This was one experience that shall last my lifetime. On the way to my location shoot, there was no warnings of any kind. There was no broadcast of any format that there was a looming danger. The weather was very convenient for a photo shoot.
Arrived our location around 2pm, a cloud of steam was already visible, but to me, seemed normal. Around 2:30 pm, while waiting for the make up artist to finish, at my standpoint, the cloud of steam became huge, very visible from the crater of Taal volcano. I asked the locals if this was a normal scene, according to them, it was also their first time to witness such huge spew of steam.
The creative photographer in me, felt that this was one opportunity that should not be missed. I fetched the future bride and groom so we could start our shoot and take advantage of the scenery. When we proceeded to the golf course to start our shoot, we were surprised to see the cloud of steam turned so huge. The bride-to- be became hesitant and fearful, but after encouraging her to take advantage of the scenery and showing her some sample shots, she agreed to go ahead.
We did not ask for this to happen. This was my first time to witness and experience one natural phenomenon. We paused for awhile for everyone to shoot from their camera phones. We were quite lucky, the wind blew against our direction. We had one favorable opportunity to shoot. Dusk came and the clouds of steam turned bigger. It was also then that we felt lightning and tremors on the ground. I thought this happened only in movies, it looked like a nuclear explosion. The smell of sulfur became evident in the air. Good thing we were almost done when the security guard advised us to leave the place.
We only did our job and took advantage of the present situation. We never wished for an eruption to happen while we were shooting in Tagaytay. We felt sad and sorry for the residents living around Taal, we did not imagine the effect would affect so many households.
We were so thankful nothing bad happened to us on our way back home.
The alert level had already been lowered and while some still stayed in evacuation centers, some residents got their chances to go back to their houses, with that, we are indeed grateful.
Makeup: Matsumoto Inoue
Hair: Yanyan Navaro
Location: Splendido Tagaytay
