Photographs From My Friends - Patrick Lucero: 'Dreamscapes and Portraits'

Patrick Lucero and son Sean, Manila, 2.20.07

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Dreamscapes and Portraits:
14 Photographic Visualizations by Patrick Lucero

The Oarhouse, February 26, 2007

'Venus on Mars Discordant #2'

'States of Mind'
all images © Patrick Lucero 2007

When Ben Razon asked me to submit a new body of work to state where I am exactly as a photographer at this time, I had to draw deep in order to develop images of substance. As a photojournalist working in Kuwait for the US Army bases there it wouldn’t have been appropriate or interesting for myself to exhibit my work photos. What I do for work isn’t thought provoking.

With that in mind I thought of going a graphic route to expressing my thoughts on interpersonal situations which later evolved into exploring the art of portraiture to bring out different facets of a person's character using abstract graphic manipulation and the compositing of multiple images together. For the conceptual pictures I wanted to illustrate how often men and women alienate themselves from each other instead of nurturing a relationship to grow. All too often it seemed to me that good relationships go bad over time. How often do we see “the perfect couple” at odds with each other go into a slow, spiralling descent until it spins out of control and crash to earth. Communication, of course, or rather the lack of it - is the simple answer to most problems in a relationship.

All of the images have been extensively Photoshopped. It’s not traditional photography and I’m sure it is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if the images make you stop and look twice at it…then I would say, “cool!”

-- Patrick Lucero

February 2007

Photographs From My Friends - Alfredo Roces

"Alfredo Roces Photographs"
January 30, 2007
The Oarhouse

© Alfredo Roces

Ding Roces, Frankie and Tessie Jose, and Irene Roces at the exhibit opening of 'Alfredo Roces Photographs', the Oarhouse, January 30, 2007.

The way I came to know the artist-writer Alfredo Roces was through my photographic mentor, Dick Baldovino. It has been more than a decade that I have shared thoughts, words, and images with this great man of Philippine letters and the arts which can only be appropriately described by many of his peers as enlightening and without equal. Having based himself along with his wife Irene in Sydney, Australia for nearly thirty years now, it was a delight to have begun corresponding with the man at the onset of the internet age through the magic of near-daily email exchanges for the past eight years. From there, he rediscovered his photography where he likened the act of photographing with a digital camera everyday in the same manner as doing his usual visual exercises on a sketchpad.

I asked him last December 2006 if he would be so obliged as to share some of these personal photographic notes in a place of conversation and meeting such as the Oarhouse. And he gladly agreed to exhibit the recent imagery of his 'world' for the many who have yet to enter it.

Maraming Salamat, Tata Ding.

-- Ben Razon

January 30, 2007