Leonard Reyes Photographer

Leonard Reyes Photographer “In the end, all we will have are photographs” Documentary photographer and currently based in Central Luzon.

Habagat (southwest monsoon) blues. The rains can be both blessing and curse. I have the privilege of letting it calm me ...
14/08/2026

Habagat (southwest monsoon) blues. The rains can be both blessing and curse. I have the privilege of letting it calm me and soothe me to sleep on this long ride.

Southwest monsoon blues (and greens)
14/08/2026

Southwest monsoon blues (and greens)

I am currently in Siphandone, Laos, witnessing the start of the annual fish migration cycle. As a critical ecological bo...
07/07/2026

I am currently in Siphandone, Laos, witnessing the start of the annual fish migration cycle. As a critical ecological bottleneck, the Mekong here presents a profound and complex challenge: balancing the survival of the Li—an ancestral, traditional fishing system—with conservation concerns.

Mae Bouakham, one of the few remaining master weavers in Laos, prepares a new piece made from silk. Depending on the com...
05/05/2026

Mae Bouakham, one of the few remaining master weavers in Laos, prepares a new piece made from silk. Depending on the complexity of the design, it can take up to 2 months to complete one. A child of farmers in Xiengkhouang in Northern Laos, Bua grew up surrounded by weavers in her family and community. At 6 years old, Bua secretly started learning to use the loom while her parents were away in the fields, leaving her to take care of her younger sibling. Her mother eventually mentored her on the craft and she has practically been weaving her whole life.

Weaving as a livelihood is on the wane in Laos, as often, unscrupulous middlemen buy the products at a very low price, only to resell it to upscale markets and foreign buyers, making it increasingly untenable as source of income.

Content Warning: Images contain graphic depictions of ritual self-flagellation and blood.(Guimba, Nueva Ecija) During Se...
05/04/2026

Content Warning: Images contain graphic depictions of ritual self-flagellation and blood.

(Guimba, Nueva Ecija) During Semana Santa (Holy Week) in the Philippines, penitents engage in extreme acts of devotion rooted in local Catholicism and folk tradition, believing that physical sacrifice allows them to share in the suffering of Jesus Christ. Hooded and often dressed in red or white, devotees strike their backs with bamboo sticks or leather whips—sometimes cutting their skin to draw blood. Despite discouragement from church authorities, crucifixion reenactments in San Pedro Cutud, Pampanga, attract tourists. Other acts of devotion include walking barefoot through communities, carrying heavy crosses over long distances, or crawling on knees and stomachs across hot, rough pavement; however, the Catholic Church in the Philippines opposes these practices of self-harm, emphasizing that true repentance should be expressed through charity and prayer rather than extreme physical pain.





Spent the last week navigating the dusty, forgotten arteries of Laos, far removed from the tourist veneer of Luang Praba...
11/03/2026

Spent the last week navigating the dusty, forgotten arteries of Laos, far removed from the tourist veneer of Luang Prabang. I’m deep in the field for a long-form documentary, tracking the creeping impact of dam development on the Mekong’s fragile ecosystem and the people who depend on it.

Amidst the hunt for vanishing riverside villages, you’re forced to pause. The raw beauty of the landscape is arresting, a lush silence that feels almost heavy. It’s a haunting paradox: a paradise of mist and jungle that still sits atop the legacy of the world’s most intense bombing campaign, the soil here forever enriched with the shrapnel of American history.







Met this fisherman earlier that morning and I saw that he came back empty handed, no fish from his traps laid out the ni...
06/03/2026

Met this fisherman earlier that morning and I saw that he came back empty handed, no fish from his traps laid out the night before. I called a friend to translate if he could take me around the Mekong to photograph other fishers. A small sum was agreed upon, and we headed out not long after. He is one of a few fishers still trying to make a livelihood from the Mekong river, in Thadeua Village, upstream from Laos’ Xayaburi Dam—the first mainstream Mekong hydropower project (operational 2019). Fishing communities are adapting to altered fish migration and changing river flows that have reshaped traditional livelihoods in the region.

A farmer harvests cassava in a field cleared for the crop’s boom. Workers earn less than 100,000 kip per ton, while the ...
04/03/2026

A farmer harvests cassava in a field cleared for the crop’s boom. Workers earn less than 100,000 kip per ton, while the harvest is sold to Chinese factories for 1.8 million kip per ton for export.

Reading the news about the Nueva Vizcaya protest on mining, came upon these in the archives and thought about the link b...
26/01/2026

Reading the news about the Nueva Vizcaya protest on mining, came upon these in the archives and thought about the link between climate resilience and healthy ecosystems, and community rights to ensure both for the greater good.

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