A gutsy fish out of water
January 16, 2005 | 12:00am
Scott "Gutsy" Tuason is the real Mr. Finding Nemo; and in the process of looking for said Nemo (Parrotfish, right? My five-year-old Luca says clownfish, so I stand corrected), it seems he has chanced upon every other marine creature, plant and anything in between, that flourishes in our Philippine waters. And we can thank our lucky star... fish, that he has painstakingly photographed all he has surveyed in the years he has been immersed in Nemo’s world.
Coming on the heels of the international award-winning book Anilao he co-authored with my uncle Dodo Cu-Unjieng, Gutsy recently launched his new book Bahura, which translates as reef for the Tagalog-impaired among us. It’s a coffee-table book that one can proudly say is true and through Filipino in content, execution and printing and it can lie beside the best the world can offer and still be admired.
With Bahura, there’s a rawness and freshness that is evident in the painstaking manner in which these photographs have been compiled over the years of immersion. This is nature with a capital "N," something a publication like National Geographic would have loved to commission or stamp their imprimatur on. The great thing is it works on several levels.
Those who dive will have an immediate affinity to the book. Fascination with the underwater world for divers is like a religion. Though Bahura can never substitute the actuality of being underwater, it can help relay why the fascination exists; how each dive is a journey of discovery and the wealth of sights that are there to be "mined." The divers out there will appreciate what Gutsy has gone through in putting these photographs together. Underwater photography is one of the trickiest things in the business. It’s not like these creatures are ready, willing and able to pose for you. As you go up close to even the safest of sea minions, it’s not like they don’t see you as some threat, or are ready to flash their pearly whites at you. If one is going macro-photography and the subject is marine flora, even there, factors such as current, lighting and one’s oxygen supply are all wreaking havoc on one’s shoot schedule.
Gutsy told me how many rolls of film are wasted with each dive – how it’s a constant battle with the elements to come up with the picture one can consider truly print-worthy.
The non-divers will just be enthralled at this vicarious sharing of the world that, for one reason or another, they have avoided. Hydrophobia of a different order, perhaps? Or an aversion to having things stuck in their mouths for extended periods of time? Whatever, the images to be found within these pages are the closest they can get to exploring the plethora of color and teeming life that inhabit our Philippine waters. I showed the book to my kids and even they were fascinated, proving that even at the level of pure, unadulterated visual stimuli, the book more than works. My youngest was especially enthralled by making the connection between things like the shrimp tempura and calamares that he eats to the photographs of these creatures in the wild. Being an ardent fan of Finding Nemo and Shark Tale also helped in his making "contact" with the book.
I had some personal involvement with the book as the publishers, Guerilla Publishing (Amanda Griffin, Isabel Engwa and Gutsy himself), sought my assistance to do the copy editing and suggest ideas on how to place structure and texture within the book. Assembled roughly into the geographical zones of Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao; they were a jumble of truly great photographs but still in search of some "umbrella" to turn it onto a "book." As it turned out, a minimum amount of work was needed beyond the laying of the structure on the book. Gutsy had written pieces on three key sets of photographs that coincidentally would give representation to each geographical area. The whale sharks of Donsol in Bicol would serve as setpiece for text on Luzon; while his article on the mating rituals of squids would be the Visayan text – photographs came from dive site off Cebu. His humorous retelling of his encounter with a saltwater crocodile in Palawan would be the Mindanao anecdote. And so we were off, with my editing trying to maintain the pitch and tenor of Gutsy’s own voice. Comment had been made that Gutsy tended to be too folksy or colloquial; but I argued that this was what precisely could give a book a singular voice. Rather than try and wax poetic or dryly academic, it was this very personalized Gutsy "voice" that could resonate within the pages, and give Bahura a unique quality that I had not seen yet in the other underwater photography books that had been presented to me.
When we were discussing the project, Gutsy mentioned how he’d be diving with the President over the following weekend; and as this was to be a showcase of the variety of marine life in Philippine waters, it was deemed a great idea to have GMA provide the "Foreword" for the book. This she not only did, but she graced the launch held at the Rigodon Ballroom of The Peninsula Manila. The launch was an unmitigated success, proving that when genuine global talent and the resultant exemplary product are on offer, people will respond with enthusiasm. Even Fil-American comedian Rex Navarrete, after performing at ABS Dish the night after Gutsy’s launch, pleaded that I get him a copy and have Gutsy sign it. Apparently, Rex has copies of Anilao and the other Gutsy coffee-table book.
While the people at the launch were more than receptive to the book and its merits, there still is the need to find a wider audience for this kind of dogged determination and accomplishment. Gutsy has produced a corpus of work that the whole world can notice and admire, we should also be doing our utmost to support him. A few years back, it was an award-giving body in France that recognized, with distinction, the book Anilao. During the launch, Amanda and Celine (Gabriel) made mention of how there was interest to launch Bahura in New York, that while the Philippine Consulate there was more than interested to help organize it at a Soho gallery, the financial aspect of staging such a launch made it not much more than a pipe dream right now. I wish the right parties and entities would take stock of this situation and help Guerilla Publishing make the appropriate "waves" abroad.
This month, an event at the CCP complex entitled Karangalan is being organized. Aimed at making the Filipino aware and proud of what is being achieved by Filipinos all over the world, Gutsy’s book is in essence, a microcosm or slice of how this drive for Filipino excellence can come in all shapes and sizes. It would be a shame if we ignored this book simply because it wasn’t some foreign publishing house that brought it into existence.
Coming on the heels of the international award-winning book Anilao he co-authored with my uncle Dodo Cu-Unjieng, Gutsy recently launched his new book Bahura, which translates as reef for the Tagalog-impaired among us. It’s a coffee-table book that one can proudly say is true and through Filipino in content, execution and printing and it can lie beside the best the world can offer and still be admired.
With Bahura, there’s a rawness and freshness that is evident in the painstaking manner in which these photographs have been compiled over the years of immersion. This is nature with a capital "N," something a publication like National Geographic would have loved to commission or stamp their imprimatur on. The great thing is it works on several levels.
Those who dive will have an immediate affinity to the book. Fascination with the underwater world for divers is like a religion. Though Bahura can never substitute the actuality of being underwater, it can help relay why the fascination exists; how each dive is a journey of discovery and the wealth of sights that are there to be "mined." The divers out there will appreciate what Gutsy has gone through in putting these photographs together. Underwater photography is one of the trickiest things in the business. It’s not like these creatures are ready, willing and able to pose for you. As you go up close to even the safest of sea minions, it’s not like they don’t see you as some threat, or are ready to flash their pearly whites at you. If one is going macro-photography and the subject is marine flora, even there, factors such as current, lighting and one’s oxygen supply are all wreaking havoc on one’s shoot schedule.
Gutsy told me how many rolls of film are wasted with each dive – how it’s a constant battle with the elements to come up with the picture one can consider truly print-worthy.
The non-divers will just be enthralled at this vicarious sharing of the world that, for one reason or another, they have avoided. Hydrophobia of a different order, perhaps? Or an aversion to having things stuck in their mouths for extended periods of time? Whatever, the images to be found within these pages are the closest they can get to exploring the plethora of color and teeming life that inhabit our Philippine waters. I showed the book to my kids and even they were fascinated, proving that even at the level of pure, unadulterated visual stimuli, the book more than works. My youngest was especially enthralled by making the connection between things like the shrimp tempura and calamares that he eats to the photographs of these creatures in the wild. Being an ardent fan of Finding Nemo and Shark Tale also helped in his making "contact" with the book.
I had some personal involvement with the book as the publishers, Guerilla Publishing (Amanda Griffin, Isabel Engwa and Gutsy himself), sought my assistance to do the copy editing and suggest ideas on how to place structure and texture within the book. Assembled roughly into the geographical zones of Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao; they were a jumble of truly great photographs but still in search of some "umbrella" to turn it onto a "book." As it turned out, a minimum amount of work was needed beyond the laying of the structure on the book. Gutsy had written pieces on three key sets of photographs that coincidentally would give representation to each geographical area. The whale sharks of Donsol in Bicol would serve as setpiece for text on Luzon; while his article on the mating rituals of squids would be the Visayan text – photographs came from dive site off Cebu. His humorous retelling of his encounter with a saltwater crocodile in Palawan would be the Mindanao anecdote. And so we were off, with my editing trying to maintain the pitch and tenor of Gutsy’s own voice. Comment had been made that Gutsy tended to be too folksy or colloquial; but I argued that this was what precisely could give a book a singular voice. Rather than try and wax poetic or dryly academic, it was this very personalized Gutsy "voice" that could resonate within the pages, and give Bahura a unique quality that I had not seen yet in the other underwater photography books that had been presented to me.
When we were discussing the project, Gutsy mentioned how he’d be diving with the President over the following weekend; and as this was to be a showcase of the variety of marine life in Philippine waters, it was deemed a great idea to have GMA provide the "Foreword" for the book. This she not only did, but she graced the launch held at the Rigodon Ballroom of The Peninsula Manila. The launch was an unmitigated success, proving that when genuine global talent and the resultant exemplary product are on offer, people will respond with enthusiasm. Even Fil-American comedian Rex Navarrete, after performing at ABS Dish the night after Gutsy’s launch, pleaded that I get him a copy and have Gutsy sign it. Apparently, Rex has copies of Anilao and the other Gutsy coffee-table book.
While the people at the launch were more than receptive to the book and its merits, there still is the need to find a wider audience for this kind of dogged determination and accomplishment. Gutsy has produced a corpus of work that the whole world can notice and admire, we should also be doing our utmost to support him. A few years back, it was an award-giving body in France that recognized, with distinction, the book Anilao. During the launch, Amanda and Celine (Gabriel) made mention of how there was interest to launch Bahura in New York, that while the Philippine Consulate there was more than interested to help organize it at a Soho gallery, the financial aspect of staging such a launch made it not much more than a pipe dream right now. I wish the right parties and entities would take stock of this situation and help Guerilla Publishing make the appropriate "waves" abroad.
This month, an event at the CCP complex entitled Karangalan is being organized. Aimed at making the Filipino aware and proud of what is being achieved by Filipinos all over the world, Gutsy’s book is in essence, a microcosm or slice of how this drive for Filipino excellence can come in all shapes and sizes. It would be a shame if we ignored this book simply because it wasn’t some foreign publishing house that brought it into existence.
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