The Soaring of Little Wing Luna

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

Second of two parts

The first step is understanding the story. And then it’s finding the places where you think pictures might happen.

Amy Toensing

National Geographic Photographer

It took only two words for first-timer Little Wing Luna to get her US Visa: Bob Dylan. It was her honest and truthful self, as she really wanted to see him playing live in New York summertime last year. 

Her two words got her on that plane on her way to meet the soon-to-be Nobel Prize for Literature. With tattooed wings in her already ink-clad body, she was really destined to fly—literally and figuratively.
 

A Teenager Waiting for Her Train

As her early years she would volunteer to take photos during family occasions using her camera. She soon attended photography workshops of photojournalists Luis Liwanag and Alex Baluyut and would became part of Photojournalists’ Center of the Philippines and now works in documenting activities of a government agency.

As many as the bright lights that glitter its most famous skyline, New York has more than a thousand stories to tell for Luna. And to be an effective photographer and convey her message, she would engage her audience by immersing herself, often asking questions or simply by making them smile.

She opted for the gorier subways, as there was more beneath the main pavements and blind alleys above. Down under you meet the rest of humanity—the struggling, the desperate and the live-for-today being transported to various far points of destinations to and from the city. Such as in the case of A Teenager Waiting for Her Train while Listening to Her Music. Unmindful of her chaotic surroundings marked by spontaneous litter and serious graffiti, her innocence is flanked by silence as evident in her plugged in music.
 

Everything has Shape, Texture, and Emotions

Luna opted for black and white photography, which is as old a medium as New York itself: “The streets are so amusing to me--every scene, every character, everything with textures, forms, breaths life. It’s sometimes cool to document them with all honesty. In the street, the mundane becomes surreal,” she explains.

One would wonder how long it took for Luna to imbibe the rhythm of these moments that passed by underneath. Reflecting on this kind of personality, can one really decipher if a photograph was taken by a woman? In A Woman with Heavy Load Riding a Train one could as the viewer is quite disturbed to how the lady is burdened by how her bags defines her individuality.

Everything has Shape, Texture and Emotions is a study of contrasts: leopard dress with velvet boots against metal stairs and cemented paths--all unified for one brief captured instance in a frame. 

It was the great Henri Cartier Bresson who defined what he describes as the decisive moment when the photographer’s eye, mind and heart come into focus together on an image compelling enough to inspire the click of a shutter. Photography is mostly about what and how the subjects are going through or the about to action.

If You See Something, Say Something

If You See Something, Say Something, is both uncanny and riveting. It freezes the moment where one descends to the uncertainty of the stairs. Not revealing the face, it is the identity of every man that she could not conceal from the experience.

     

Favoring musicians Luna could not resist the Purple Haze guitarist in Jimi Hendrix Live in a Subway from her prying yet prowling lens. One can even hear his guitar riff fretting from a far through this image.

Jimi Hendrix Live in a Subway

In time, by the opening and closing of cables Luna has been assured by people’s vibe as patterns of gestures, by the cadence of commuters footsteps, even how their bodies behave alighting and descending the stairs, how fatigue and weariness that takes the shape of their seats. Passengers on Board the Train is one such beautiful instance.

While Santos’ titles are irrelevant assigning only numbers to them, Luna can be as literal as to how she titles her images. Luna is the kind of storyteller unraveling the mystery of the everyday, the familiar in these remotest of places.

“Not really, to be honest. I just want to document the things i see and experienced. Having a cam with me is like carrying my cigs in my bag. I never ever leave home without it,” she adds.

If You Make it Here, You Make it Anywhere

Santos and Luna first foray was Chasing Quotidian three years ago in vMeme Contemporary Art Gallery in Quezon City. Showing their strong feminist perspectives, it was a well-accepted exhibit and affirmation of their passion for their art.

“I really don’t limit myself in photography. I shoot everything and anything; I experiment with my styles, angles, and perspectives. For me photography must be free from all limitations, be spontaneous and unexpected,” she says.  

Passengers on Board

Luna who currently documents various programs for a government agency photography is more like responsibility. Every minute an action happens and one must be ready to shutter and not leave tables perturbed.  One must live to fight another day. Yet Luna still leave something for the viewer Movie Series on Subway Walls.

Luna believes everybody has its own style, the same way as you tell your story as you take your shots: “I got a lot. I guess. I looked at their photos and I’m amazed always, but I believe everybody has its own style. It’s like telling a story, the way you tell your story is the same as taking your shots.”

Notice how none of the New York landmarks were seen in this exhibit, which was a giveaway and we could marvel at them. However Santos and Luna have captured New York the hard way and in a less postcard pretty manner. Some may not be please. Other may opt to call it pure talent. Enough said.

Note: Much has happened since viewing the exhibition on a Thanksgiving last year. From writing before and now Trump and Duterte presidencies all while basking in the scorching heat of May. At any rate be it in New York or in Manila, both Santos and Luna can be found shooting in the streets. In fact Luna was recently named among eight Filipinas for the International Photography Awards.

J.A. Santos: Her Loaded Camera

BY JAY BAUTISTA |

First of two parts

Where the Streets Have No Name

Review of If You See Something,

Say Something by J.A. Santos 

and Little Wing Luna

Oarhouse Pub in Malate Manila 

December 2016-February 2017

 
It is not your usual art exhibition to start with. Photography, by two women, and held in a bar. Although a popular one, frequented by photographers and youth alike. Typical place that Tony Bourdain discreetly chooses when he come visits.

Though the New York-theme was a dangling come on, for their second joint show, it was a conscious, even a conspicuous plan for J.A. Santos and Little Wing Luna: To meet up in New York on the summer of July and shoot scenes/sins from the famous city--the New York moment so to speak.

At a glance, one notices how parallel their lives are. The ones that they bring to their stories both being freelance photojournalists. 


Santos as a seasoned traveler, almost the native Nuyorker who regularly visits her extended family. Luna, on the other hand, comes to the Big Apple for the first time. While Santos opted for color and above the streets Luna digs deeper into the long and longing subway culture. While Santos experiences the hustle and bustle, the dynamism of the streets; Luna dwells within the murky lurid quagmire and monotonous and excruciating life of daily commuting.

 
Travel writer and columnist A.A. Gil was in his usual snootiness when describing New York: It is a club you have been a member for a long time. It is the stage of our collective dramas. You can hate America but love New York. New York is not related at all with her.
 
“When you are visitor to a city you like to hurry up the habits, lay down a pattern, gain predictability in place of roots.” added the late columnist adds. 


Embracing multiculturalism is one of the best things New York has to offer. In fact recent study Queens for its size has one of the diverse places on earth in terms of language, has in fact 800 languages. All the more makes every photographer attend to its unexpected details.


JA Santos: Her Loaded Camera 

Starting late in High School from her teacher who only taught her the basics, Santos liked what she called the “magical” process of the craft. Though Santos did not completely pursue photography then, due to the cost of printing it, he was happy with her point and shoot camera.

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She explains further: Using a camera as a creative tool was a way to explore and discover not just life, scenes, and stories around me but also aspects of my inner self that I had neglected for years — a way to grapple with things outside of me and deep within and develop my ways of seeing, reading, reacting to, and interpreting various aspects of culture and society. 

Without formal training Santos continued to pursue photography in the streets for it being light inexpensive, and spontaneity. Open to discovery, one must have the curiosity and patience to see something interesting or unexpected. In the streets one has to be fast for that spur-of the-moment frames. Quick and skillful enough in capturing capture it.

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Santos is versed on how to layer contrasting textures furthering the dialogue that emits the viewer. Photo 008 depicts the weariness of a lady against the window as backdrop showcasing an artificial plethora of what America has to offer. Her sharp features wrought with anxiety exude tension alarming what may possibly disturb what was supposed to be conventional pleasantness of a picture. Photo 014 continues the uneasiness this time counterpointing black female with white male vis-à-vis the signage Time in Style. The witty play in images something only a versed photojournalist can execute. In describing how she finds such coincidence sharing the frame. 




“While my first love in photography is the genre of candid street photography,” Santos explains further, “I have work that overlaps or merges into art, social commentary, and documentary photography/photojournalism.” 

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Her favored subject of juxtaposing the old and the new is once again exemplified in Photo 009. A vandalized red antique lamppost partly hides a millennial boy in yellow. Such simplicity easily results in loaded interpretations. One assumes partly as a voyeur, partly interrogator inquiring further about the situation at hand, of what is about to happen. Santos leaves much to her viewers, as much to her subjects. This is how Santos behaves in her shoots: she is a few moments before what other photographers will grapple with.
 

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Santos often indulges in hints and accents such as that omnipresent blue sky as reflected on the building in Photo 045. Again Santos leaves much of the mystery to be noticed. Her readiness is she is a step before what others will find the standard image. With respect and indulgence as seen in that boy being enveloped like a matador by the gushing afternoon breeze, Photo 012 is like a few minutes before the actual take when the cameras roll action. Santos genius catches this.

Married to graphic and book designer Jordan, both have Santos prefers shooting alone. One must be comfortable with spending long hours in solitude if one would want to pursue street photography.

On the other hand, collaboration and solidarity are also vital to her activities, which is why having a joint-exhibit with a photographer friend and showing work to and being with other artists, photographers, and photojournalists are also enlightening experiences for her.

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“When I rediscovered photography in 2010, I was more familiar with the work of painters and other artists, not photographers. So probably some of my visual influences are artists whose work I’ve admired over the years such as Matisse, Caravaggio, Rene Magritte, Edward Hopper and the films of Krzysztof Kieslowski, Wong Kar-wai, Akira Kurosawa, and other directors. Later, when I began to actively research and read about photography, I would gravitate toward the work of Robert Frank, Alex Webb, William Albert Allard, William Eggleston, Garry Winogrand, David Alan Harvey, Duane Michals, Nan Goldin, and Philip Jones Griffiths, among others,” explains Santos on her influences.  

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Even the theme of love never escapes an intended pun for Santos. As their turn their backs to the viewer Photo 022 emphasizes what the sign on the upper right signage: collect what you love. It seems the man patiently waits for her ladylove to choose among the array of books being sold. Or was she just bidding time?

Santos has always been fascinated with the everyday and the mundane such as work and daily activities, commuting, habits, gestures, manners, signs, texts, and objects which she expresses reveal much about our society, culture, politics, traditions, institutions, and the systems in which we operate and which have a profound influence on our lives. She has even dealt with complex and current political issues such as mental illness displaced communities to street protests to the changes that cities undergo. 

 
Santos only needs four colors to interpret the world with just a loaded camera in hand.