A gentleman of the old school

Artist Mario Parial likes to go against the grain, and in the golden age of digital technology, he has chosen to return to the earlier days of photography, when the world was black and white and film was king. It is just the kind of temperament one might expect from someone who speaks softly and who exudes a quiet, Old World elegance even in the most casual setting — his painting studio.

It is in this bright, glass-walled room, stocked top to bottom on one side with paintings and painting materials, that Mario Parial spends a large chunk of his days completing pieces that eventually contribute to an already impressive body of work. Inspired by the energy of fiestas, his works have largely focused on the richness of our local culture, and his subjects range from mothers and children to farmers, vendors, fishermen and other familiar figures of the Philippine landscape.

And it’s also in this studio where he brings out the tools that, as a break from his work, are part of his hobby: photography. From plastic containers lined with packets of silica to prevent moisture, he brings out a number of vintage cameras and carefully arranges them on a drafting table. The artist, ironically, approaches his break-time hobby with the mind of scientist — curious, relentless, obsessive and disciplined. “The more I learn about photography,” he says, “the more I realize how little I know, and how much more there is to understand.”

And everything he knows he has learned through voracious reading, research, experimentation, and to some degree, improvisation. Trained in the fine arts, under the mentorship of the greats — Vicente Manansala, Carlos “Botong” Francisco and Antonio Austria — Parial enjoys a reputation as a painter whose mastery of technique and color have resulted in richly textured and highly detailed works. But as a photographer, he is purely self-taught.

“I’m not really a collector. I’m more of a user,” he clarifies, explaining that he doesn’t hold on to cameras for the sake of seeing them neatly lined up on a shelf. He has sold more than half of the 50 or so vintage cameras he has ever owned and kept the 14 that he has not yet outgrown and that he still uses, each for a unique desired effect.

Relying on product descriptions, reviews and other literature found on the Internet, Parial often buys his cameras from eBay. Acquiring each camera is a process he evidently enjoys. “I love reading product descriptions of cameras,” he says. “I study them, I learn new things, and I canvass for the best options.” The body of a good camera can cost anywhere between $500 to $700; lenses go for around $80.

The improvisation part of this whole process forms a great deal of the fun Parial derives from his hobby. Most of his purchases are bought from sellers based abroad, and from the time he posts the winning bid to the day he actually roams the streets, clicking away with his new toy, the excitement builds. “Sometimes it’s airmailed to me, and sometimes I need to figure out who can bring it home from the US,” he says.

Sometimes, his son-in-law (who is married to his daughter, Ochie; both are based in the US) gets first crack at a new delivery and reports its merits back to Parial, who, thousands of miles away, is happily losing sleep over the latest addition to his lineup of cameras.

What he currently displays on the drafting table is virtual history, part of the development of German photographic technology, with a bit of Russian thrown in. It includes a Leica III-F circa 1950 with a collapsible Summitar lens and lens hood, a 1936 Argus with a US-made body and German lens, a black nickel-finish Leica III fitted with a Canon viewfinder, a Zoki from Russia, and a 2000 Voightlander from Germany that’s based on an old design. Among the few digital cameras he owns is a tiny one by Minox, makers of spy cameras, whose only concession to the stealth game is its size: it is small, yes, but it looks like a shrunken version of an older Leica sibling.

The classic lenses — 30s, 40s, 50s, and 60mms — by Leica, Canon and Carl Zeiss are kept in a special dehumidifying closet.

“Vintage cameras are like cars,” he says. “Each one has a story. Where it was made, who made it, what was going on in the world at the time it was made. There’s a whole interesting history to each one.”

Should a “new” old camera need a little cleaning, he merrily heads off to Quiapo, and on to R. Hidalgo Street, where a fixture familiar to most local photographers can clean and fix any kind of manual camera: Mang Bert. By all accounts, Mang Bert sounds like a major character in this subculture populated by photography buffs and gadget geeks. “He can feel his way through the workings of any manual camera,” says Parial. When he visits, Parial, as part of the routine, will ask Mang Bert, “Anong bago natin diyan?” And by new, he definitely means old.

Into the future, and back to the past

Photography was an early passion, dating back to his high school years at the Roosevelt Memorial High School in Quezon City. He would borrow his classmate’s Petri rangefinder, a Japanese-made camera, and take pictures of whatever caught his attention — weeds on the sidewalk, flowers — on the way home from school.

Like a kid with a secret obsession, he would save up part of his baon for a roll of 12-exposure film, which he would maximize and extend over a two-week period. For Parial, the exercise in budgeting film led to careful consideration of his subjects and formed in him a habit of precision shooting. Later on, at the University of Santo Tomas, where he was a student at the College of Fine Arts, he fell in with a likeminded tribe that included photographers for The Varsitarian, the school paper.

The decades that followed saw a rapid advancement in technology, but Parial admits he was slow to catch on — until a singular moment some time in the mid-1980s changed his life: one afternoon he found himself alone at home and unable to watch TV because he couldn’t figure out how to work the remote control. “Naisip ko, ‘di pwede ‘to,” he says. It was, he narrates, the start of a deliberate effort to update himself with the latest in technology. Later on, he learned how to navigate the Internet and bought himself a digital point-and-shoot.

Flash-forward to the present, and his current obsession is literally a thing of the past.

Why vintage cameras? “Digital cameras have made things too easy, and much of the output is the same — uniformly sharp,” he says. “Mas mabilis na ngayon dahil sa technology, pero mas challenging yung dati. And I like challenging things.”

“The Leicas take good black-and-white photos,” he adds. “They give you the complete tonal values. You can appreciate the depths. Even in the blacks, you can still make out figures. Many of the legendary Life magazine correspondents used Leicas.”

At work on a two-year-old mixed-media project (photography and painting), Parial devotes a part of his day to taking photographs, as artistic expression for himself, or as references for his paintings. “I wake up at 5:30 in the morning, take my coffee, open the computer and check what’s new on eBay, then I go for my daily walk,” he says.

“What I enjoy most about photography is the human involvement,” he explains. “It’s a medium of artistic expression of the one taking the photos — the composition and the choice of subject, combined with the event.”

Instead of a dog, he “walks” a camera around the neighborhood, taking photos of everyday scenes along the way, just like he used to back in high school. He mimes cradling a camera and his eyes light up with a boyish glee. “I walk and take pictures of people and scenes, then I sit down at Jollibee, McDonald’s or Tropical Hut for breakfast, I buy hot chocolate or palabok as pasalubong for Mrs. Parial, then I walk home. By eight, I’m ready to paint in my studio.” The images he has gathered on these walks make up the bulk of the still-untitled mixed-media project he plans to exhibit later this year.

With a painter’s highly developed sense of composition, he takes black and white photographs, then paints touches of color on the prints to add more texture. The result? Everyday moments captured on film, and elevated to an art form.