You’ll almost never see me walking around with a camera.
I am not that type of photographer.
The only times I look through a camera to take a picture is on assignment.
My wife, Tanya, on the other hand, is the family documentarian. She takes most of the pictures that end up in our albums. She sees and she records: she takes photographs to keep them as memories. Not me.
My practice in art photography is about drawing something, something that is not there, or at least not apparent. Sometimes it’s to look if anything is there at all. It functions as inquiry, rather than a comment or reaction. It usually begins as a question:
“What if I light it a certain way?”
“Would I see something different?”
“What if I x-ray it?”
“What if I photograph shadows instead of light?”
Sometimes a dialogue begins. I revisit the work, looking at the question with new eyes to see if there’s more to probe. Oftentimes there always is.
What emerges in the process is seldom uninteresting because it is always unexpected.
Which in turn provokes further exploration. Somehow, somewhere within all of that, the abstract becomes insight.
Fig. 14
Artist Self-Portrait (2023)
Jason Quibilan (b. 1977) is a photographer based in Manila.
His professional works include editorials and covers with prominent local publications such as Esquire, Vogue, Tatler, and Entrepreneur Magazine as well as Monocle, Tatler Hongkong, and Forbes Magazine abroad. He photographed (and produced through his company, Stills MNL) the Department of Tourism and Tourism Board of the Philippines’ 2022 advertising campaign: “Go Where Your Mind’s Been Wandering Campaign”.
In 2015, he began close collaborations with the late National Artist Arturo Luz on a series of photographs and prints. This collaboration led to the founding of Silver, a fine art and print production company based out of Quibilan’s home studio in Quezon City, Shutterspace Studios.
In the same year, he did his first show, “Aurals” at the Crucible Gallery, while also photographing and producing a private commission for the photobook “Bataan: Impressions of Everyday Valor”.
During the 2020 Pandemic Lockdown, he established Shelter Fund, a print drive initiative that sold close to 2000 prints and benefitted over 300 artists and photographers.
Since then, he has shown work annually at Art Fair Philippines and in various exhibitions by FotomotoPH, of which he is a Co-Founder.