Future Perfect: Grain of truth

MANILA, Philippines - When Aleyn Comprendio consumed her first roll of TLR film, she didn’t know anything. She didn’t know the right camera settings and got a strip of dark images. She also didn’t know of her nearsightedness and got many blurred photos thereafter. On the other hand, she says, “When you don’t know anything, you have no problem trying to figure things out, and you have no pressure. You just shoot what you like and what you feel like.”

Now part of the top-notch wedding videography house Mayad Studios, Comprendio has already learned her apertures and ISOs, but with her 35mm Pentax cameras, Prudence and Lucy, she remains faithful to her style: spontaneous and intuitive. This landed her a duo exhibit, “Southern Stories,” with fellow film photographer Charles Buenconsejo in Heima last month. At the same time, she just got her photo published on the cover of a young adult book, The Lonely Hearts. Heima is also set to release its new catalog, shot by Aleyn in her signature outdoor location and girl model.

Take that: Rising film photographer Aleyn Comprendio

She calls them “forgotten childhood memories,” saying, “I imagine these girls as myself.” In her mirroring process, the girls are in Anne of Green Gables. It is always a coming-of-age story. Turning 26 this month, Comprendio says, “I don’t act my age.” By that, she means that her mind is dominated by girl fantasies, like the Lula magazine photos by Yelena Yemchuk, the wilderness lookbooks by Tim Barber, and the surreal sets of Tim Walker. “I can’t drive,” she says. “I space out when I’m in a car.” When she puts on her headphones, playing indie folk like Seabear, Keaton Henson, and The Last Morning Soundtrack, her friends know where her mind is.

“It’s the other side of things,” she says, revealing that her chilly-looking landscapes are all taken in Iloilo. And her models? They’re all locals, too. “They mostly have light features, and they can carry a blank expression,” Aleyn says of her casting requirements. The result: girls who might as well be Scandinavian but are not, frames that are so displaced they become universal. “Later, when people (from around the world) blogged about me, that’s when I realized maganda pala.”

Vitamin sea: Aleyn Comprendio likes to capture the other side of things.

While working on her chance to shoot for magazines like Lula or for brands like Urban Outfitters, she started a new photography series featuring girl illustrators like her friend, Valerie Chua, and she continues to learn through Mayad Studios. She says, “If I went to film school or studied fine arts, I’d be totally different.”

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Visit aleyncomprendio.com.