“I don’t shoot like digital photographers.” — Bengy Toda, who frowns on taking as many photos as your memory card will allow and selecting the “best” after the shoot.
Words POLA ESGUERRA DEL MONTE | Portrait JONATHAN BALDONADO
It was -5°C in January 2012, when a 60-year-old Benigno “Bengy” Toda III scaled Mt. Pulag. “It was so cold. So, so cold,” he said of his hike 2,992 meters above the sea. “It was terrible.” Ten porters trudged through dirt hauling his equipment, including a 4.5-kilo Seitz 6×17 digital camera that he set up under the coal black darkness. When the sun lit up the cyaneous sky with streaks of vermillion, he fired three shots. He was done.
Mr. Toda, who spent most of his life with film before transitioning to digital, frowns on taking as many photos as your memory card will allow and selecting the “best” after the shoot. He cuts the tedious process by taking only one to three shots. “I don’t shoot like digital photographers. For me, it’s all about correct exposure.”
Then again, a single shot of his Seitz is already worth 300 megabytes of data: one photograph, 160 million pixels. Zoom in on his panorama of a Scottish mountainside and you can pick out the features of a single sheep grazing in a herd, though the picture was taken from another mountain altogether.
Despite the ridiculous power of his cameras, he still goes the extra mile—if not miles—to take photos. If he isn’t processing film or making large prints in Studio 58 Lab 10, he’s probably exploring the country.
His wanderlust is genetic: Mr. Toda is the son of the former Philippine Airlines chairperson and president Benigno Toda, Jr. and Rose Marie Toda, a frequent visitor to Europe who was fond of documenting her trips.
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The first camera Mr. Toda picked up was a Brownie. Made by Kodak, it popularized low-cost photography and introduced the concept of the snapshot. He remembers using it to take a picture of his sister. There was nothing particularly special about the square photo, except that he took it. “I was very proud of it,” he said. When he started shooting professionally, he shifted to a Hasselblad. Regardless of the camera in his hands, his quest has always been the same: to take photos of beauty. Today, fulfilling that quest can mean spending three to 10 days making new trails in the bowels of a mountain.
His first exhibition in 2012, Chasing Mountains, was composed of 20 photographs of remote places in the Mountain Province, Bicol and Laguna. Upon reaching a vantage point, he would set up and wait for a serendipitous moment. Taking a great picture, he explained, is about being at the right place at the right time.
In a previous interview, he recounted to BusinessWorld how he spent hours hoping that the clouds covering Mayon Volcano would dissipate. Using a Phase One, a Danish camera system worth millions, he captured the moment “she unveiled herself.” He was lucky. The next day, a typhoon shrouded the volcano in gray.
Another project captured the dynamism of waterfalls, including Daranak, Bantakay, and Mayoyao. It was a simple proposition—“First fall, climb. Second fall, climb. Third fall, climb.”—with a rewarding payoff: long-exposure images of water cascading over cliffs and rocks. The photo series, titled Chasing Waterfalls, is now in the permanent collection of the National Museum.
Producing 50×60-inch prints on special paper easily rings in around Php10,000 each but Mr. Toda doesn’t mind the cost, neither does he mind the sweat. “I like showing the beauty of our country,” he said. Mr. Toda’s definition of beauty extends to the urban grit of the Philippines. He points to a cityscape he took from the top of a building in Taguig. The image shows Manila and Makati and this environs against the mountains of Bataan, under the veil of an indigo sunset. “I like showing the good side. I don’t like showing misery. I think pictures should be happy for people to look at, and pleasing—not make a statement.” His philosophy won’t appeal to everyone, but its simplicity matches his shooting style: take it and go.
