Kalandrakas - Our Weekly Contest #10 Winner!

Congratulations to our contest #10 winner for Candid shot of beautiful girl(s): Jesslee Cuizon, better known as Kalandrakas. Right at the heels of the early triumph of enggul and akumach, Jesslee is another IT expat working in Japan. To divert from my usual third person style, I will present Jesslee through his own words. My editing is minor. His answers speak eloquently about hisself.

Farl

free 'sweet' hugs

Free hugs is a movement involving people who offer free hugs to strangers in public places. In Japan, in the famous Harajuku district, I happened to see this group of Japenese holding these 'Free Hugs' board. I can't help but stop and take pictures of them, esp. this cute lady.
Of course, I also got a free hug from her. :P

photo courtesy by Enggul

I am Jesslee Cuizon or Kalandrakas, a word borrowed from Spanish which now means “messed up miscellany”. I'm a Cebuano currently working in Japan as an IT engineer. My friends describe me as funny (most of the time, corny), outgoing and adventurous person. I'm a loyal UCnian having finished high school and college at the University of Cebu (BS in Information Technology).

Before, I was just a mere witness to a lot of things on the streets, all uncaptured. When I was still in Cebu, I used to go to office by jeepney and see a lot of children selling fruits in the street, asking money in the middle of the hi-way, and I felt like I need to do something to tell these things to other people. This started the desire to have my own camera.

My first digital camera was a tiny Aiptek Slim 3200. Then, I got my Sony DSC-R1 last February 2006 and started getting a little serious about photography. Now, I'm using Nikon D80 with Nikkor 70-300mm VR and Nikkor 18-135mm lens.

Like most of you, I didn’t have any photography workshops. What I do is read read and read. There are a lot of amazing photographers, and they are just a google away. Flickr, of course, helps a lot.

If you can check my photostream, most of my photos are of people, mostly candid. I love going out and take photos of people. Danz in Tokyo inspires me more to do street photography. He has amazing street photos.

I really love street photography. I want to capture daily moments on the streets. For me, it is like telling stories. I do like to work in the media and do what I love – photojournalism. I am more interested on social and environmental issues.

I am proud of these photos:

lonely autumn

This is my first photo that was featured as Picture of the in JapanToday on Dec. 9, 2006. JapanToday is an online news portal. This was also featured as Photo of the Week on Metropolis Magazine, Japan's No. 1 English magazine.

bad luck


This is the most interesting photo in my photostream, according to Flickr. The day it was posted, it was featured in Flickr’s Explore front page.

how to pray the japanese way

For me this is my best black and white photo.

"I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn't photograph them" --Diane Arbus