Time out Tuesdays: Developing Kawit, Cavite

Welcome back to Time out Tuesdays, a continuing effort to share the stories that resonate with me and to keep myself constantly spelunking for the very best in photojournalism week after week, I've decided to start this new feature.

Every week, I'll post up a new photo story, video, picture or multimedia piece that I think gets it right and is worth taking a look at for study, ideas, appreciation and inspiration.

This week I take a look at Developing Kawit, Cavite, a look at the conflicts they arise when goverment interests and citizen interests come into a direct head-on collision.



The families that live along Boracay Blvd in Kawit, Cavite, Philippines are being asked to abandon their homes to make way for new factories and roads. Clearly it the type of story that deserves to be told, and by going multimedia photographer Diana Diroy is able to allow the story to tell itself in it's own words.

In Diroy's own words, via Daniel Sato:

According to residents living there, the area that they have been residing at for almost all their lives—some about 50 years— are being asked to leave because the space they are occupying is government owned. The government is now planning to develop roads, buildings, and factories and need the residents to leave. Some have no where to go and are asking for some kind of compensation to start over. Some are given money that is not enough, and some have had their houses demolished without given a cent.

Many residents who have revolved their lives around fishing, find themselves jobless because fish no longer occupy the water that is polluted from the rubble and garbage of the demolition. Many residents have no where to go and have no money to support their families….

I particularly like a sequence in the middle where the subject is walking to his home and the photographer inter cuts the home life of the subject. A good way to play with the narrative that shows that sometimes going chronological isn't always the best decision.

Very cinematic and I loved it.

Also the way new voices are introduced is simple and elegant in design and gets across everything you need to know and still remains un-intrusive.

The audio is well done and I get the sense that a lot of thought was put into them, particularly the transitional ambient sounds. However, I heard a few "uh-huh" type sounds from Diroy on the audio that should have been removed.

One suggestion I'd have is to stitch the panorama in the opening and pan across it to remove the herky-jerky movement.

And if you're wondering where the subtitles are, Diroy assured me that subtitles were coming soon. So stay tuned.

Diroy has sure come a long way in a very short time, I can't wait to see what she throws at us next.

*Full disclosure: Diroy is a close personal friend, but that doesn't mean it's not good work... yea, that's my story.