Capturing Life Unscripted

by Jill Posadas

Even with a set, sound effects and complete cast of characters, the drama of life in both natural and urban environments plays out without a script, creating scenes and tableaus just waiting to be perceived by an experienced eye, and captured by a master photographer.

Enter Luis Martin Harder, who opens his first one-man exhibition titled “Unscripted” at the OWG on May 13, 2008. A collection of digital archival photographic prints, “Unscripted” is “reality photography” at its best, showcasing true images of nature and life, colours and light. Shot in locations around the Philippines and Cambodia, “Unscripted” offers some of the best pictures taken by man, that were composed by life.

Learning Photography the Harder Way
Photography was an old love rekindled for Harder, who dabbled in taking film photos back in college. After putting up one of the country’s leading electronic components distribution and servicing companies, Harder was back behind the lens—this time of the digital camera, shooting sidewalk settings, people on the move and the great outdoors. “There’s always something unique in a place,” Harder says, “it’s all up to you to look for it.”

Harder took lessons to familiarize himself with the inner workings of the camera and digital fine tuning, but he says that lessons can only take one so far. “There are skills you have to develop on your own,” he explains. Since stepping anew on the photographer’s path four years ago, Harder has taken his cues from the likes of Leo Castillo, Jay Alonzo, Gunther Diechmann, Tilak Hettige and Rosscapili. These photographers, he explained, instilled in him the importance of attention to detail and technical proficiency. More importantly, as in case of Rosscapili, Harder learned to remove any boundaries that might hinder him in the creation of his art.

Out of the Ordinary
For Harder, the location of one’s photographic exploration takes a backseat to the images a photographer is actually able to create there. He says the challenge of shooting at a typical photographer’s haunt lies in taking pictures people haven’t already seen. “You have to really look!” he stresses. “And when you do, you will definitely see a lot of things.” At Boracay’s Puka Beach, for instance, apart from staple seascapes at sunrise, Harder has shot hammocks folded up and on sale, as well as beads and other accessories hawked by the average vendor.

Harder’s exhibition pieces likewise convey this sense of placing the commonplace on a pedestal. In Baguio, he shot a set of brooms, literally in living colour, which were on sale on a sidewalk. In the Cambodian city of Sien Reap, Harder shot the closed window of an ordinary school building. And again in Boracay, he shot a spray of bouganvillas blooming against a blue sky at his sister’s restaurant.

Making the everyday exceptional also applies to Harder’s photographs of people, where figures often form part of a scene or a landscape as opposed to sitting as straight-up subjects for portraiture. Harder has captured the natives of Boracay, the sakada, or sugarcane farmers, and the fishermen of Dumaguete, as well as life’s “random extras” such as the lady casually but publicly sprawled under a worn pink umbrella, and the aged Igorot who rents out costumes for tourist photo ops.

Whether it’s people or places that take center stage on any given shooting day, Harder is always on the look out for subjects with character. “Meaning it is different,” he explains. “Something may look common, but when you walk past it, it just catches your eye, because it has a story to tell, or something you have to find out about it. And if you stop at look at something, chances are people will eventually stop and look at it too.”

Unscripted Shooting
With no shot list or guidelines other than to “shoot subjects with character,” Harder headed out to take the photos that would eventually form part of his “Unscripted” exhibition. Focusing on textures, plant life and figure-in-landscape compositions, Harder shot on location at Kayangan Lake, Coron; a mangrove in Negros, and the seaside huts at Anilao, as well as Boracay, Cambodia and Baguio. “Coron has really great colour – even the rocks!” Harder says. Rock and water feature in many of his texture shots, with emphasis added by natural light. Harder shot his subjects as he found them: “I did not put that leaf there,” he explains of one photo. “It was there for the moment, and after I shot it, it just floated away.” Photography is all about seizing the moment, says Harder. “There are moments you (just) have to capture, in a particular place. Sometimes, there’s no time for setting the camera, so just shoot. This is a moment that will not happen again.”

“Unscripted” will run from May 13 to June 13, 2008 at OWG, Ground Floor 2241 La Fuerza Plaza II, Don Chino Roces Ave. corner Sabio St., Makati City. Gallery hours are from 10am-7pm daily except Sundays. For inquiries, call or fax 8192074, e-mail inquiry@owg.cc, or visit www.owg.cc www.owgclub.multiply.com