Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year has been a widely celebrated event even here in the Philippines. Considering that our ancestors have traded well with China and it has been embedded in our culture. We also have Binondo, which is a big China Town in Manila. There are also prominent Chinese names here in the country, particularly in the business sector and even in politics.

Fujifilm users are actually called Fujifilm X-Photographers. On the morning of Chinese New Year a few (around 30, I think) gathered in Binondo to have a Photo Walk and capture the happenings in the celebration. I was not able to attend that meetup so to be honest I was really jealous of the shots they captured.

So, I decided to do a photowalk alone. Somewhere near, I went to Bonifacio Global City. It was originally to capture photos and make a story about BGC's Art Mart (it's a marketplace for artists and creators). On the way there, I had to pass by Market! Market! which is a mall we frequent a lot. It turns out (as most companies would do) they hired Lion and Dragon Dancers to perform in each and every store. I was very lucky to spot them and take photos, they're almost finished and was already performing in the last few stores near the entrance to the mall.

Now, I'll be able to post photos and tag them #FujifilmPhCNY2018! It's a Facebook and Instagram tag used by Fujifilm users. To be honest, I wasn't even ready when I started shooting. I just hurriedly pulled out my camera from my bag and started taking shots at them, my first 2 photos weren't even in RAW format (before leaving home I made sure my photos will be at RAW so that I can explore editing them even more, in-camera and on PS CC) because I was in Auto mode. Had to change it for a bit, it took me 1 minute to adjust all the settings back to manual.

I wasn't able to capture them doing dances, I don't even have shots of the Lions and the drummers. I only have photographs of the dragon. We call it Shenron (the wishing dragon from Dragonball anime that comes out from the Dragon Balls if you complete all seven).

Did you know that most of the dancers in this team was made up of kids? I think around 60% of them were just teenagers. In the Binondo celebration, you would even see kids who made up their own dragons and lions from recycled materials so they can perform dances and ask for a few change or tips from their audience (they'd be lucky if they can get at least 2$ or 100php for that day).

This wasn't a very good shot but I was able to capture a kid smiling, so I didn't delete this one and I'd like to share it here. I asked him to look at the camera, I shouted "picture!" while pointing to the camera and aiming it at them.

The Marketplace

I had to walk a bit more because the Art Mart was on another mall, Bonifacio High Street, a strip mall next to Market! Market!, it took me around 15-20 minutes to get to the marketplace. To my surprise though, it wasn't the Art Mart I was expecting.

I arrived at a Chinese New Year themed weekend marketplace that has sellers of varying items and only 2 or 3 stalls were selling actual art-related pieces. So, I just took photos of it.

The original plan was to photograph the artworks that's being sold but not candidly, I was planning to ask each seller and buy from them and inform them about Steemit. However, this marketplace that I arrived to wasn't the proper place so I just took a few photos and tried finding a thing or two to buy (to no avail) and left, it was too crowded to photograph the stalls.

That's how my Chinese New Year went. How did yours go? Did you get good photos or were you part of a celebration of some sort? By the way, I'm actually part Chinese, my middle name is simply "Dy". Thanks for reading!