The pandemic imposed new constaints to business travels and long flights are indeed (and thankfully) more rare. Nonetheless from time to time you have to go to the other half of the planet for work and when you do you can always spare two of three hours at the beginning or the end of the day to take some pictures of a city that was never on your bucket list. So these are my impressions of Manila, a city so big you might never be able to fully explore it even in a lifetime, yet so welcoming and open to a foreign eye that you could be tempted to pretend you understand it after a few minutes.
Knowing I had very few moments, I decided to take my trustworthy Nikon FM2n (the camera I mostly enjoy when doing street photography), paired with the gorgeous Nikkor 28mm f2 (I knew I wanted to be close) and loaded with what is becoming a luxury item, the Kodak TriX400.
Manila is fundamentally split in two: the business areas of BGC and Makati (quite boring the first one, a bit more interesting the second) on one side, and all the other older areas of the city on the other side, which are a true playground for any photographer willing to engage with people. One thing that caught immediately my attention was the incredible electric cables that you see floating above your head and across every building, sort of snakes embracing concrete, wood or timber (depending on how rich your area is). My explanation is that the recurrent typhoons that sweep the region could more easily damage the electric system lying at ground or below-ground level…but I could be wrong.
Bonifacio Global City (or BGC as locals say) is a copycat of a modern USA city, similar to Manhattan but without its vibe. It is a boring array of skyscrapers and global brands where filipinos spend their time losing they identity, enjoying the 24×7 air conditioning without any environmental double thinking, and carrying their small dogs with diapers on (it was a shame I did not have the possibility to take a nice picture of this, but it is quite disturbing to be honest). While staying at the Grand Hyatt Hotel (the tallest building in the city) I noticed an interesting area with lots of small houses and a bustling life at every hour of the day and night (check the picture). Naturally curious I went down to have a look and to my surprise I realised there was no way to enter the area. I was puzzled. I came back to the hotel…went to google maps…and it seemed there was not a sigle road leading to this area which was before my eyes and was fully of cars (I later realised that altough google maps did not suggest an entry to the place while being there, the path was clearly shown if you access google maps from Europe). I did not know what to think but I was surely intrigued. It took me some days to finally discover the truth thanks to a Grab driver: he told me “there is a small entrance close to a 7Eleven…you might think that it is to get into a building but in reality it goes behind a fake foliage wall and if you follow the path you will enter the area”. And that is what I did…to finally find myself in a parallel city, hidden just few metres away from the modern BGC, full of life and honest working people, with real street food smells (and mosquitos), kids playing on the street, sari sari shops selling everything to normal people.
The next weekend I managed to spend an entire day in the northern part of the city, starting from Binondo (the biggest Chinatown in the world) and later in Intramuros. I found the first to be a fantastic area to walk around and snap candid shots of the frenzy activity going on at every corner, while the second was somehow less energetic. The shots I took are clearly taken from a stranger/tourist point of view, I guess it takes time to get used to a place like Manila and to really capture the essence of filipinos, that’s why those photos are not masterpieces by any means…although it was nice to have a glimpse of this incredible city. Probably next time I’ll do better!
davide rizzo photography 