In 1999, Rafael Manuel Hidalgo Laurel, or Cholo among his peers, was in his late thirties, directing television commercials and depressed. He was doing things commissioned using his talent and skills but he felt that “everything seemed so contrived.” So he left his job, packed his bags, and embarked on a long journey with one goal in mind: To do something artful.
“Alone, I ventured away from my comfort zone to places I’ve never seen because I wanted to do something that did not have to be set up,” shares Laurel.
But apart from going on a sojourn to find something else, he wanted to do something with his journey, and to perhaps take something home with him.
Thus from Portland, Maine in the US, Laurel crossed the Atlantic into Europe with close to a hundred film rolls and a Konica camera, and took snapshots of people everyday for months “with no particular objective but to simply capture real moments.”
Laurel admits, however, that he is not a professional photographer then and still is not today. “I’m just an Instagram user,” he says. But developing a keen eye for composing still images from his experience with motion pictures and moving narratives, Laurel was able to capture and preserve little snippets of life that may have evaded other people’s notice. He also went to Manila bookstores and soaked in the “decisive moments” of master photographers, like Henri Cartier-Bresson, to imbibe their sense of curiosity and composition.
It was his first time in the old world, so in Europe he walked the streets of Paris, Barcelona, Madrid and Amsterdam with his journal and his camera – absorbing everything that was around him. But time was ticking and when his savings ran low, Laurel then decided to come back, taking with him over a thousand still images and a new perspective of seeing the world. Sixteen years ago, Laurel would never have thought of mounting an exhibit for the photographs he took during his 1999 sojourn. “I was hoping to create a book out of them,” and if he weren’t asked to exhibit them by the director of the National Museum of the Philippines, Jeremy Barns, “I really wouldn’t do this.”
Currently on exhibit at the National Museum of Anthropology are 14 of Laurel’s photographs curated by the museum’s assistant director Ana Labrador. Entitled “Still,” the exhibit features black and white travel photographs with moving stories captured in still images. “It’s also called ‘Still’ because I still do it (photography),” says Laurel with a laugh.
Each photo on exhibit has an inspiring or interesting tale behind it. One such photo is “The carousel girl” he took in Paris. “I was watching her for a long time and kept on taking photos of her because I was wondering why she was enjoying the ride much more than all the other kids. Then I realized when the carousel stopped and her parents got her that she was a blind girl,” relates Laurel.
But if he has to pick a favorite among the 14 photos, he says it has to be “A Breakdancer.” For someone who’s not a professional photographer, Laurel captured the moving performer on the street at the right moment and right smack in the middle of the frame. “I don’t know how it came about,” he admits. “I was trying to center the whole thing and it was centered, it was joyful and it got the whole spirit of the whole thing.”
Following his trip, Laurel went on to further cement his name in the filmmaking industry. In 2005, he swept the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) awards for co-writing and directing his first feature film, Nasaan Ka Man. Today, he continues to be an independent director and storyteller.
When asked to choose between filmmaking and photography to pursue as an art, Laurel says he prefers telling stories in stills “because it is fulfilling to get the images that I wanted to get and look at them [after].”
This is why when he’s not creating films, Laurel travels with his camera and journal, in search of stories he’s never witnessed and freezing them in a still frame.
Catch “Still: The World Through a Filipino Storyteller’s Eyes” at the Reception Room, National Museum of Anthropology (Old Finance Bldg.), Rizal Park, Manila until October 31. The Artist Talk will be held on September 12, 2 p.m. at the same venue. Visit www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph for more details.
