the Cacing Diaries #45

pretty in pink

For the first time in her young 1 ½ years of existence, Cacing cried when I said goodbye today. It’s just one of my usual week-long trips abroad – there’ll be lots more down the road – but increasingly, each time I leave for a trip, Cacing is becoming more aware of her emotions. She still has no concrete concept of time. It is safe to suppose that she quickly got over my departure. But soon it would be different and I’ll have to contend to her heartache. And mine.


the muses of my life, at my mom’s place in Talisay this May



testing the crown



those eyes are smart!



smiling and clowning



the roller brush as a toy



a pink princess



testing the jackfruit



a tease in front of the camera



at the backseat of the car

a family reunion: an Easter Sunday banquet at Talisay

a Lenten Special

Easter, being the biggest holiday in Christiandom, is best celebrated with family. This year, we all went to my Mom’s place at Talisay where my Auntie Aster prepared a banquet for the immediate family. A professional nutritionist who is now a successful caterer, she can cook up the best of Filipino dishes the traditional Cebuano way.


the pre-banquet snacks: my all time favorite native sweet, the biko


For someone who just abstained from eating meat for the 40 days of Lent, I was dying to eat pork and the party spread did not disappoint. My aunt’s grilled pork was the great abstinence-breaker. It wallowed in such a sweet marinade that even before lunch started, I was filching off pieces off the serving dish.


Auntie Aster's sinugbang baboy


Lunch started a bit late as the kids were having an easter egg hunt and my daughter Cacing even had some action. My cousin Cheyenne, on vacation from New York, helped her find an egg so that she would not come out empty handed.

When we finally dig in the buffet, I made sure I had a big chunk of the dark humba pork knuckles (much like adobo but with lots of soy sauce and some sugar) which was so great it was sinful.


humba in dark sweetened soy sauce


My favorite though was the crispy pata or deep-fried pork feet. The pork skin was so crunchy and crispy that it can easily put the famed Carcar chicharon to shame.


crispy pata


For those who would opt for leaner white meat, there was chicken too. My aunt chose to serve native spring chicken, broiled and served whole.


manok bisaya


As added caloric fair, spaghetti and meatballs were served too. Of course, to countermand the cholesterol assault, vegetable dishes came a plenty. There was bitter gourd with egg and pepper, an eggplant stew and the empanada (fried pockets of diced potatoes, carrots, eggs and pork). Seafood was not the call of the day although there was lukot which from a distance could look like string noodles but is really the secretion of the sea hare.


spaghetti with meatballs



paliya (bitter gourd)



tawong guisado



tinunuang lukot (sea hare secretion in coconut milk)



empanada



the empanada filling


Desserts never take a backseat in our family gatherings. Being partial to native delicacies, I had my fill with sticky rice concoctions like my all-time favorite biko. There too were the sapin-sapin and the cassava pitsi-pitsi, sometimes spelled peche-peche. My Aunt Olive also brought in her creamy leche flan or caramel custard which was just divine and perfectly formed. Plus for the chocolate-inclined, there was chocolate cake.


Auntie Olive’s fabulously rich leche flan



sapin-sapin and pitsi-pitsi


To drown us more in our food coma, later in the afternoon, we were served some freshly prepared native cocoa chocolate sikwate and a homemade puto (white sticky rice, steamed with ginger and sugar) which came from an old recipe handed down from at least three generations.


puto and sikwate


Never easy to beg off from food but hey, it was Easter. May you all had a wonderful weekend as well.

Flower Shots for the Non-Flower Person

I have nothing against flowers but it is just not my style to populate and sow my flickr photostream with blooms. But today, in one of those rarefied moments called for by the occasion, I am posting a flower in flickr. This is in dedication to my mean sister, whom I and my meaner brother affectionately call Lall.


0.013s, f/5.6, 55 mm, ISO 200, +1/3 EV
Dakak, Dapitan, Zamboanga del Norte, the Philippines

Chemist that I am, I always approach photography like a laboratory experiment. This is not to say that I don’t succumb blissfully to the occasional stock photo syndrome. Case in point is the I-can-take-that-kinda-photo above. There is always something universally pleasing with a direct vertical-drop shot to isolate the starburst form of the lotus and frame it with an unblemished leaf floating on the lush moss-laden evergreen pond.

Colors and shapes will always be your friend. Here are a few more phototips.

Be aware of subject-background distance to create the DOF blur
Even with regular dSLR kit equipment – and I don’t have a macro lens – you can create the beautiful background blur by using the widest aperture. In terms of “f” value, the number must be at its lowest. The blur is visually most attractive, if the background is sufficiently far from the object. If too near, the background will be too sharp and distracting. If too far, the background will be just an indistinguishable haze. In the image below, I shot the flower with the purpose of making the pink makopa flowers on the ground blurry. The orange flower, the subject, was only secondary, and was chosen precisely because it was some distance from the ground, about 3 feet I guess.


0.067 s, f/5.6, 41 mm, ISO 400, -1/3 EV
Talisay City, Cebu, the Philippines

There is actually an optics formula to calculate the desired distance of subject from background to create those little diamond-like compression spots or bokeh blur. I probably could improve the blur to make the spots more classically circular, but I was not in any mood to climb on a chair to photograph another flower more distant from the ground. In the real world, you take what you get.

Create varying background and foreground layers
Again, set the camera at its widest aperture to create the narrowest DOF (depth of field). For the kit lens of my Canon 350D rebel camera at 50mm, this would be f/1.8. Then, choose a flower subject that is crowded with other elements (other flowers, leaves, shrubs, whatever) that are several feet deep. The different layers behind (background) and before the subject (foreground) would then appear in varying levels of blur, from just unsharp near the point of focus to a complete blur at the field’s most distant end. The shot below is from a corner patch in Kobe where pansies were planted to form the word K-O-B-E. I have to bend and shoot along the direction of the row that is more than eight feet long. This is easier said than done without stepping into the flower patch. In this shot, the red pansy is in sharp focus and the others behind it blur out until they disappear completely.


0.005s, f/1.8, 50 mm, ISO 100, -1/3 EV
Kobe, Japan

Incorporate motion and use slow shutter speed
In my travels, me and my tripod are a happy pair. Even if flowers are my subject, I try to capture them in slow shutter speed and capture motion. If there is no movement, create it! One time after having breakfast in my hotel in Bali, I passed by a stairwell landing with standing basin of water strewn with rose petals. I could pictured it flat but the image would just be like a commercial spot for a spa. Then it came into me that I can create a whirlpool with my hand. I varied both the speed of manual swirling and the time of exposure and shot photos of various combinations. I found the shot at 2.5s taken at the top speed of the swirl to be quite fascinating - a vortex in red and pink.


2.5s, f/9, 28 mm, ISO 100, -1/3 EV
Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia

I still thought that there is one thing missing above. The whirl may resemble like a dreamlike giant rose but it lacks an anchor to deliver context. What, where and how the photo was taken? I then realized that the human element I can add is me. So I whipped the water aggressively, dipped my left hand to interrupt the water revolution and frame the shot. So here is my hand, as guilty as can be.


0.6s, f/5, 27 mm, ISO 100, -1/3 EV
Nusa Dua, Bali, Indonesia

Now, while I was doing this, passersby must have thought of me mad. But I’ve done worst things other than playing with water. Like calling my brother and sister mean for instance.