A PHOTOGRAPHER’S ART

DURING my wife’s wake, I firmly decided not to take pictures of anything that happened. I did not want to see images that would vividly remind me of the excruciating pain of losing her, especially since every heartbreaking moment was already permanently stuck in my memory box.

My sudden indifference to capturing every part of this reality was, I think, entirely understandable. Looking at pictures from the wake would only stall my recovery from this tragic episode of my life.

I remembered, however, that during the wake of my sister-in-law’s husband back in May 2009, I had eagerly volunteered to handle the photography from the wake all the way to the funeral. I even compiled those photographs and video clips into a moving, twenty-minute memorial tribute video. At the time, I had no real concept of how my sister-in-law—my late wife’s elder sister—felt when she looked at those photos or watched that video a few days after the funeral. The raw memories of their grief were permanently hardwired into those digital episodes I captured with my basic Kodak Easyshare camera. Would those downloadable memories help a family heal from the most sorrowful event of their lives? Looking back now, I seriously doubt it.

Yet, on the third day of my wife’s wake, I ended up brushing aside my resolve to keep the cameras away. That was the moment my kumpare and close friend, Ricky Canta, arrived at the wake and volunteered to document the funeral.

How could I possibly say no? Ricky is an extraordinary friend. He had been the official photographer for Citylife magazine during the days when I worked there as an assistant editor. My wife, Rosalie, was the publication's circulation clerk, and the three of us naturally became a tight-knit trio. Ricky is a tall, mild-mannered man with an infectious, subtle sense of humor. He was in his thirties back then and married with three kids. The magazine gig was just a part-time job for him, as he was principally a professional event photographer. But in between assignments, he would hang out in the press room with us until the magazine was completely put to bed. Following those exhausting production stretches, we would go out to unwind at a local bar in Caloocan or Quezon City—a well-earned treat courtesy of our tireless editor, Joe Bautista.

Unsurprisingly, when Rosalie and I decided to get married in 1996—just a few short months after meeting at the publication—Ricky was our unanimous choice to be our official wedding photographer. He generously refused to charge a single centavo for his services. A year later, he officially became my kumpare when he stood as the godfather to my firstborn child, a baptismal ceremony that he also lovingly covered.

Rosalie resigned from the publication six months after our wedding, and when the magazine folded a year later, Ricky went his own way, establishing a successful photography business in Cavite. I eventually lost touch with him. But thanks to Facebook, we managed to renew our connection after more than a decade of silence. He only learned of Rosalie’s passing from a status update I posted two days after her death.

Ricky arrived at the wake barely an hour before midnight, still visibly reeling and unable to comprehend what had happened to her. Before he stepped out, he told me that he would take full charge of the photography during the funeral—completely free of charge. I simply said, "Yes, and thank you," but on one strict condition: he was not to take any close-up shots of my wife inside the coffin.

In total, Ricky captured 682 individual shots over the course of the funeral, spanning from the quiet early morning hours before the necrological Mass to the final parting of the guests at the cemetery gates. It is a staggering volume of photographs—sad, poignant, and heavy images now preserved on a single DVD-R.

According to the celebrated American author Eudora Welty, a good snapshot stops a moment from running away. They stay, and in these particular snapshots captured by Ricky, the raw emotion refuses to fade. But upon a second look, these photographs are clearly the work of a true artist. The frames are a full, unfiltered expression of what the photographer felt about his subject. They were drawn from a deep reservoir of inspiration, rattled only by a profound grief of his own; I even caught him fighting back tears as he adjusted his angles and focused his lens.

I might choose to place the title "Grief" over this specific collection of samples, because that is exactly what they embody. Slowly, I am choosing to forget the lingering pang of unease that those painful memories evoke. In a way, the harsh reality is beside the point now—the images are all that matter.