Lovely Lantern Lights – The Skytreader

I expected rain to fall, maybe like last year, probably worse. The week was weird weather-wise after all. I made it a point to bring my umbrella, for Getsurikai’s sake. Thank heavens I had no need for it.

I arrived at UP late by my standards. For the past three years, I’d usually arrive before lunch then hang out for some hours, reading a book I brought, until my friends start texting me, asking where in UP am I. I’d do that to avoid being hassled by the traffic caused by the Parade. For some reason the traffic-hassle didn’t give me enough incentive to get-up early this year. I was late but it was a nice start to the adventure as I got an opportunity to get a before-the-show feel for the event.

This horse is too camera-shy. Everytime I’d point my lens at him he’d turn his head the other way. Maybe he’s proffering me his best angle? Maybe he thinks my lens is some kind of a laser cannon*? This is the best of him I got: snout complete with matching calesa.

I was happily shooting around Oblation Plaza when I saw our ROTC squad advancing towards Palma Hall. I remembered that they will be one of the first parties to parade. So I hurriedly ended my little photoshoot, reasoning with myself that I need to conserve batteries as I don’t have any spare.

But not long after, the beauty of the Carillion took me in…

We decided to station ourselves in front of Melchor Hall being that it is at the last leg of the Parade. Last leg == night time (eventually) == more awesome for the lovely lantern lights.

That said, with all my hurrying, we still had lots of idle time when our group was finally completed. Idle time + SLR/SLT camera =

…rotating camera men!

And the attention of cuteness!

The Parade started with UP Offices. I saw some personal acquaintances like…

UP President Alfredo Pascual

Okay. I kid. I saw some personal acquaintances like…

The CRS team, most of which are people from DCS.

Come to think of it, the deeper I got into the CS curriculum (and knew more teachers/people from the Department), the better my fate during batch runs became. Hmmmm….

And then came the UP ROTC in their distinct guardia civil outfit,

Inside their Ranks — I wonder, if a lightning storm ensues, will those hats act like lightning rods? Are the wearers safe from brain-frying and related phenomena?

Ironically followed by College of Arts and Letters float honoring Rizal and the Revolution,

Above pictured is Sir Wystan de la Peña, head of the Department of European Languages and my Professor in a GE coded European Languages 50 (EL 50). Take that course under him. I personally learned a lot from Señor de la Peña’s lectures. It is one of the most worthwhile courses I ever took.

The parade was scattered with awesomazing lanterns (duh!) and acquaintances that it is pointless to just blah on with words. Visual overload here we go!

Like last year, there were gaps in the Parade, most likely caused by people like yours truly who are so keen on taking pictures. And it was starting to get dark. Perfect for pictures like these…

At this point, I learned/realized a few things in photography.

You really can’t do much if a scene’s lighting is poor to begin with. Not unless you have your own lighting equipment. But (a) I don’t have that and (b) that looks too out-of-place, space-taking, and inconsiderate for an event like the Lantern Parade.
Unlike a point-and-shoot’s flash, which fires the lights straight at your subject, an SLR fires flash upwards, assuming there is a ceiling to bounce the light downwards, diffused. This results to a better effect/less glare. There obviously isn’t a ceiling equivalent in outdoors, Lanter Parade set-up. I had to use my hands to direct the flash to my subjects (hood it over the flash like a “ceiling” which will quickly catch the lights and bounce it towards your subject). Thank goodness I realized this quickly.

So, as it was getting dark at this point, it became harder to get decent shots. Lighting was no longer on my side as I was already relying on flash. Otherwise, it’d be too dark or too orange depending on where I decide to shoot.

Above pictured is Eng’g’s Wall-E, one of our lanterns, and the DCS/Cursor contingent of the Parade. Like last year, Eng’g scored with a particularly awesomazing lantern followed by a—wait for it—boring march of Eng’g orgs and banners. My sister, who majors in Broadcast Communication, likens it to dead air i.e., awkward and should-be-avoided pauses in radio productions. Unlike the last three years though, they, at least, weren’t wearing orange. Plus points for the fashion factor!

I took this shot from one of the torches of the Beta Sigma frat men. Their first number was the human chain/snake which I believe is part of their initiation rights. Even if it is my second time seeing this, it was still kind of chilling especially with their chant. I heard someone (was he from βσ?) call their second part kata which is the Karate equivalent of Taekwondo’s poomsae or forms. While their formation and synchronicity might look watch-worthy, it didn’t really catch my attention (maybe ’cause I’ve seen better during my TKD days). So, my eyes were wandering off to better photo-ops, their torch flames in particular. It, however, amuses me that Beta Sigma has their own blend of martial arts.

A few more lanterns and it was finally the turn of my most anticipated college ever. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the ever-fine stars of our lantern show, the College of Fine Arts.

Warning: Awesomeness follows.

And of course, the night wouldn’t be complete without fireworks. It is unfortunate that an untoward incident happened in this year’s fireworks. We were only a few meters away from the fireworks fence when it happened and we saw those wayward fireworks shoot. Here is the statement of UP Diliman’s Chancellor regarding the incident.

Judging by the number of pictures in this post, I’d say that I’ve really had a good time with my camera this Parade. I even exceeded my 300MB monthly upload limit at Flickr that I had to hijack on a new account to fit all these shots in!

That’s all for now. Hope you have a Merry Christmas! ~Chad

*This imagery was inspired by an episode of Pokemon, Bulbasaur-Charmander-Squirtle(-Pikachu!) era. Brock was making rice cakes when Ash noticed a camera lens (wanting to take a picture of Pikachu) appear from behind some bushes. He over-reacted, imagining it to fire a laser projectile of sorts, and ruined their little rice cake picnic. I’ve never been able to shake that episode from my mind since I watched it as a kid.

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