meeting new people - teddy ladran

malou and i were supposed to go to enchanted kingdom today as part of our passion to honing our skills in taking better pictures. a couple of days ago, malou mentioned that ted who is one of her contact in multiply wanted to come (from faraway bulacan) and join us. now ted is waaaay ahead of us when it comes to photography - and despite everything he will say, you can just see how far he's gone in his photos. i was kind of open to meeting up and having a complete stranger join us because one way of learning faster about photography is if you have someone who has experience to criticize and give you pointers. besides, ted isn't a complete stranger to malou since she's been in contact & conversation with him for a good few months already. the thing though is i'm not really an EB person and would rather really meet up people by traditional means - i'm old in that sense. i decided to go lest ted comes out to be a psycho and malou all by her lonesome will forever haunt my conscience.

ted turns out to be one of the more fascinating people i have ever met. he's uber nice, fit (which i hate him for, give it a few years dude!) and has a rich pool of experiences (work, life, photography) that makes conversing with him quite interesting. imagine hanging out from 145pm all the way to 10pm talking over coffee (ok, i had one social drink), dinner (courtesy of malou - thanks for dinner!) and coffee again (hmm no wonder i was feeling droopy already, i didn't have another shot of caffeine). ted taught us something new about exposures, filters (this dude is so into IR photography now) and a few tips here and there. its too bad ted is just waiting for his visa anytime soon (as in anytime) to work in london. the eternal optimist in me thinks "uy, meron na kaming contact (read: lodging) sa london!" but really i feel bad about meeting this great guy and teacher (calling him IDOL is so stalker-like hehehe) just yesterday.

ted, it was great to meet somebody like you. you are a very fascinating person and i look forward to learning from your critiques. i'll pray you get your visa soon and hopefully i'll be able to set-up the shoot this coming weekend so we can hang out.