Through the Lens of my Camera
I’m still on level 10 right now. Everything feels so surreal. It still doesn’t want to sink in.
February, I was convinced by my good friend, Em Rances, to join the photo-essay competition organized by our Student Council. With the theme “There is beauty in devastation,” the first and only photo that came to my mind was my shot of Ateneo de Manila University Men’s Volleyball Team’s post-championship point celebration taken on 7 Mar 2015, Game 2 of the UAAP Season 77 Men’s Volleyball Finals.
Wednesday, 30 March 2016, the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (CHASS) student council announced on Facebook the most insane news I’ve ever seen: Two Sides of the Court--MY ENTRY--got the competition’s championship. I had never joined any competition of any kind the entire three years I’ve been in college, and it still feels so surreal that I won the first one. It’s crazy. It’s surprising. It’s awesome. It’s unbelievable.
Firsts are always the best, and like Ateneo’s first-ever championship, I will cherish this one forever.
Here’s the 200-word essay I composed about the photo and sent as my entry. Two hundred words is too short to tell all the stories behind the photo and before it even happened. In the world of journalism, photographs are called “cut” ‘cause it shows just a 100th of a sec of an entire event. Like a cut, I hope this one gives you a glimpse of the long long long journey these guys had to go through to reach the top of the mountain:
Two Sides of the Court
A little hard work, a little patience and it’s all worth the wait. - Coach Oliver Almadro
With this kind of mentality, Coach Oliver's squad--the Ateneo Men's Volleyball Team--convincingly clinched their first-ever UAAP Men's Volleyball crown in the school's & the league's history at the expense of two- time defending champions, National University Bulldogs.
Someone has to win; someone has to lose. That's what they always say. And that's the thing about sports: hearts have to be broken, tears have to flow. But tears don’t mean the same thing. On one side of the court, tears can mean triumph, overcoming adversities; on the other side, tears can mean despair, torment.
That’s just how life works. We’ll all have that looking-at-the-other-side-of-the-net moment, having that that-should-be-me thought. Someone just has to see that only through defeat will we learn how to stand up.
Ateneo were not right-away winners. They were once the ones crying in despair, suffering heartbreak--heartbreak administered by, guess what, National University.
And when the time to be on that winning side of the court comes, you just have to look back at the other side and recall all the adversities you faced unfazed, recall that you were once the one in tears.
Thanks for the photo, Em Rances! :)
This is all for you, AMVT, and for the greater glory of the master photographer in the heavens above! My camera and I will always be by your side. One big fight! (PIZZA NA THIS! Jk. HAHA!)
