It began with a five-year-old girl discovering her mother’s Kodak film camera—tiny hands grasping a world of endless possibility. Click. The first glimpse of how light, time, and emotion could be captured in a frame.

But the love of photography? That began with watching my mother cherish moments through her Kodak camera. She had albums upon albums filled with our childhood, our family life, and even photographs of our ancestors. She still keeps photos from generations before us—faded yet alive, holding stories within them.

One of my favorites is a photograph of Mama Beth at her nurse graduation ceremony. My grandmother, Mama Pina, had traveled from the island of Siquijor, taking a ferry to Cebu, just to bring her niece her crisp white nurse uniform in time for the ceremony. That moment, frozen in time, reminds me that every photograph carries more than just an image—it carries love, sacrifice, and the stories we pass down.

Photography wasn’t just in my mother’s hands. My father had his own style—laidback, effortless, always capturing candid moments of us when we weren’t looking. My sister, too, knew the power of a frame. She mastered her angles, documenting her high school life through selfies and carefully printed photographs, turning them into scrapbooks—her own way of preserving time.

But photography wasn’t just something I observed. It was something my mother and I shared.

We spent hours together taking photos—it was our quality time. I still remember the night after my cousin’s wedding. I had been a flower girl, still wrapped in layers of satin and tulle, when we got home. Before I even changed into pajamas, my mother and I turned the living room into our own little studio. She directed, I posed. Click. A turn of the head. Click. A soft smile. Click. We weren’t just capturing moments—we were creating them.

Not every photoshoot was seamless, though. When my mother took pictures of my sister and me, I often couldn’t help myself—I had to goof around. She liked her shots poised, polished, and picture-perfect, while I wanted to run wild, pull faces, and be carefree. She would get annoyed, telling me to stay still, smile, pose properly, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to make photography fun.

The process didn’t end there. She would bring me along whenever it was time to develop our film at Kodak. It was always an exciting trip—walking into the shop, handing over the rolls of film, and waiting with anticipation. A few days later, we’d return, eager to see how the photos turned out. I loved flipping through the fresh prints, studying the way they captured the light, the expressions, the fleeting moments. I was fascinated by the process—curious about how photographs were manually developed in the darkroom, how a blank strip of film transformed into a tangible memory.

Years later, when I received my first laptop—a pink suede beauty gifted by my father—I started exploring photography on my own. The webcam became my first lens, a window into self-expression. I styled myself, posed, created, and made every frame an experiment in storytelling. When I finally held my first point-and-shoot pink and cute Samsung, I couldn't stop. Every trip, every moment, every fleeting glance of light—it all had to be captured.

At 13, I picked up my father’s video camera and directed my first music video. At 15, freshly out of high school, I unwrapped my first professional camera—a Nikon D3100, in red. It’s vintage now. That camera became my partner in crime, the tool through which I would frame the world, one moment at a time.

In college, at 16, I expanded that creativity into filmmaking. I directed a music video—wrote the storyboard, shot it myself, and edited it frame by frame. My two best friends played the main characters, and together, we created something that felt real. I submitted it for a class project, not thinking much of it.

One day, while I was walking through campus, a classmate from the IT department stopped me. “Hey, congrats on your award!” he said.

I blinked. “What award?”

Turns out, my music video had won, and I was supposed to receive an award on stage. At the event. In front of everyone. The only problem? I forgot the event was even happening. I had completely missed my own moment.

Still, the win was mine—even if I wasn’t there to claim it.

But photography wasn’t my only form of creativity.

If you’re wondering why the name?

Alphinarocks—born from my love for rock music and my days as a high school band vocalist. Creativity has always been my language, whether through sound or visuals. The same fire I felt performing on stage, I now pour into every frame. The energy, the storytelling, the raw emotion—my lens captures what I once channeled through music.

Photography, to me, has never been just about taking pictures. It’s about preserving what matters—the people, the emotions, the stories that deserve to live beyond memory.

And so, I never stopped.

The point-and-shoot, pink and cute Samsung that fit in my pocket, the red DSLR that became an extension of me—every device, every lens, every moment behind the camera shaped Alphinarocks into what it is today.

A story still unfolding.