"We Are Young"

Song Title is this week's prompt on Quotography. On the get go, it is very obvious that I would go with a Hanson song as they are my most favorite band and they do have a lot of songs with inspirational lyrics. I wanted to go with:

"The Great Divide"
I find hope and it gives me rest | I find hope in a beating chest | I find hope in what eyes don't see | I find hope in your hate for me | Have no fear when the waters rise | We can conquer this great divide

or maybe

"Dying to be Alive"
And we all go tumbling down | No matter how strong | We all return to the ground | When the day's come, Say 'Why did I wait?' | You can't just leave your life to fate. | You've got to turn it around | Before it's too late.

However, it is difficult for me to find suitable images for these awesome words. I know there might be an image that could best represent either one of these song lyrics, but with image files dating back to 2007, I just can't go through every DVDs I have especially that I am pressed for time as I am doing assignments and have to exercise as well. I wanted to go with something easy for me, so I chose this:


Fun.'s "We Are Young," which won 2013 Grammy Awards' "Song of the Year." Lately, I have been listening to their songs over and over, and although this isn't my favorite song, just having the line "We Are Young" made me remember this picture taken during the Surf Break in 2011, with my sister and our cousin.



Actually, my final image is a product of combining two images. On the left is a picture of myself and cousin Mhai (which my sister took), and on the right is a picture of cousin Mhai and my sister (which I took). Now, I can just go ahead and use the image I took, but I felt there was a big gap between the sun and my sister, so I decided to make a selection on myself on the other image, cut it, and pasted it in the image.

Anyway, when Fun. received their Grammy trophy, lead vocals Nate Ruess said, "I don't know what was I thinking writing the chorus for this song; this is in HD, everyone can see our faces and we are not very young." Well, regardless of what our real age is (I am actually 2 years older than him), we are all young and we can be carefree at times.

"Without Yellow and Orange."

Happy new week, everybody!

I just finished doing a Zumba workout, and while relaxing, thought I'd update the blog and share you this:


I took this last year when I traveled to Hundred Islands in Pangasinan with my Aunt Bing, her family, and  two of her friends. This was the glorious sunrise I saw from the balcony of our hotel room, giving me renewed strength to carry on with the day. I rarely see sunrise, so every sunrise I see is always personal.

I welcome my new week just as I welcomed the day I shot this image - with renewed strength. I will be stepping out of my comfort zone (again) to rekindle my love affair with fitness and dieting, hoping this time around I'd be victorious.

The Kind Fisherman

Mondays are usually my lazy days to blog (probably because I often took time outs during Sundays), but I do love today's prompt on Quotography, so I want to be a part of this week's link party.


For this prompt, I went ahead to find the quote first before I search my files for a suitable image. At first I was thinking of sharing an image of a man helping other boat men at the port of Hundred Islands, and while editing it, I remembered this particular image.

For sure I have shared this image and the story behind it on some of my blogs, but let me share it again. In 2009, I was vacationing in my mom's hometown and a boring afternoon made my niece Grace and I decide to walk to Macallawan to catch the sunset and enjoy the beauty of nature.

We saw this man from afar and I took time to capture this relationship of the man to the nature. When we got near him, my chatty niece (she's only 12 years old that time) asked the man a few questions, which led to us exchanging stories. He told us he left a few baskets underwater that morning and came back that dusk to gather the crabs. He wasn't particularly doing it for a living, he was just gathering seafood to feed his family, and although his catch wasn't that much, he still gave me one crab so I can have it for dinner, too. I understood that he has a big family and that I had dinner waiting at home that night (no need for me to be taking a piece of food from their table), but his random act of kindness was something so sincere and touching, that I decided to take it.

His act may be little, nameless, and unremembered for him... but it wasn't for me. 

"No Spring Skips its Turn."

Whenever the word "spring" is spoken, the first image in mind would be "flowers." We don't have spring here in the Philippines, but I notice that the very cold weather from November til February of the next year would make some trees and plants shed its leaves and come March, the leaves return and the flowers bloom... just like winter and spring.


With that in mind, I decided to just choose an image I took from this time of the year last year. One of the crops in season are Mung Beans, and this is a picture of the plant's flower I took while vacationing in my paternal hometown. I paid my aunt a visit and they planted quite a lot of mung beans, which I helped them harvest.

Winter can be compared to a person's cold and somewhat dark time; but just like each year... winter will end and spring will come. If you're in a dark moment, just hang on there - something great will happen sooner or later.

"Grow Like a Tree"

...and another week went by without a blog post from me. More than ever, I am feeling the pressures of juggling many things at the same time, but no way will I ever give up this blog and taking pictures.

This week's Quotography prompt is "Trees." I love photographing trees! I love how each tree is different from the other and how much drama there is in a tree. My favorite is the leafless (but not dead) tree, but this month I am loving the "fire trees" I always see around Colinas Verdes whenever I do my morning walks.

I call them "My Sakura," or "My Cherry Trees," mainly because the tree only had flowers and no leaves. From afar they look like it's on fire, but zooming the camera in, more beauty and more drama surfaces.

Grow like a tree. Something I am telling myself...but I also tell myself not to be too tall and too proud.

"A Change in the Weather is Sufficient"

This week's Quotography prompt and image is something I could relate a lot...because it's been raining here for many days, though I am glad that it's sunny again - I can go out later to walk.

Anyway, I chose to share this old image (taken in 2009) because it showed how unpredictable weather was at that time. It was sunny all morning, but come near lunchtime, we spotted the rain from afar that made us pack our things and head on back to the boat to continue our island hopping.

We were thankful that even if it rained the time we were traveling, everytime we went down the boat and enjoy the beautiful islands of Coron (Palawan), the sun would peek and give us sunshine. It has been a wonderful trip.