https://canon1an.myportfolio.com/, http://canon1an.myportfolio.com/where-light-rests

Canon-1an, Baguio City (2026)

07/06/2026

An Ordinary Faith

This series was made during a journey through Batangas, moving between churches, roads, small towns, and landscapes shaped by both devotion and daily life. From the birthplace of the balisong to the view of Taal Volcano, the photographs were less concerned with spectacle and more drawn toward quieter moments — gestures of routine, stillness, and continuity.

As I moved through these spaces, I became interested in how faith reveals itself not only through grand symbols, but through repetition and presence: in the care given to places of worship, in the movement of people, in statues worn by time, and in the landscapes that continue to hold these practices together.
The work reflects a quieter form of observation — one that sees faith not as performance, but as something lived steadily and carried through everyday motion.

10/05/2026

Where Light Rests is a free wallpaper collection featuring photographs made throughout 2025.

The work grew out of a desire to reconnect with nature and move more attentively through the world. Across mountains, coastlines, and quiet moments on the road, the camera became less about capturing spectacle and more about learning how to observe with care.

Spending time with the landscape has continually reminded me of the interbeing between humanity and the earth — that we are not separate from the environments we move through, but deeply shaped by them. In that way, photography has become a practice of understanding, reflection, and compassion.

This collection is a small thank you to everyone who has supported my work online and in person this year.

Free to download.
Link in bio.

03/05/2026

Drift North

Drift North traces a quiet movement along the northern coastline, where land meets sea and the road becomes a line of passage. The images were made without fixed intention—guided instead by attention to what reveals itself in fragments.

Working outside my usual terrain, the sea introduced a different rhythm: less insistent, more open. The act of moving became central—pausing, observing, continuing—allowing the work to unfold through presence rather than pursuit.

Ilocos, a land tied to inheritance, carries both distance and familiarity. Within it, the experience shifts between a subtle push forward and a gentle pull inward, held together by an underlying sense of direction that remains largely unseen.

The work situates itself in this tension—between movement and stillness, between being led and choosing to go—where the landscape is not only observed, but encountered as a continuous, shaping force.

12/01/2026

Ugmad (to take root)

Ugmad is a Bisaya word that means to take root, but this series didn’t begin with grounding myself. It began with a pull.

Throughout this trip, I felt a quiet sense of wonder—like an invisible tether tied somewhere in my chest, gently guiding me forward. Not dragging. Not demanding. Just there. I moved freely, yet never felt lost. Every street, shoreline, port, and path felt both new and strangely familiar, as if I was being led rather than choosing where to go.

Born and raised in the north, my sense of place has always been shaped by mountains and distance. But my grandmother’s roots trace back to Cebu, and somewhere between Cebu City, Santiago Port, and Bantayan Island, that lineage stopped feeling abstract. It wasn’t memory calling me back—it was curiosity pulling me through.

The photographs drift between city scenes, ports, mangroves, beaches, farms, parks, and ruins. Shot in black and white, the images strip away distraction and lean into texture, form, and movement. What remains is the quiet rhythm of place—light passing through leaves, structures shaped by time, land meeting water without ceremony.

Mangrove roots became a recurring presence. Exposed, tangled, reaching in all directions at once. They grow without urgency, adapting to tides and terrain, anchored yet flexible. In them, I saw a reflection of inheritance—not as something fixed, but something alive, constantly negotiating where it stands.

There was no moment of arrival. No single revelation. Just a steady unfolding. A feeling of being welcomed without introduction. Of walking unfamiliar ground that didn’t resist my presence.

Ugmad is not about returning home.
It’s about moving forward while being gently held by where you come from.
Exploring with wonder.
Rooted without standing still.

26/12/2025

Transport

Studies of flow.

Shot across Baguio City and Manila, long exposures reduce movement to patterns—lines, pulses, accumulations. Roads stop being destinations and start behaving like systems, carrying bodies, energy, and intent through the city.

Noise becomes texture. Motion becomes structure.
What’s usually overwhelming resolves into rhythm.

Transport looks at the city not as a place to arrive in, but as something constantly in motion—alive through circulation, shaped by what passes through it.

19/12/2025

2 Ways to Pray

“You think I can only pray with my hands?”
— Isaac Netero

Some prayers fold inward—hands clasped, heads bowed, words lifted carefully toward heaven. Others move outward—repeated actions practiced until intention dissolves and only devotion remains.

In one frame, an envoy of nuns from Madagascar walks through the strawberry farms of La Trinidad, Benguet. Their prayer is visible and ancient, carried through ritual, silence, and presence. Their bodies remember centuries of devotion. Prayer here is spoken, embodied, and offered upward.

In the same landscape, large format photographers Russel Ariola and Jason Asiong work along the Japanese Eco Trail. No folded hands. No spoken words. Only repetition. Set the tripod. Measure the light. Focus the ground glass. Wait. Do it again. Their prayer is patience. Attention. Discipline practiced until the self steps aside and the act becomes instinct.

Scripture gives language to both forms:
“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord” (Colossians 3:23).
Prayer is not confined to words or gestures. Sometimes it is spoken. Sometimes it is practiced. Sometimes it is learned so deeply it no longer needs to be named.

Two ways to pray.
Different forms.
Same devotion.

19/11/2025

Nothing to Do, Nowhere to Go

There’s a strange freedom in admitting you’ve been sprinting your whole life — not because someone told you to, but because you didn’t know how to stop.
This series came from that exact moment:
the moment I realized I was running out of habit, not purpose.

Thích Nhất Hạnh writes that “nothing to do, nowhere to go” isn’t laziness — it’s liberation.
It’s the quiet courage to stop performing for a future that never arrives.
To stop negotiating with the present moment.
To stop seeing life as a checklist and learn to meet it as it is.

While shooting this series, the world kept handing me tiny reminders:
light that softened instead of shouting,
wind that insisted on its own rhythm,
scenes that didn’t beg to be photographed but stood steady anyway.

Every frame felt like a permission slip —
to slow down,
to look closer,
to trust that arrival isn’t a place,
it’s a way of being.

This isn’t a series about perfection or revelation.
It’s a meditation in motion.
A walk without a destination.
A long exhale after years of holding your breath.

Nothing to do.
Nowhere to go.
And somehow, everything you’ve been chasing is suddenly right here.

18/11/2025

The Diamond That Cuts Through Illusion

Some projects start with curiosity.
This one started with discomfort — the kind that sits in your chest and refuses to move until you look it in the eye.

Thích Nhất Hạnh speaks of a diamond that cuts through illusion:
a clarity sharp enough to slice through fear, ego, and the old stories we keep mistaking for truth.
Photographing this series felt exactly like that.
Not dramatic.
Not spiritual in some fireworks way.
Just honest — painfully, beautifully honest.

I realized how much of life is shaped by illusions we didn’t know we were carrying:
“I should be someone else by now.”
“I’m falling behind.”
“I’m not enough yet.”
These thoughts cling like fog — soft, but blinding.

The camera became the blade.
Every click trimmed a little more noise.
Every frame asked, gently but insistently,
“What here is real? What here is just fear in a different outfit?”

You learn that clarity isn’t loud.
It doesn’t arrive like a breakthrough.
It arrives like a still surface of water —
reflecting you exactly as you are,
no filters, no performance, no character to play.

This series is a quiet confrontation.
A deep breath.
A small rebellion against the illusions that pretend to protect us but actually shrink us.

A diamond doesn’t apologize for being sharp.
It simply cuts clean.
And sometimes, that’s the only way to finally see.

17/11/2025

Heart of Understanding
Some moments don’t shout — they just sit with you, breathe with you, and quietly teach you how to see. This series grew from that kind of space.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how we photograph not just with our eyes, but with… idk, whatever that thing is inside us that listens. The same way Thích Nhất Hạnh writes about deep looking — how understanding isn’t forced, it’s allowed.

These frames came from slowing down, talking with the environment, letting people and places reveal themselves on their own time. No rushing. No forcing a “story arc.” Just presence. Just attention.

And honestly? The more I photographed, the more it felt like life tapping me on the shoulder going, “hey, this is how you understand something gently.” Even the chaos — the noise, the weather mood swings, the movement — all became part of that same quiet conversation.

This is the heart of understanding:
Not certainty, but openness.
Not control, but listening.
Not the loudest moment, but the truest one that finds you when you’re paying attention.

These images are me trying to hold that. Even just for a second.

15/11/2025

Tumindig [Photo Essay]

Malcolm Square became a heartbeat. Through rain, sun, and rain again — the youth of Baguio gathered with umbrellas, placards, and voices that refused to be quiet. It wasn’t rage for the sake of noise; it was clarity, coherence, and courage. A stand against corruption that stretches far beyond city lines — toward contractors, systems, and administrations past and present that left communities carrying the consequences.

Yet even with everything weighing on them, the atmosphere didn’t collapse into chaos. It stayed peaceful. Intentional. Human. You could hear the rhythm of call-and-response chants bouncing off Session Road. You could see strangers shielding each other under tiny umbrellas. You could feel a generation choosing to care — loudly.

The standout symbol of the day?
A lone One Piece flag — Jolly Roger lifted high, not as a fandom moment but as a reminder: every story of resistance has its crew, and every crew rises against injustice together.

These photographs were made in the in-between moments: hands raised before another chant, flags catching the wind, droplets clinging to cardboard signs, faces young but unshaken. Documentary, yes — but also a quiet nod to what collective courage looks like when it’s not staged, not curated, just lived.

This is not just about Baguio.
This is a glimpse of a nationwide pulse — a reminder that accountability is not abstract; it’s demanded, insisted on, and carried by real people standing in real rain.

This is Tumindig — a record of a day when the youth didn’t ask for permission to care.
They just stood up.

Canon-1an

07/06/2026

10/05/2026

03/05/2026

12/01/2026

26/12/2025

19/12/2025

19/11/2025

18/11/2025

17/11/2025

15/11/2025

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