Tags: Photography, Visual arts
By Anna Valmero
LUMBAN, LAGUNA—A poet once said that a picture paints a thousand words. The photos of Teodulo Protomartir are beyond that, his images resurrected the vista of what old Manila used to look like, handing down to the present generation the scenes of pre- and post-war Manila.
The photograph of the American flag hauled down on July 4, 1946 would have been the only surviving photo of Protomartir until fellow Lumban native and “Bubble Gang” director Uro Dela Cruz discovered about three years ago a vintage folder camera from the 1930s in a thrift shop in Kamuning, with the help of his special effects supervisor, Peter Chuidan.
“If not for him (Protomartir), we would have been unable to see the beauty of old Manila. His pictures immortalized, how Manila looked like before and after the Second World War and it also showed us that just a decade before the war, there is a group of pioneering photographers who also practice what we call street photography, which I knew of to be practiced only in the 1970s by the Vitugs, Razons or Peraltas,” says Direk Uro.
Sadly, not much information is available about Protomartir, said Direk Uro.
Oral accounts say he was born in 1903 and died in 1972. Even the owner of the thrift shop who sold Protomartir’s old photos and films know little about him except that he is the pioneer of Philippine photography.
What Direk Uro knows about Protomartir are based on conversations with thrift shop owners and Chit Contreras, a descendant of Protomartir.
Most of the photos in Protomartir’s collection were also gone, including the larger 5×7 and 8×10 negatives that were thrown away after camera shops told the thrift shop owner Mr. George that they cannot be printed due to lack of larger printers.
Some succumbed to decay after decades and its chemicals were leached into its paper casing.
What was amazing about Protomartir and his group, dubbed “33mm Club Manila”, is the pioneering use of rangefinder cameras in the 330-millimeter format, a standard that was newly developed by the Germans then, says Direk Uro.
“It was the 1930s, 35mm film was fairly new, and these young photographers were pioneering something that went against the norm, when large format cameras were the accepted tools of the medium. And when I bought the photos and showed it to some of my friends, they told me that nobody has even done street photography as early as circa 1930 in the country so they are really pioneers,” he says.
The street shots of from Protomartir’s camera include children bathing at Manila Bay and soaking under the sun, a photo overlooking the Mayon Volcano taken from a station in Daraga in Albay, a fruit vendor sitting on the ground with several American soldiers marching on the background, a street scene at Plaza Miranda showing the uniformed guard (similar to the grey-uniformed Guardia Sibil we see at Intramuros today), an farmer and a carabao in Sta. Mesa before it was industrialized and a Lenten celebration when devotees lash themselves with thorny plants.
There were also photos of Protomartir while taking pictures of a nude woman or while teaching a girl the use of a rangefinder and of course, him and his protégés and fellow club members.
“He was the master, the sensei of the group,” Direk Uro says. (View more photos here)
But what inspired Direk Uro to take the responsibility of turning Protomartir’s celluloid films into photographs is when he saw a picture of the young Protomartir standing beside a sign and looking at a Lucban hut.
“I used to see that same hut and that sign that says “1500 feet above sea” everyday when I go to school because I came from Lucban. And when I saw that photo that he came from my town, I was excited. Who is this Protomartir? He must be really passionate about what he does because during my childhood, Lucban is about four hours of rough road from Los Baños (in Laguna).”
It was a given that Protomartir and his group, based on their attire, came from affluent families to afford the Leicas and its mount lenses. Aside from photo walkabouts for street photography, the group used to hold regular meetings to showcase their latest 33mm rangefinder camera and host a radio program about photography.
Rangefinder cameras were used by famous photographers then because it has two viewfinders “so you never lose sight of the subject,” explains Direk Uro.
Between 2007 and the middle of this year, Direk Uro collaborated with Isa Tolentino and Silverlens Gallery to turn Protomartir’s brittle but valuable 35mm negatives into photographs, some of which show some 50 new photos of Manila after the Americans hauled their flag to declare our independence on July 4, 1946.
It seems Protomartir used the same camera to document the day, walking around Malate, Dewey, Kalaw, Luneta, Intramuros and Escolta. He even photographed the old structure of Quirino Grandstand during the 1946 Independence Day celebration when it was facing the sea, the exact opposite of the structure that now faces Rizal Park.
The vintage photos of Protomartir also documented the ravages of the Second World War and what was left of infrastructures in Manila after and what was lost, including the old Sto. Domingo Church, which is one of the six Churches that once stood in Spanish Intramuros.
For 40 years, there stood the home of Our Lady of La Naval before it was bombed in 1941.
Inspired by Protomartir’s photos, Direk Uro and other rangefinder camera buffs formed “Rangefinder Filipinas” to honor him. In case you were wondering if the vintage camera he got from the Kamuning thrift shop belongs to Protomartir, indeed it does.
Direk Uro adds that the vintage camera has “hieroglyphic inscriptions” at the back of the camera, where LCD viewers of digital cameras are now located. It turned out that the inscriptions were actually “a guide to exposure with experimental combinations of aperture and shutter speeds”, he said.
Protomartir grew to a ripe old age and was even photographed in 1970 lying on a raft, a light meter on his chest and several rangefinder cameras beside him. That photo, which luckily was resurrected, showed Protomartir wearing black sunglasses, which he wore until he died two years later.
“Protomartir was blind some two years before he died but you will see how passionate he is for his craft,” Direk Uro said
A film loyalist, Direk Uro continues to collects old photos of long-gone Manila theaters and vintage cameras to show his respect to pioneering Filipino photographers such as like Protomartir who turned celluloid film into photos, decades before the digital camera became ubiquitous and turned almost everyone into an amateur photographer.
“What Protomartir and his peers did seven decades ago, that is to create events from non-events such as street scenes, allowed us to capture photos not of Presidents and other prominent people but life in the raw, as it happens, and we owe it to him for letting us know what happened to our country back then.”
Silverlens Gallery is located at 2320 Pasong Tamo Extension, Yupangco Building 2, Makati City, Makati City. For inquiries, call (02) 8160044 or check out the website.
Museum Foundation of the Philippines is located at G/F, Museum of the Filipino People (Old Finance Building), Valencia Circle, Rizal Park, Manila. For inquiries, call (02) 4042685 or check out the website.
(Photos courtesy of Direk Uro Dela Cruz)
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Anna,
Please check your dateline.
Mr. Protomartir is either from Lumban in Laguna or Lucban in Quezon Province. But I think he must be from Lucban, Quezon. There is no such place as Lumban, Quezon.
[“I used to see that same hut and that sign that says “1500 feet above sea” everyday when I go to school because I came from Lucban. And when I saw that photo that he came from my town, I was excited. Who is this Protomartir? He must be really passionate about what he does because during my childhood, Lucban is about four hours of rough road from Los Baños (in Laguna).”]
Thank you for sharing this bit of info on Protomartir. I’ve seen some of his photographs and indeed they give the viewer an appreciation of Manila during the 2nd quarter of the 20th Century.