April 5, 2006 — the day Kalandrakas was born!

But, what is Kalandrakas?

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It was two months after since I started working in Japan that I got my first digital camera, a Sony DSC-R1.  I was taking pictures of almost everything: from plants to animals,  macros to landscapes, festivals to cosplays.

When I signed up on Flickr, I had a hard time choosing a screen name since I didn’t want to use my real name. During that time, I was still involved in the company’s bi-annual newsletter named Kalandrakas.

The word kalandrakas means variety or miscellaneous in Cebuano or Bisaya, my local dialect in the Philippines.

Because my photos were so random, I was thinking it would be nice to use this word as my screen name. So there, the Kalandrakas photography was born.

During the first year, I’d been trying to shoot a variety of subjects. There were times that I wanted to focus on one subject, but after some time, I changed to another.

After a year, I got a new camera, a Nikon D80. I then started going out to public places to shoot.  The place that I often used to visit before was Harajuku. It was actually in this place I started to love street photography.

In streets, everything is quick and random.  Sometimes it’s frustrating, but once you capture raw and candid moments, it just  feels great.

Right now, I have a Nikon D700,  that works very well with low-light — perfect for street photography during the night.

I might stick to street photography for a while, ‘coz in the streets, the world is so kalandrakas.

Happy 3 years to me as a photographer!

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Achievements of Kalandrakas:

2006
Dec. 9 -  JapanToday: Picture of the day
Dec. 22 – Metropolis issue 665: Photo of the week
Dec. 30 – first studio shoot (s0lo)

2007
Apr. 18 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day
Apr. 19 – created the FTPS group (with Naoto)
June 9 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day
June 29 – Metropolis issue 692: Photo of the week
July 6 – Metropolis issue 693: Photo of the week
July 22 – JapanToday: Picture of the Day

2008
Apr. 21 – Kabayan: Fil-Am Fotogs Photographer of the Week
June 23 – Kabayan: Fil-Am Fotogs Photographer of the Week

2009
Mar. 13 – Harajuku photos featured on Gym Class  magazine
Mar. 25-29 – Bayanihan: A Photo Exhibit