Digests

A photographer once told me that it's important to be critiqued but it's more important to be critiqued by people who get your work #tb

— Yel Legaspi (@yellegaspi) September 4, 2017

On Meeting My Hero

I started my photography close to ten years ago back in the Philippines when the consumer DSLRs boomed. I started similarly with many photographers not knowing what I wanted to do with photography or rather wanting to do everything in photography. I shot portraits and the streets, but mainly photos of my friends and family. Later when we moved to Malaysia my photography moved to landscape, lugging around a ton of gear wherever we went. I floated with a rough vision of what I thought I was good at, not what I wanted to be. See, from time to time back then I was curious with some of the photos I was making when I shoot the streets of Kuala Lumpur.

Then, in 2012, I was able to make a trip to Tokyo and India. These trips validated my feelings of wanting to be a street photographer. I started on reading about the greats and seeing their masterpieces and acknowledging the intricate details in composition and also understanding how difficult their photos come alive. The challenge was exciting and I studied more and more, and during this phase, I came about this photo:

Alex Webb
USA. San Ysidro, California. 1979. Mexicans arrested while trying to cross the border to United States.

Photo from Magnum Photos
https://pro.magnumphotos.com/CS.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&ALID=2K7O3R3KRFS4&VBID=2K1HZS53ZI860&PN=2

The photo is by Alex Webb of the Magnum Photo Agency. The photo held me to this day as one of my favorite photos ever. The composition of the subjects, the foreground, the background, the light, and saturation and vibrance of the photo form an iconic representation of the moment. From then on, my admiration for Alex's style formed an aspiration of producing a style that is complex but cohesive that every element of the photo works with each other.

Digests

#Photogs for me are the most negative, cynical, skeptical and technical bunch in the visual arts. In the end it is, and just is, art. #tb

— Yel Legaspi (@yellegaspi) August 31, 2017

Digests

Was asked about my impressions about Kathmandu. I think this photo envelopes my thoughts.https://t.co/Ws7QFHTtwB #tb

— Yel Legaspi (@yellegaspi) August 15, 2017

Kashmir: A Recollection from 2012

The following essay was written intermittently between October 2012 to present. All of the photographs were taken during a trip to Kashmir on October 2012.

This piece was written in accompaniment of the Project "Kashmir: Beauty Beneath the Hostile Borders". Click here or any of the images to view all of the images.

We just spent the whole morning traveling from Dal Lake to Pahalgam and the weather was gloomy at best. According to our guide Pahalgam was supposedly the Swiss Alps of India. We came several weeks early for the tourist season but we didn't really went there for vacation. But still the weather wasn't cooperating. Gloomy and grey. Our hotel was in the middle of a valley surrounded by mountains, soon to be covered with snow. It was drizzling and cold, the rain from the past days started to form ice caps on the surrounding mountains. We checked in our things in our rooms and decided to have a walk outside the hotel. Right out in the corner was a police outpost manned by three policemen. I decided to have a chat with them, ask where the local market is, location of good food and whatnot. Then it started to drizzle more so I decided to stay a bit longer under the shed of the police outpost and continue our talks.