Manila: Portrait of a City

Armed only with his Rolleiflex TLR, photographer Jed Bacason searches for stories on the streets of Manila, Philippines. These stories follow the lives of children, the elderly, artists and business people from the poorest slums to hip nightclubs.

“The Philippines is a third-world country and, more often than not, the whole world only hears about our country when something terrible happens on this side of the world,” explains Bacason.

“Through these images, I wanted to show some of the people that constitute the capital city – a sense of the place, if you will, and who you may bump into, if you roam the city streets.”

In 2009, Bacason was among a group of photographers invited by a local organization to photograph a garbage dump in Manila where a whole community of people eke out a living by scavenging and making charcoal.

At first he was reluctant to take on what he perceived as just another poverty story and didn’t expect anything special to come from the experience.

“When we entered the complex and saw how extreme their living conditions were, it hit me like a ton of bricks. The noxious smell coming from garbage and burning wood was instantly suffocating but you can see little kids running around in dirty, torn clothes and adults going about and flashing smiles at you as you pass by,” writes Bacason.

“They’ve given me a stark reality to reflect on and a hard lesson in life and I am still to give back something in return.”

Instead of making pictures that highlighted the extreme conditions of the dump, he chose to focus on the surprising smiles and humanity that persisted in spite of the conditions.