A Book on the first Filipino photographer

By Herbert Vego

DO you know that the first professional Filipino photographer, Felix Laureano (1866-1952), was a native of Bugasong, Antique?

Yes, according to the biographical book “From Bugasong to Barcelona,” which will be launched at the Little Theater of the University of the Philippines (UP), Iloilo City on Saturday, July 26.

It is a product of 15 years of research by Canada-based Francisco “Frank” G. Villanueva, a BA summa cum laude at UP-Iloilo City and a retired Social Science and Speech professor thereat.

His interest in Laureano began when he received a copy of Laureano’s photograph sent by Laureano’s grandniece to a Barcelona professor, Maria de los Santos Garcia Felguerra.

Was Laureano a son of a Spanish priest?

Villanueva’s book says that Laureno was born in 1866 in Bugasong, Antique but flourished in Barcelona, Spain.

But an on-line source, Wikipedia, says that while Felix grew up in Bugasong, he was born in the neighboring town of Patnongon to Spanish Augustinian priest Manuel Asensio and Norberta Laureano de los Santos.

Villanueva researched Laureano’s 1895 book “Recuerdos de Filipinas” in Barcelona, which is filled with photographs and essays, mostly on Panay provinces, during the last years of the Spanish colonial period. Dedicated to the Filipino painter Juan Luna, it is considered to be the first photobook by a Filipino.

The same book, originally written in Spanish, was exhibited during the 1895 Exposicion Regional de Filipinas in Manila, along with his original photographs.

It was translated and edited in English in 2001 by Felice Noelle Rodriguez, Ramon Sunico, and Renan Prado, and titled “Memories of the Philippines.”

Laureano’s essays focused on the customs and habits of Filipinos in Iloilo, which showed his familiarity with Hiligaynon words and phrases.

Fourteen of the 37 photographs captured Panay during his time, such as the rivers of Bugasong and Jalaud, the slopes of Ulian and Tagbacan, the Muelle or pier area, the Jaro Cathedral, the old Oton Basilica destroyed by a 1948 earthquake, and the clean and wide streets of Iloilo—Calle del Progreso (De la Rama Street) and Calle Iznard (Iznart Street).

The photos recreated everyday life as seen in a wedding and funeral; pounding palay or chopping wood; wooden carts pulled by carabao; river scenes where women and children bathe, wash clothes, and gossip; fairs and markets, and the Jaro market day on Thursday that continues to this day; festivals and events such as the Sinulog, Ati-Ati, or even a corrida or bullfight at Plaza de Iloilo, one of the only two bullfight rings in the country, after Manila.

He opened his first photo studio in Calle Iznart, Iloilo. While not much is known on how Laureano learned photography, Villanueva notes that he may have apprenticed himself to a master photographer in Manila.

At 21, exhibited 40 photographs of “Visayan scenic views and types” at the 1887 Exposicion General de Filipinas in Madrid, and received “honorable mention.”

In those days, photographers relied on “fototipia” (collotype), a gelatin-based photographic process invented in 1855 and started to be used in Spain during the early 1870s.

The same honor was accorded him the next year at the 1888 Exposicion Universal de Barcelona.

Laureano studied the techniques of artistic photography in Paris and attended the 1889 Universal Exposicion where the Eiffel Tower was launched.

Between 1892 and 1901, Laureano opened three studios in Barcelona; in 1892, he opened his portrait studio Gran Fotografia Colon in Las Ramblas, one of the main commercial streets of the city, like Manila’s Escolta.

“La Solidaridad,” the newspaper edited by Ilonggo reformist Graciano Lopez Jaena, congratulated him in 1893 for opening a studio in Barcelona.

It was not until 1896 that Laureano’s works as a professional photographer broke in print in various journals in Spain.

Two of his colored photographs were reproduced in an 1899 issue of Album Salon, the first Spanish illustrated magazine in color.

Laureano came back to Iloilo City in 1930 and stayed here until the end of the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

He died in a Makati hospital at age 86 in 1952.