This is my 3rd year in attending the procession and taking photos of the Black Nazarene during its annual feast here in Manila, although the schedule landed on a Monday, its a weekday and workday for everyone, me sis and I decided to split our schedules, she went to church on a Sunday and me for Monday, I was about to join with her for that Sunday mass but my son got sick for the entire day and I stayed home and nurse him back to health, I'm glad that he's okay after that day.
I was preparing to gear up to attend a meeting in Manila and then go to Quiapo church on the next day, our attention was grabbed by that news about a terrorist threat in all over Quiapo during its feast. Our government even requested the telco giants to pull the plug of their cell sites in some regions of Manila just to prevent bomb blast with a use of cellphone devices that trigger after a call or sms message.
My wife told me not to go, so I decided not to go, but then I saw my schedule that I need to attend a meeting, so after my meeting in SM MOA, I went directly to Quiapo, and prepared for another photo walk shoot. I know my wife will kill me if she saw this blog post, I'm a bit worried on that day,so I acted vigilant and be alert if there are any bombing scenes in the area, the worries was gone and felt secured around thousands of devotees and (fanatics) of the Black Nazarene. The whole scene didn't change, the only thing that changes everything is the broken axel and wheel that carries the Black Nazarene statue.. So in result to that is a super slow, super crawl movement..it took them 5 hours to move from City Hall up to Lawton, so that my story started.
check my photos below
(photo above by Kevin Pableo)
The reason why I don't have a nice photo of the Black Nazarene is that I waited for 5 hours and its hard to take a better photo at around 6pm. I'm glad that the movement of the Black Nazarene normalized after 6pm, the time that I arrived infront of Him and experience being squished for the 1st time. Thanks to fellow blogger Kevin Pableo for sharing his photo to be posted here in my blog.
The place started to be so crowded, people are waiting here and they already blocked the road, the time here is 2:00pm, I walked as fast as I can because the Nazarene might arrived at around 3pm.
Spotted street singers who normally stayed in Carriedo, they already occupied the bridge and still continues to sing to the crowd. After taking a photo, I donated P10 in their box.
There are news report that people fell into the river while they are doing the procession, because of the crowded scene, people sometimes accidentally fell here. Here are our rescue team doing some patrol, you can also spot a group of musical band standing under the bridge's beam post.
Vendors are everywhere, I'm sure this guy is going home now after he sold all of his sweet drinks
I spotted people laughing in this area after they saw a defective motor raft being revived by the rescue team
Replicas arrived, here they used their own tricycle as carriage for their Nazarene replicas. All people are barefooted.
My usual view every year, I love this angle and I always take a photo of this scene. Its funny also that there are some teenagers love to be photographed, whenever I click my camera they just smiled and others covers their face.
I just arrived in Lawton
My dream spot every year, this is the under pass going to the other side of the road, the people standing on the roof are accredited media and press people, I always wish to join them there, because the view is perfect, they brought their own steel stairs in going up to the roof and now they provided their own tent.
Because that I don't have any choice on where to stay, so I decided to hop in to the roof of the overpass on the other side, it will be my 3rd time to stay there.
I bought a bottled water before I climbed up, the people stands there allowed me to go up first since I'm a photographer, they helped to guide on where to climb and hold onto, we still use the old rust steel stair in climbing up, same old worries - the steel stair is not fixed and still hangs with no support from the roof. Thanks to the people who helped me climb up and secure the stair to be safe for everyone.
i noticed that the roof is not that jam packed, but then I discovered that the some parts of the good spot there has a wet spot area, an inch of rain water, I have no choice but to stand there and soak my Nike shoes with dirty rain water.
Photo shooters on the 3rd over pass
They say that Globe and Smart turned off their cellphone signal, I checked on my Globe phone and saw that there's no signal, then I saw my Smart phone has a small signal, then after some minutes I received a text message, then I heard from people nearby that they are having a hard time sending txt messages to their friends who got lost in the crowd, even that the signal is low, sending txt messages always fail.
More replicas arrived
People on top and near the replica catches towels thrown by the devotees, they scrub the towel in to the replica's body , face and hands, and then they throw it back to the person who owns the towel.
Crowd starts to build up, it means that the Nazarene is near
Devotees bring their kids and even baby in a stroller in the procession site.
We heard that the Nazarene is near, I took this photo and saw that the Nazarene is infront of City Hall, but then we waited till 5pm and the Nazarene didn't arrive, it got stuck there for almost 5 hours.
A way of going up and down
Devotee on a wheel chair
Foreign photographer spotted using a film camera
Another scene of bringing their kids to the procession site
More replicas.....
On the other side of the over pass, here's a way to go down.
More replicas.....the Nazarene is nearby
A close photo of our fellow shooters
spotted! Street photographer using his iPhone in taking photo of us on the roof
Pray hard....it works! nuff said..
Dirty foot of the lady near me, she sits on the roof waiting for the Nazarene.
Another baby spotted....haahah she looks tired under the scorching sun and noisy environment
Mayor Lim arrives.....
Mayor Lim greeted us and inspects if everything is okay
Mayor Lim and the devotees
ABS CBN Sky Patrol hovers for an hour...observing and reporting for TV and Radio
The Nazarene is still there and got stuck
Avatar....more fun in the Philippines ahhaha
All of them got tired and sleep on the road
Darkness comes...this is my photo around sunset, spotted a nice cloud formation in the horizon
I decided to go down and walk towards the Nazarene, the sun will be gone for a few minutes and I need to take a good photo of the Nazarene. Here's my photo infront of the City Hall.
Saw Him!!! finally...sorry for the blurry images
infront of me... I used my pop up flash to capture it clearly and with no blur..but then Its hard to take photos when the people around you are busy and squishing you in and out of the crowd.
The crowd becomes quiet after The Black Nazarene passed by
The movement of the procession lasted for a second infront of me
It went directly to Lawton, and I'm sure our fellow photo shooters got a top view of the procession at night.
So that's my coverage for this year....see you again for 2013.
