The deadline for the K-State international programs photo contest is coming up and I’ve been going through my library trying to pick out my three entries for this year. Last year I submitted three photos and 2 of them placed – one took first and the other was an honorable mention. The one that got first place was a photo of the Marina Bay Sands that I took while I was in Singapore for the Kraft iTaste program. The other one was the coin diver photo.
Because this contest is hosted by the Study Abroad Office, more than just submitting a photo of a beautiful place overseas, I want to emphasize culture and make the viewer wonder or think about the story of the subject within the image. So in the process of looking for entries, I ran across this photo of a fisherman and his son out on Lake Sebu in the province of South Cotabato in the Philippines. Lake Sebu is home to one of the many indigenous people groups in the Philippines, the T’boli. Although the area has been modernized in many ways, you can still easily see things that probably haven’t changed in the last 50 to 100 years. In this photo the fisherman and his son are paddling back to shore after checking their tilapia nets. Their little canoe looks empty, so they didn’t bring back any fish, so maybe the went out to feed them. Take a close look at the canoe, it’s been carved out of a single tree trunk. I wonder how long it took to make it. Notice the paddle, that’s been hand-made as well, out of bamboo. Also, the fisherman isn’t riding in the canoe, he’s out on the end. These are things that I would venture to say, have remained unchanged for many years and give us a glimpse of the “original” culture of the people.
Some details about this photo:
Camera: Pentax K-r
Lens: DA-L 55-300
ISO: 800
Focal Length: 230mm
Aperture: f/8
Shutter Speed: 1/500s
Ddump 