in Bacolod City and its nearby areas.

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The story behind the photo: I had just parked at Greenhills when I saw this security guard sitting by the stairs. He was eating dinner alone. The sight of him was pretty sad, at least to me. What made it sadder was that he probably only had a bowlful of rice for dinner, nothing else. I didn’t see any other food there when I took a quick look as I passed by him.

I’ve always admired people who can strike conversations with total strangers out of the blue. I tried emulating them, but I often ended up sounding like a creepy stalker. Over the years, I’ve learned to accept myself for who I am, especially on the road. I guess I’m more of an introverted guy around strangers. But that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t talk to people when asking for directions, when I feel comfortable with them, or when they strike a conversation with me first.

How about you? Would you consider yourself an introverted or an extroverted traveler?