Akoy Batang Malate Photo Exhibit

The Parish Council of Malate

in cooperation with

RFilipinas

invites you to

Ako’y Batang Malate Photo Exhibit

November 9-18, 2007

at the Malate Catholic Church

The making of this project started when musician/voice talent Wam Molina approached the newly formed group of photo/camera enthusiasts who call themselves RFilipinas and brought up the idea of taking photographs of the Malate street children for a possible photo exhibit to be held at the Malate Catholic Parish to coincide with its fiesta in November 2007.He had been toying with this idea since January. Being a musician, he had been performing at the Hobbit House and frequenting Penguin for years. He became familiar with the children of Malate. As a photo enthusiast, he had planned to do a series of photographs of the children’s feet. But he decided that he could help the children more if whatever he would do could generate money to contribute to the parish’s many children-focused projects.

The group he approached enthusiastically faced up to the challenge and within a span of more than four months visited Malate alone or in groups to take pictures of the children with their rangefinder cameras loaded with film.

Rfilipinas is composed of Jay Javier, a professional photographer and teacher; Nelson Chan, an entrepreneur; Eddie Concepcion, a doctor who practices traditional Chinese acupuncture; Gari Buenavista, an artist; Rain Contreras, an IT professional; Uro Q. Dela Cruz, a TV/Film writer and director; Gabriel David, a journalist; Nor Domingo, a theatre actor. Luis Liwanag, an international photojournalist; his young son Akira Liwanag; Annie Neis, an IT professional based in Colorado who could not join the shoot sent black and white films for the project; Dr.Gerry Sabado, a surgeon; Eric Sales, a photographer; Marc Talampas, an engineer and educator and Andrea Zulueta, a hairdresser. A motley crowd from different walks of life, bound together by their respect for rangefinder cameras and film.

Wam later says, “I am very much overwhelmed with the support I got from my fellow RFilipinas members for this project. This project has been an eye-opener for everyone, realizing the living conditions of not only the children of Malate but our less fortunate Filipino brothers and sisters in general. It has been a very humbling experience”

All proceeds derived from the exhibit will be for the benefit of the Remedios Training Center and the street children of Malate.