Raymund Isaac: The Kid Stays in the Picture

On a Saturday afternoon, photographer Raymund Isaac’s chameleon of a studio (its various corners and stairways can double as background setups) hums with the attendant buzz of a photo-shoot-in-progress. On the second floor prep corner, Marc Nelson is getting primped by a makeup artist. Nearby, past walls of framed photographs by Isaac featuring almost every big-name celebrity in the country, a stylist rolls out a rack of costume changes. On the third floor office space, three assistants work the computers; and in the conference table/dining area of the same floor, the heart of the whole operation sits at the table finishing lunch, and watching cartoons.

This singular scene, a slice of the daily life of the one of the country’s most in-demand photographers, is perhaps among the most defining. After 25 years as a professional shutterbug, Isaac has achieved what few others have, all without compromising the child-like side of him. Isaac, who likes to quote the sage turtle in Kung Fu Panda when talking about his life, and for whom cartoons are a TV staple, runs a successful photography outfit and is booked two months in advance. His current portfolio of clients includes, among many others, local retail giants and foreign publications. Jetting off to far-off places for work is a monthly, if not month-long, reality. Coming up on his calendar: Singapore for a teaching stint, and Europe in September for a book project with German photobook publisher Bruno Gmunder.

In Focus

Because he is always the guy with the camera, Raymund Isaac is often left out of pictures. But throughout his career, the focus has often shifted to the man behind the lens for frequently going down the road less traveled. He championed cross-processing when many others thought it was a mistake. And when few of the veteran photographers were willing to share techniques with the neophytes, he conducted classes on how to shoot with beauty light, a specific lighting technique. “There were those who asked me ‘Why are you teaching our secrets?’” Isaac recalls. “The thinking behind that must have been that we were going to lose out to younger photographers. But I thought that was a totally unfounded fear. Photography is about a different eye all the time. And that’s the beauty of it.”

This self-possession has allowed Isaac to leap from one milestone to another as a foremost fashion and beauty photographer, often resulting in surreal circumstances. In the 1980s, he sent a postcard of one of his photographs to American Photo Magazine, and on the flipside wrote a note inquiring after the absence of Asian photographers in the magazine’s pages. The response was completely unexpected: mistaking his postcard as an entry, the editor informed Isaac that he had just won the top prize of the magazine’s beauty and glamour photo contest. The next year Isaac, and for two more years thereafter, did send in an entry, and won the same prize each time.

“In the fifth year, another Filipino won — Xander Angeles,” says Isaac. “Just goes to show Filipinos are good at what we do.” Pinoy pride plays a large part in Isaac’s sense of self. This is why, despite numerous offers to work abroad, he has opted to stay home. “From here I get to dictate my own terms,” he says, relishing the hard-earned privilege. “And they just have to fly me over.”

And when he was commissioned by Ford Models New York to shoot the Linda Evangelista in Manila at the height of her supermodel fame, it was a welcome distinction that Isaac enjoyed. But he quickly became a kind of reluctant celebrity in fashion circles as the one, perhaps the only one, who dared to “bitch back at the bitch,” as one fashion reporter put it. The whole episode — during which Isaac walked out of the Manila Hotel photo shoot as the famously difficult supermodel hurried after him with a flurry of apologies — came up when TalkAsia’s Lorraine Haan interviewed Isaac on the cable news show. “It was so hard to stick to my resolve to not talk about it,” shares Isaac. “I don’t like to dwell on past things. I like to think I have selective amnesia.”

Of his more recent work, his black-and-white billboards of Lea Salonga for Bayo stood out like the classy pantsuit along Metro Manila’s laundry line of full-color tarpaulins. His current ad campaign for SM Shoemart featuring Charlene Gonzales and Marc Nelson are likewise earning raves for their polished simplicity and rich textures.

Kid Stuff

If Isaac’s selective amnesia blots out the rather unsavory experiences, the rest of him takes in the world with the unconditional openness of an enthusiastic kid. Everything — from old sepia-toned photographs, items collected from his numerous travels, snapshots he takes with his current favorite travel companion, a Canon Digital Ixus with a camel-colored leather casing — is a source of inspiration. Clicking open a striking and whimsical image he had taken, he says, “Dumplings. I was thinking of dumplings that day.”

“I’m a hopeful romantic,” says the self-proclaimed packrat who forms sentimental attachments to everything he owns, and therefore finds it hard to let go of anything.

His office space is prime proof of this romantic sensibility; here, hi-tech gadgets coexist with objects salvaged from an older, more genteel time. With the spirit of a genuine collector, he can share a little backsstory to everything that he owns. There’s Isaac’s 21-inch titanium-finish iMac (one of eight computers in the office floor), sitting on his desk, a beautiful hardwood tabletop that used to be a door. There are the transparent bubble speakers he bought in Bangkok for a song. On a glass and wood cabinet, along with volumes of hardbound and old editions of Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, is one of Isaac’s four iPods. On one corner shelf is an air purifier, one of five.

As the consummate consumer, Isaac can find anything for every need, and a need for everything he finds. He loves to cook, and his kitchen is stocked with nifty little gadgets such as automatic onion cutters, garlic crushers and electric can openers. “Gadgets give me comfort,” he explains, at once amused and self-conscious at what begins to sound like a massive appetite for technology. “Music helps me work, so I have an iPod that stores songs of different genres that I use for the shoots — upbeat, retro, jazzy. Then there’s another one I have to take with me on flights to distract me from feeling claustrophobic.” And because he loves watching TV, he has a total of seven sets.

It’s only fitting that his primary preoccupation, photography, has required of him the most number of gadgets. But like many of his caliber, Isaac is quick to caution against the tendency to be so enamored with hi-tech equipment. “Technology is there for you to use it, and not be a slave to it,” he warns. Taking his own advice, Isaac concentrates instead on the art and discipline that informs photography, and on photographic adventures that wear out his cameras but bring home great images.

“I go through cameras relatively quickly,” he says. “Like that one I take on location shoots, one time it got seawater in it. Some of my cameras end up really laspag.” He doesn’t know how many there are lurking in his office and home, but off the top of his head, he can name a few — a Canon 5D, a Canon 30D, two Nikons, three Hasselblaads, and two 4 x 5 format cameras. And Isaac has kept every single camera he has ever owned, including the one his mother (who used to be his assistant and who is now his studio manager) would help him lug around while on assignment in Hong Kong in the Eighties. And for someone who has had such a colorful career as he has, that makes for a quite a storied collection.