Cebu Photography, 2024
Cebu opened from the air: an aerial view of the coastline, blue sea against green mountains, then the city itself framed by mountains and bay. A cable-stayed bridge made a bold graphic shape against clear sky, and at street level there was a colourful waterfront scene, a local bus caught mid-route, and a red car passing through the street.
A day of canyoneering followed, with the GoPro in hand: signage portraits and a zipline tower against a dramatic sunburst gave way to a narrow limestone gorge, swim-throughs lit by shafts of light, and a grand cave archway with the tour group for scale. The pace shifted between quiet scenics (a turquoise plunge pool, climbers on a cliff edge, a pink cave grotto) and more playful shots: arms raised in celebration, laughter under a waterfall's spray, sunlit water droplets. The finale was a couple's portrait at a twin waterfall spilling into a turquoise pool, framed again close-up before the trail wound back out past a dam crossing and the long approach path to the falls.
A snorkelling trip among turtles and sardines turned up some of the sharpest underwater frames of the whole set: a solo turtle gliding in clean symmetry, a wide-angle shot of a diver reaching towards one, and a close portrait with direct eye contact. A dense sardine bait ball gave the set's most dynamic frame, a diver swimming straight through the shoal, alongside quieter moments of a turtle grazing the reef and a small reef fish caught in macro detail.
The trip closed out with Cebu's evenings: a dusk view over a fishing village, a sunset silhouette of a house among the trees, and a warm glow through palm trunks. Boats recurred throughout: a minimalist silhouette under dramatic clouds, a cluster of outrigger boats in soft pastel light, a glowing sunburst dropping straight onto the horizon, alongside a mangrove reflection, a vertical infinity-pool shot, and a final blue-hour frame with a palm frond in the foreground and distant boats on the water.
