Jacob Maentz’s Blog

Here are some images from a Debut (turning 18) I photographed a couple of weeks ago. Sisters, Krizia and Kirsten were the debutants celebrating their special day together. A fun event and great family!

Yesterday at Abellana Sports Complex in Cebu City, an attempt for a new world record was made — The Worlds Largest Dance Class. With just under 8,000 participants this attempt would be the World’s largest breaking the current record held by Budapest, Hungry.

Here are some selected photos from Robert John & Sheryllyn’s wedding last June 14th, 2009. Preparation was at the Hilton Cebu Resort and the wedding and reception was held at Amara in Liloan, Cebu.

I like to venture into wet markets to photograph all the exotic foods I see. I live in in Cebu City, Philippines, but I never get tired of going to the market and seeing what new foods I can find. Just when I think I have seen everything, I find new images to take. I love to see food in its raw form and everything is so fresh. The fruits, vegetable, meats and seafood.

I also enjoy walking around the markets because of the people I see there. It is a common place for people to gather and makes a great place to photograph faces and people doing ordinary life activities. Everything in the market environment makes for great photography. I am fortunate enough to live only 30 minutes from a good size wet market in Cebu City. I like to go down at least once every two weeks and take photos. I feel alive and I’m always surprised to see what images I able able to capture, always different. I try to get there in the morning when the light is not too harsh and people are bustling with the start of a new day. Additionally, in the morning harvests have just arrived from the provinces and seafoods are fresh from the fishing boats.

I would encourage travelers to venture into the markets and spend some time there. Sit down at a local stall and have a cup of coffee watching all the activity around you. If you are into photography you will be sure to get some good images. I like to use a 60mm macro lens for up-close shots of the food and a wider lens for photographing people, etc. You will be sure to find some exotic foods to eat too if you are into that. Enjoy.

You can see more images of mine from local markets on my stock site.

This morning I was called out of the house to look at a rainbow. To my surprise it was a circular rainbow wrapping around the sun. This was the first time I have ever seen this and so I took some pictures and did a little research.

Apparently, this phenomenon is called a sundog. These appear when the sun is low in the sky and its rays catch the thin vapour formed of ice crystals which lies in the atmosphere six miles above the Earth’s surface.

The rays are refracted by the crystals to produce what looks like a halo round the sun.

Sometimes, as here, they display a spectrum of colours from red closest to the sun to a pale blue furthest from it, which has led to them being mistaken for full circle rainbows.

In centuries past, they were thought of as signs of ill omen. These days they are most often mistaken for UFOs.

Pretty cool for a Thursday morning.

I’m posting some pictures from a wedding I had this past Saturday. Joseph and Jean are from Cebu, but they are living in New York. My wife Oma assisted me and we had a fun time with the couple and their family and friends. Hope you enjoy the selected images.

I have been finding myself working on a few website projects lately. It’s nice to have some diversity with work and be challenged in new ways. The three most recent sites I developed are listed below. Two are Cebu based and the other is a non-profit in the USA.

If anyone would like to contact me regarding web design please feel free to. I generally use Wordpress for all of the websites I develop, because it makes it easy for the client to login and change basic information in the future. Web development is not a full time endeavor for me, but I have become knowledgeable in the process after constructing my own website over the past two years. You will find that I am easy to contact during the process and go above and beyond what you might expect to get sites looking and running great.

Images Camera Club Official Website (Wordpress w/ Gallery2 Integration, User Forum, User Registration, User Profiles, Email Notifications, Multiple RSS feeds)

HeyGirlWeCare.org is a organization fighting against Cervical Cancer in Cebu. This site was constructed on Wordpress and the images of the girls were also taken by me at Fort San Pedro in Cebu.

IDEA WILD is a non-profit helping biologists fund their conservation projects worldwide. This new site of theirs is not yet officially live, but will be in the next two weeks. I created their current site as well about 5 years ago when I was first learning website development.

I have begun selling some of my fine art prints in local Cebu City hotels this past week. We put up a nice display yesterday in the Lobby Shop at the Marco Polo Plaza and have plans for a display in the Shangri-La and Marriott by the end of April. We thought it would be a good idea to offer images of Cebu Island to visitors as an alternative gift/memorabilia. These are the first matted fine art prints available to visitors in Cebu City and we are hopeful they will do well. I have started out with about 20 different images, trying to represent different aspects of Cebu. Food, people, culture, and landmarks. I plan to add different images as time passes and of course I’m always looking to shoot new pictures. There should be a press release at some point after the displays are up in the other two hotels.

If you’re from Cebu or are planning a trip here, please take some time to have a look at the images. You can always order direct from me as well to save a little if your in the area (the prices are lower than on my stock photography site and hotel rates). I have posted the details below.

These ready to frame signed and matted fine art prints are printed on professional Kodak Supra Endura archival paper lasting 100 years in home displays and 200 years in dark storage. Professionally cut Tru-White Standard Core Mattes are acid-free complete with archival polypropolene bags. A perfect lasting memory from Cebu.

6” x 9” Print (9” x 12” w/ matte) — Hotel Rate: 720 Php (plus tax)

8“ x 12” Print (12” x 16” w/Matte) — Hotel Rate: 1,150 Php (plus tax)

12” x 18” Print (18” x 24” w/ Matte) — Hotel Rate: 2,120 Php (plus tax)

Images from the Marco Polo Plaza Lobby Shop: