Steve Murphy Photography

Phantom 4 1/190 ISO 100. Drone has fixed aperture, f/2.8, used ND8 filter. Edit w/HDR Efex Pro tone mapping See entire gallery here . We decided to take a little holiday as the kids here had no class 8/21-22 due to Ninoy Aquino Day and also the ending of Eid. Canyon Cove was booked so we chose Pico de Loro. Sidebar: Not a good experience booking with Agoda.com. The place we booked was a condo (truthfully, just a glorified hotel room) because we had 3 adults and 2 kids, needed the room. The problem comes because these units are owned by someone and normally you deal with them. There was no passthru of information between Agoda and the owner. When we arrived, they had no idea we were coming. I did have the email confirmation and attachment on my phone but it did no good. We had to start from the beginning.  Moral of the story: In all cases, book directly with the resort rather than a booker (Agoda, Expedia, etc.). Another stop for lunch at Kainan sa Dalampasigan li...

See entire gallery here . Another quick trip to the coast, this time to Lian - which is still part of Batangas province but further south than Nasugbu ( map here ). We took Joelet's Dad along this time who showed us where to go. Basically, it was an abandoned subdivision - lots of streets and empty lots. No houses anywhere. The only structure was the "Activity Center": Also abandoned, no running water . . . but at least we had shade in which to sit. There was actually an unarmed guard on duty who followed us, fascinated with the drone. I think the best word to use to describe the area is 'bucolic'. Lots of farmland, vegetation. the odd cow and goat here and there. The beach is not one I would choose to frolic but the scenery is nice: Following this, we drove back east toward home in Balayan to the home of one of Joelet's aluminum & glass business workers. The purpose here was to find the huge solar panel farm in Calatagan. Jo ...

Nasugbu - Natipuan Cove                         Our next journey took us to the west to Nasugbu, which is also a part of Batangas province. I had already droned over the Baywalk in Balayan, which is on the southern coast. When we arrived in town, power was out everywhere. Power outages are a fact of life here in the P.I. - you just live with them. Other than buy a generator, there is nothing to do about it. The infrastructure is not keeping up with the population. We stopped at an eatery - Kainan sa  Dalampasigan. All stills taken with my Nikon 1 J5. The rough translation is: Beach dining room. One of the many things I have learned since being here is that there are many words in the Tagalog (Filipino) language that have no direct English counterparts. And vice versa, many times as well. Sit in on an extended conversation among the people and listen carefully, you will hear English words sprinkled in. ...

Tagaytay/Lake Taal Flyover Click above for the drone video. Click here for the image gallery. Our first drone trip last January was cut short due to the Phantom 4 drone malfunctioning in Coron, Palawan. Words cannot express my disappointment but the silver lining is that we now have a reason to return! For this trip, we traveled north to Tagaytay to the first restaurant we dined at in February of 2016, the Taalena : Good food, ambiance, open air. We like to sit at the outside tables. This is one of the few places in the Philippines where you can get really cool breezes. That dish above is called  Sinigang_na_hipon . A soup made with hipon (shrimp), tamarind, tomato, okra, string bean, kangkong (swamp cabbage). I passed this time but will try it next time, in the spirit of Anthony Bourdain and learning new culture. For now, I had the pork & chicken adobo with garlic rice. Joelet got permission from the management to fly the drone out back, in the are...