|
|
It is ten years since Eduardo Masferre, described as the "father of Philippine photography", died at the age of eighty-six. His is an extraordinary story of a self-motivated documentary practitioner who left a unique history of his people. An appreciation for Enter by Alex Baluyut.
At the heart of Luzon, the largest island in the Philippine archipelago, lies the cordillera mountain range.
It is a majestic and sprawling range of high peaks and lowland forests.
A good seven-hour drive from Manila will place you in “a very special place on God’s Earth,” as a fellow traveler once remarked.
One can only imagine the hardship involved in undertaking an expedition into these mountains in the early years of the Spanish rule in the Philippines. We must appreciate the endeavors of the people who lived and died in these mountains.
And if one was to become a photographer operating in the very core of the Cordillera mountain range one had to be a truly remarkable person. Which Eduardo Masferre, Master documentary photographer was. Remarkable.
As a young man Masferre discovered for himself the magic of photography. Learning, as most Filipinos later would, through trial and error. With a box camera ordered through a magazine mail order catalog. Masferre, with undying passion, sought the beauty of the Cordilleras and its people as his lifelong documentary project.
For close to five decades Masferre continued his documentation of the Cordilleras and its people. Capturing rituals, faces and landscapes which through time would slowly disappear with the advent of modernization.
His photographs have endured the test of time, becoming our only link to a history pure in its heritage.
The work of Eduardo Masferre would have gone unnoticed by the public if it had not been for another Filipino photographer, Atanacio” Butch” Baluyut - a portrait photographer based in Manila and owner of a small photo gallery there, the CX2 gallery based in Ermita.
In the late 1970’s Butch walked into Masferre's photo studio in Bontok with the intention of looking for potential exhibitions to be mounted in Manila.
Baluyut believed that photo studios in remote towns must be a haven for great documentary work. And how right he was.
The Exhibition was organized and launched in 1982 at the CX2 gallery. And the rest as they say is Philippine Photographic history.
There were several succeeding exhibitions, a book was published of his work and the whole world fell in love with the work of Eduardo Masferre.
Links:
Masferre profile
Biography of Atanacio” Butch” Baluyut
|
|
While waiting for another photograph Masferre turned and took a candid picture of this man, who then agreed to pose for this portrait. 1953.
view full size (18042 b)
|
|
