Phillip Retuta's Blog

The Life and Times of a Filipino-American

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Hierve El Agua.

While in Oaxaca, the entire group visited Hierve El Agua, a set of petrified waterfalls several miles from the capital. The streams from the mountain ridges calcified over thousands of years, leaving what looks like a cascade of stone waterfalls perpetually falling from the cliff.

A few of us wanted to hike the downward trail (which, of course, meant hiking back up). As someone who’s been more active lately, quit smoking, and lost some weight, I figured I’d be healthier to climb the steep steps back up without losing my breath. Holy fat hell, was I wrong. By the time I got back to the main area at the peak, I was sweating like a pig on trial. Might I mention, the air is also comparatively thin in Oaxaca (at least to the US), and it was in the 70’s and 80’s in the middle of January. Perhaps, despite all the hard work I’ve been putting in, nature and the fact I rarely hike got the better of me.

Luckily, at the top of the main cliff was a natural pool of mineral-rich water. It suitable for swimming, and it was nice to actually wade around (legend has it the water has healing properties, too — so bonus). Now I still don’t know how to swim and the middle was deep, and I had to tread water around the edges.

By the end of our trip, we all gathered at the parking lot where vendors sold food, drink, and souvenirs. I bought myself a Piña Loca with mezcal, a spicy cocktail served in a whole pineapple. I managed to get a pretty good selfie that I should use for some dating profiles.

A little exercise, a dip in a pool, and a cocktail (and even a stray dog) – all in all, a good way to spend a day in Central America.

Here are some more photos:

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Brett & Vi Get Married in Oaxaca, Mexico.

It was appropriate that the last of my weddings (13 weddings in 1.5 years) was a destination wedding. Vi and Brett invited family, friends, and me to celebrate their nuptials in Oaxaca. They threw a calenda, a traditional ceremonial parade where celebrants carry giant, paper mache puppets of the bride and groom, and everyone dances across the streets of Oaxaca. A part of it could appear like cultural appropriation, but if the citizens are more than willing to take the money, do it, and be happy — more power to them.

Anyway, the mezcal kept flowing, and we danced in the streets. I must admit, I found some joy that we blocked both pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Out of our way, we’re fucking dancing and drinking.

While circling around the tiny city and back to Santo Domingo Church, I trailed behind and scoped out several stores where I can pick up souvenirs to bring back to the US. I’d be spending the next couple of days in Oaxaca, so I might as well take some photos and buy a lot of shit. There was also a rumor – a legend, even – that a famous stray dog would join the parade, however I heard it got adopted (yay). Still, there certainly are a lot of stray dogs in Oaxaca, but I can get into that later.

Aside from the parade itself, the best part of my trip was seeing so many familiar and old faces. Friends from Chicago, friends who moved away, moms who are big fans of me and Nico — the gathering of people I care about was perhaps thing I liked the most about this particular vacation.

Here are some photos of the wedding itself:

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Refik Anadol’s “Machine Hallucination” at Artechouse.

I went to Artechouse at Chelsea Market with Alex the other day, where Turkish digital artist Refik Anandol had a projection/data visualization exhibition called “Machine Hallucination.”

Nearly the entire boiler room underneath Chelsea Market was illuminated by several 16K laser projectors, displaying a dataviz algorithm-driven video made up of 100 million social media photos of New York City — essentially, “Machine Hallucination” is an abstract movie made of shapes and colors derived from what users post about New York. I loved the concept, and it could have easily been one of my class’ thesis projects (if they had a ton of money, that is).

Although the visuals of the video and the idea were very cool, the overall experience was a little underwhelming: one entire side (the entrance down to the boiler room) had no projections whatsoever, and the pillars and sharp corners of the room didn’t make the projections as seamless as they could be. It didn’t feel as immersive as I had hoped it would be. In my opinion, if they somehow curved each of the room’s corners (including the floor), the overall projection — and thus experience — would have been more exciting. Edges are just so restricting.

The fact that I had to pay a $25 entrance fee also kind of hindered the fun.

Nonetheless, Artechouse was indeed worthy of being visited and photographed (the Instagramabilty of this place factors very high). The exhibition and Artechouse itself was hardly publicized, so it wasn’t too crowded. Would I recommend going to any of Artechouse’s future exhibitions? Sure, but make sure you’re comfortable paying that much.

Here are some of my photos:

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The 365 Day Project.

The new 365 Day Project.

If you know me, I’ve been taking a photo a day for the past 12 years. This project was inspired by Jamie Livingston, who took a polaroid every single day from 1979 till he succumbed to cancer in 1997 (his last photo is him deceased in a hospital room). Jamie left behind a legacy in photographs, and I genuinely want to do the same — to take the summation of my day, the most interesting photograph (no matter how nice or joyous or sad) and post it online. My project was first on Flickr, but with the advent of good cameras on smartphones and the simplicity of Instagram, I began publicly posting the photos on social media as “The 365 Day Project” under the account name “retuta365.”

A few months ago, a friend asked me to remove a photo from my “retuta365” account on Instagram. I thought about it, and decided to make that account private. I’ve worked on this project for over a decade, and I had to decide whether me or other people have to the right to direct my work. Who should dictate how I need to express myself? Who, but me — the owner of a very personal project — should say what will be in my visual legacy? Who’s to judge what content is special or meaningful to me? The 365 Day Project is very much like a diary or journal, and for the most part, should be kept in private.

Still, the narcissistic artist in me likes a little attention, or at least the knowledge that my work exists somewhere in the public ether — especially when I’m long gone. I decided to create a brand new page, accessible if you try and find it, and far removed from ubiquitous, in-your-face nature of an open social media feed. The 365 Day Project is there, but for the average internet user there are several clicks for you to discover its location.

So, if you’re reading this and need to find it, or want to learn more about who I am, here’s Phillip Retuta’s 365 Day Project. Every day, I’ll continue to post a photo, to add one more mark of evidence that I lived, that I existed.

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Experimenting with Lighting.

It’s my goal to always strive for interesting and therefore better work, so I’m trying to teach myself basic lighting techniques. In other words, I decided to step up both my photography and videography skills by playing with light in ways I haven’t done before (you can thank the editors and cinematographers at Corridor). I figured that:

  1. It’d make me a better designer/artist/art director.
  2. I can create better content for both my personal Instagram and Nico’s account.

Naturally, none of this came cheap: I bought an LED panel mount to better light my videos, a reflector, and a barn door with a variety of colored gel filters to try out different cinematic effects in my photography. I even found a good tutorial online that demonstrates where lights should be placed in order to get a particular look. It helped that I Googled “edge light” and how light can bounce off parts of a face or object, though most of the tutorials were subsequently implemented on portraits of my pet.

All in all, I’m very satisfied with the results thus far, and it’s easier to light a subject than I first imagined (it beats editing lights and effects in Photoshop or post-production). If only set up and clean up of the equipment — lights, filters, backdrops, and stands — wasn’t so cumbersome, but that’s just me being goddamned lazy.

Ultimately, it’s my goal to start using these techniques on human portraiture rather than my fucking dog. I still have a hell of a lot to learn, but you can see what I did here: