#EverydayPhilippines joins the growing global Everyday movement

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Search for the hashtag #EverydayPhilippines on Instagram and you will find so many good photos about, well, everyday life in the Philippines. The campaign was started by photojournalists Veejay Villafranca, Jes Aznar and Tammy David — inspired by #EverydayAfrica — and aims to break the visual stereotype of the country being a messed-up third world country where the only memorable thing is poverty. How? By showing beautiful photos of the daily grind in the country, thereby going beyond and/or behind the headlines.

Back the truck up: In 2012, photographer Peter DiCampo and writer Austin Merill started the Tumblr blog #EverydayAfrica. It broke visual clichés of Africa. It was all cool and steady, until the two brought the project to Instagram, where it gained traction. Images of Africa that were not about poverty, war, or disease spawned similar accounts in different locations across the globe (#EverydayAsia, #EverydayUSA) and spilled over to non-geographic issue-based stories (#EverydayClimateChange).

Barely a month old, #EverydayPhilippines is both a hashtag and an account on Instagram, with pages on Facebook and Tumblr. It was borne out of the three photographers’ angst, if you will, from the difficulty of pitching stories about the country.

“It’s very difficult to pitch a story about the Philippines because most editors from around the world, the only things they know about us are typhoons, flooding, some conflict and beheadings, and Imelda Marcos,” says Villafranca. “And then a whole lot of poverty, Smokey Mountain…stories from the ‘90s pa. For us, there are so many other stories about the Philippines that we want to show.”

He remembered what his classmate at World Press Photo Joop Swart Master Class Peter DiCampo showed him a few years back. “Peter was telling me about #EverydayAfrica then. Fast-forward to Nov 2014. I remembered what Peter showed me, asked Tammy and Jes about it, they were both familiar with it. Sabi namin, let’s formalize this,” continues Villafranca, a freelance photographer who also works with Getty Images.

“Anyway, we were all on Instagram, on different social media platforms. We use hashtags for our stories and projects. Let’s do a concerted effort na,” says Aznar, who is also a freelance photographer and whose byline appears in The New York Times.

The three were in Tacloban last November, covering the first anniversary of Yolanda, talking shop after hours, when the idea hit. Villafranca called DiCampo soon after, and the three planned out their course of action.

#EverydayPhilippines is basically a two-prong project with the aforementioned aim of breaking stereotype and providing an audience for new story ideas both here and abroad. 

It’s also a way to keep the momentum on projects and issues they’ve already started because, really, “there’s only so much you can do in the editorial world. Do we hope for another big disaster [just to keep climate change on the headlines]? Ang pangit naman nun.”

There is talk about how it can also attract and encourage young photographers, and those inclined toward photography, to keep at it with their craft. There’s also the dimension of paying forward and sharing what they’ve already learned from their experiences. “Some people don’t have the money to subscribe to all these titles to see good work but they have Instagram,” says David.

And finally, there’s the personal side to it. “It’s very insightful,” says Aznar. The images you see on #EverydayPhilippines, at least for now, are something like outtakes from the stories that they’re working on. “That’s what makes them interesting,” adds David. “They’re like a behind-the-scenes to what we see in the media. On #EverydayPhilippines, there’s something about health, about customs, issues that are hardly reported.”

The rules are simple: Images must be a camera phone-capture, square in size, visually arresting, and must have context. “Maganda nga yung picture ng kape, pero ano ang relasyon niyan sa everyday? Sa Pilipinas,” asks Aznar.

These are things that they’ve learned on the job and guidelines that the original #Everyday has passed on to them, which they would also like to continue on #EverydayPhilippines because “effective na eh,” says Villafranca.

In the short span of time that #EverydayPhilippines has been up, the reception has been astounding. “We were at Slideluck Manila talking about it. There have been inquiries for bigger projects like books and slideshows. Veteran journalists like Luis Liwanag, now want to join. Everybody wants to shoot again,” David says excited.

This month, the three will try adding another hashtag — “#EPxfaith — since the Pope is coming, Nazareno is tomorrow, it’s fiesta season.

“The possibilities are endless, but right now, we just want everyone to join the fun. Send good pictures! Use the hashtag,” according to Villafranca, David, and Aznar.
 

 

 

 

 

Photo: Roulle Umali/EverydayPhilippines Instagram

 

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