After quite some time (which seemed like forever), I was able to pay a long-awaited 3-day visit to my hometown Himaya in Negros Occidental. This is actually my first time to go home with a dSLR. I was just using my handy point-and-shoot the last time, yet I still somehow managed to immortalize how I felt during my visit then, despite the lack of fancy gadgets. It's more of a mission for me now to be back again, already equipped with stuff I'll need to take better photos. I got up early each morning, trying to make the most out of the little time I have. I have to make sure I bag as much memories of my hometown as I can.

 

I missed everything about this little town, and it stung, but not as much as it embraced me. Bittersweet, it will always be, as I re-live the carefree (and careless) days of my childhood... Each corner, each crossroad, each tree, were as sad, as happy, as it were familiar. I wanted to re-trace every single step I made on every single street. As the cliche goes, home is where your heart is. That explains why this place will always be dear and appealing to me. I just wished I had more time then.

 
 
 

Of course, more essentially than anything else, I went to home for my mom. I wanted to personally tell her my stories about everything--all that I've been through, all I've acquired and achieved, all my kalokohan since I went back to Manila.. Although I'm certain she knew all of those already. I hope I still made her proud, and I hope she knows that whatever I am and whatever I will become, I forever owe and dedicate to her.

 

I also had this fortunate chance to shoot the streets of Bacolod with Sir Tonet Abong from the Camera Club of Negros. CCN are people I have always admired and looked up to even when I was still a kid, so I consider myself honored to shoot with one of them.

 
 
 


Here is my attempt to perpetuate the nostalgia of my most recent visit to this one place that, regardless of geographic proximity, will always be near to me. The streets and emotions of Negros, and my heavenly home Himaya.


Himaya, Hinigaran, Negros Occidental
and Bacolod City, Negros Occidental
Philippines, February 2008
2008©Larry Monserate Piojo