Creative writing: Picture No. 11 Thoughts on graduation day

In these pictures, I asked my Class 1990 yearbook staffer Eric to pose by the dike at the back of Rizal High School in Pasig (formerly credited in the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s biggest high school). I was on the 3rd floor of a building with my beloved Canon AE-1 Program camera fitted with a Vivitar Series 1 70-210 mm.

I wanted to express the contemplative mood and loneliness a senior normally goes through as graduation time comes near. I just wanted two elements in my picture - Eric and the still waters of the Marikina River flowing behind the Rizal High School campus in Pasig City. The first two pictures of the scene below were the ones I needed to express what I wanted.

But then, I saw the tugboat coming from the left. I switched on the power winder of my camera. I shot about 20 frames all in all as the tugboat passed Eric and created ripples on the water. Serendipity! I had a photo essay that could be used to illustrate life cycles, transient moments, peace and serenity, consequences, and change!

We have spent four memorable years here in our beloved school, and the days leading to our graduation day have seen a thousand questions tumbling in our hearts and minds. Where do we go from here?

For some, the future beckons brightly as they are blessed not only with talent and intelligence but also with open doors and countless opportunities.For some the future looks dark and dreary, as innocent adolescent pursuits give way to serious concerns for jobs and financial security, with a college education merely a mirage in the dry desert sand of our crushed hopes and ruined dreams. And still for some of us, there is simply no future to speak about.

Still other questions haunt us as we rush from one graduation practice to another, from one class party to another …Will our friends in high school remember us through the passing of the years, through the changes in our lives, and through the distance of separation made more poignant when no letters come and birthdays are forgotten?

Will our friends still be there for us when problems come and solutions seem so elusive? Will our friends remain true to us even as they meet other people and encounter new experiences, or will the friendship we thought would never end, prove finally to be weak and temporal?

Will the joys and pains, heartbreaks and happiness we all shared be simply swept aside, never to be remembered, never to be allowed even a little space in our memories? Will the hopes and ambitions, the secret dreams we have dared to share only with our truest friends, be simply forgotten or revealed to others in careless, thoughtless ways?

Will our names be remembered? Will our friendships last? Will our friends still be our friends? Life oftentimes has a cruel way of frustrating our dreams, of crushing our ambitions, of ending our friendships …

But our friends have made a promise always to remember … Life indeed must move on, to bigger things, to better places … and we grow up, physically, emotionally and intellectually, and we will no longer be the kind of persons we were in our high school days …

The saddest truth in the whole universe is that time changes everything.

But our friends have made a promise always to remember …

But as we lie awake at night, the caressing wind carries to our consciousness the melodies of songs that brought wonder and meaning to our lives, songs that signified every turning point in our destinies, songs that we once shared and sang together as friends …

Slowly, the half-forgotten lyrics become clearer and they bring us back to our high school days …

Indeed, we have promised always to t remember. We can always remember. We must always remember …

Pssst, Eric! It has been eighteen years since 1990 when I asked you to pose by the dike. You can move away from the dike now, and go on with your life, okay?

Review: Depth of field and ways of conveying depth

A photograph is two-dimensional, with width and height but no depth. Oftentimes, when we look at our pictures, they look so disappointingly different from what we saw with our eyes. The primary reason for this is that we have failed to adequately and deliberately play up the illusion of depth in our pictures.

There are several other ways to create and more adequately convey the illusion of depth in your pictures. These are (1) converging lines; (2) selective or differential focusing; (3) sidelighting or backlighting; (4) atmospheric haze; (5) contrast of same-sized objects; (6) natural frames; (7) overlapping objects or forms; (8) diminishing detail; and (9) the difference in the intensity of tones or colors.

Simply put, “depth of field” is the distance between the nearest and farthest point from the camera that appears in focus (meaning sharp and clear). In practical terms, the depth of field extends, in terms of area, about 1/3 in front of the subject and about 2/3 behind the subject. Any object or portions of the subject below this 1/3 area and beyond this 2/3 area will appear blurred or out of focus.















A “wide depth of field” means that everything is sharp and in focus from the foreground up to the background. You need a wide depth of field in the following situations: (1) to convey the mood and atmosphere of your subject; (2) for landscapes, sceneries and interiors; (3) for group shots; (4) when focusing is difficult; and (5) to give maximum visual information about your subject by bringing out the details. Below are some examples of pictures with a wide depth of field.

On the other hand, a “shallow depth of field” means that the area of sharpness or clarity is very limited, and the background (and/or the near foreground) is blurred or out of focus. You need a shallow depth of field in the following situations: (1) for portraits, so that your subject will “pop out” of the background; (2) to hide a cluttered background; (3) to avoid distractions or obstructions in the background or foreground; (4) to convey depth; and (5) to isolate certain details of the subject.

The pictures in this post have great depth of field. Notice in the first picture above that the image is clear from the bottom portion (where you can see two men walking past each other), to the middle ground (where you see various houses and structures), up to the deep background (where you can see the various skyscrapers dotting the Ortigas Complex in Pasig City).

Please review our lessons "Photojournalism (22): Conveying depth" and "Photojournalism (37): Depth of field."