[Art Exhibit] Photography: Indigenous People in Palawan Philippines

Palawan's Tribe on the Lens

What got me interested to go to a Photography exhibit last weekend?

My enthusiasm to learn how to photograph people brought me to attend a photo exhibit of a French photographer, Mr. Pierre de Vallombreuse last weekend held at the National Museum of the Philippines.

poster image source

In celebration of the 70th diplomatic relations between France and the Philippines with this year’s theme PHILFRANCE: Feel French!, Mr. Pierre de Vallombreuse, a french photographer gave a talk on his artwork about a tribe called Tau't Batu in Palawan from 1988 to 2017.

Mr. Pierre de Vallombreuse, a French photographer took his photos from the mountainous area of South Palawan. A community called Tau’t Batu (People of the Rock) live there. They are hunter-gatherers belonging to the Palawan ethnic group.

Once secluded, now it is slowly being exposed due to the influence of modernization. Pierre and his wife first visited the valley in 1988 as his enthusiasm is to get photographs of indigenous people to create awareness.

Pierre's interest on indigenous people was sparked as a child when he read books about people living on caves.

He treats his pictures not as judgment but rather questions.

He intends to create awareness among his audience so that his photos will trigger curiosity. In photographing people, he practices curiosity with respect.

His photos comprising 100 digital images are exhibited at the National Museum of the Philippines until February 2018.

Pierre tells stories about the daily life of the indigenous people. He explains where and what it's like to take the photos to show the normal way of living of the community.

This was my turn to ask Pierre a question after his short talk.

Question: Which photos turn out to be the best ones, are those times when you do much thinking before taking a picture or those times when you are in the moment then you take a photo?

Pierre said that he takes photos in variety of ways.

And for him, noting from what he related, he takes photos unpredictably at times. Sometimes he does not do much thinking before taking photos, and other times he does as well as feeling the moment. He advised if someone wants to take photography seriously, frequent practice is fundamental.