| Manila Black & White If you want to get to know a city, any city, you need to walk its streets - to become a flaneur. The City of Manila has fascinated me since the first time I visited in 1991. The apparent chaos that confronts the first-time visitor overwhelms the senses, presenting life as a kaleidoscope of images and activities. And its sheer size (it is part of a larger megacity comprising twenty-five million people and the most densely populated city on the planet) gives a sense of possibility; the feeling that there is always something new to find. But walking and photographing in Manila is difficult. The traffic, broken pavement, heat and polluted air all conspire against the pedestrian and photographer. Accepting the challenge to photograph the streets of Manila is no easy task when the comforts of hotel and taxi are readily available. But once there, on the pavement, the life of the city draws me onward to make more photographs. | |
