EVERYDAY for the last three years, American Douglas Hero lugs his cameras and gear and walks to a photo shoot.
Every day, Hero goes to “work,” picking a series of random street corners, creating portraits of everyday people he meets mostly by chance, and then posting these of a page he created on Facebook.
The 34-year-old, six feet six and a half inches tall Mormon from Utah said he has been averaging 50 photos a day for the past three years, in the process creating enough photos to fill about seven 1-terrabyte-sized hard drives.
“People would see me taking pictures of other people and then they would ask me to take their pictures. Then, when they see their pictures in Facebook, they would be delighted and they would introduce me to some of their friends,” Douglas said.
Douglas says the portraits are for a personal project he calls “Humans of Cagayan de Oro,” a project patterned after the “Humans of New York” documentary project by Brandon Stanton whom Douglas met briefly before coming to the Philippines in 2012.
A mountain biker and former bicycle store owner in Orem, Utah, Douglas said he so admired Stanton’s project to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants that, after being in the city for a year, he decided to embark on a similar project.
Recounting the events that led him to his project, Douglas said he was taking a stroll at the MacArthur Park when a group of school girls in pink uniforms caught his attention. He said he took about 20 photos of the school girls.
“When I looked at those pictures of the Lourdes girls, I remembered this guy from New York,” he said.
“The guy Brandon of the ‘Humans of New York’ wanted other photographers like me to spread the practice of taking pictures of people in cities and post them on social media,” he said.
“Remembering him and looking at those photographs, I then decided to start my own version of his project here in Cagayan de Oro,” Douglas said.
“What is so lovely about this thing I’m doing is the fact that I meet and make so many friends along the paths I go to everyday,” he said.
He said he’s made so many friends that in all the time he has been here, he’s never gotten lonely.
Douglas said he is particularly interested in making photos of people in their everyday carefree selves.
His photographs have featured Kagay-anons in parks, in streets, in malls, in schools, and in almost any public place he might end up.
“Filipinos only have two poles when they are faced with a camera lens. It’s either they become very shy and they try to avoid the camera or walk out of the place entirely or they can be so camera loving that sometimes they would even ask me specific angles in taking my picture. But what I generally like about the people of this city and this country is that, even if it’s entirely different from where I came from, people really know how to smile and have some fun,” he said.
But taking random pictures of strangers can also sometimes lead to trouble, Douglas said.
“There was actually this time when I wanted to take pictures of these children who were playing in the park when suddenly adults came and shouted at me ‘Why are you taking pictures of these children!’ as if I was doing something really dangerous to them when in fact I only wanted to take some shots,” Douglas said.
The occasional trouble aside, Douglas said his stay in Cagayan de Oro has generally been pleasant, so much so that at the moment, he does not see himself leaving anytime soon.
Douglas said he never paid any heed to all the bad press concerning Mindanao.
“After I was here somebody was telling my dad that the place was not safe. Once I went to Claveria (Misamis Oriental) and somebody told me it was not safe to stay so I stayed the night,” he said.
“I think Filipinos are overly cautious. I’m overly not cautious. People are always saying be careful. If I wanted to be careful , I just would have stayed in Utah,” he said.
“The Philippines is not so different from America. Certain places here are exactly like places in America. I mean, they speak English here and it's like Southern California,” Douglas said.
“I didn’t really come with a plan. I still have no plan,” he said.
“I only planned to come here for two months. And then I missed my plane, I don’t know why. So I said to myself I’ll add two more months, and then after that, two more months,” he said.
It is not a smart idea, he concedes, and funds have been running low.
He said he gets by doing event photography for friends for a minimal fee, which, he adds with a smile, he spends on camera equipment.
Douglas said a foreigner like himself could not really make a decent living in Cagayan de Oro the way an expat could in, say, Bangkok, teaching English.
But, he said, he lives “really cheap” in a boarding house with 15 other people and a common bathroom.
He has also adapted to eating what the locals eat--rice and veggies.
“At some point I will have go back (to America),” Douglas said.
He said he will go back when he feels he can make a living making photographs.
“I really don’t know when I’ll go home since this place feels like home already. But I'm sure that no matter how many times I go back to my own soil, I will never be able to fight the urge to come back and see more of this country,” he said.
Asked why, he said unlike any other place he’s been, here “it never gets old to have people happy to see you.”
With that he slings his camera on his shoulders and once more goes on his way to shoot one more photo and capture one more smile.