Shaira Luna: Glammed-up genius

MANILA, Philippines - She started to be in the limelight when broadsheets carried news in the late ‘80s about a two-year-old genius who could effortlessly discuss science and anatomy subjects.

Shaira Luna was that two-year-old girl and at that age, with an IQ of 164, she was sitting in the Science classes of Grade 6 students and dubbed as the next Doogie Howser. At eight, she was a TV commercial model for Promil, discussing the body’s cardiovascular system. At 13, she was in De La Salle University taking up Human Biology.

At a very young age, too, she learned to play several instruments including the piano, flute, guitar, drums and violin. Her maternal great grand father was a “genius conductor and everybody in his family played a musical instrument.”

Her parents — especailly her mom Jennifer Cordova-Villacorta, who, as a young Dentistry student, read to Shaira her med books while she was pregnant with her — expected their daughter to become a doctor.

She became a photographer instead. A celebrated, sought-after fashion photographer at that.

“I don’t like to sugarcoat. I did not finish college. I shifted to Organizational Communication, Psychology, Translation and Philippine Studies. I did not finish any,” she says. “I’m chill about it,” she says. She got “the chill mode” from her dad, Benito Luna.

At 18, she started to live on her own. “It was hard in the beginning. I had to sell my flute,” she recalls, tearfully. “Because I needed to buy a flash for my camera.” She also had to pawn the watch left to her by her mom because she did not have enough money for her transportation. (Shaira and her equally intelligent brother have half-siblings both on their mother’s and father’s sides. “And we are okay it. We love our parents. We love our family.”)

She could have had a good life, courtesy of her parents, if she were willing to go back to med school. But the  lure of photography, a skill she developed because she loved taking photos of bands playing here and there, was so big a force to contend with. Already, she saw her future as a photographer with the lens of her heart and mind.

“Photography, for me, is life,” says Shaira, who wakes up very early every day. “I wake up at 3 a.m. every day because I like the look of the day at that time. Then I begin to send e-mails, submit photos (to my principals or editors). I sleep only four hours a day.” She does not like to sleep a lot.

“I succeeded in not becoming a doctor. I am happy. I am always happy,” says Shaira, a self-taught photographer.

Knowing fully that her genius is within her, will Shaira still go back to school?

“Yes. But this time, to study perfume making.”

It’s just a matter of time before the photographer also becomes a perfumer. The fragrance of the future for Shaira is already in the air.

Photography by JO ANN BITAGCOL • Creative direction by Luis Espiritu Jr. • Makeup by RIA AQUINO for MAC Cosmetics • Hairstyling by Kierlo Velasco • Fashion styling by TARA SUBALDO • Jewelry by Miladay Jewels • White shorts, white vest and blue knitted top by Pio Pio and denim shorts by Two Chic by TC Alvarez • Shot on location at the PRESIDENTIAL SUITE of Conrad Manila