The Philippines is a very complicated country. Almost each and every region or province in the Philippines has their own customs and mini cultures. This is one of the reasons why it is fun in the Philippines. Just imagine going first in Manila which is the capital city of the Philippines, you stayed there for let's say a week and you think you know almost everything about the Philippines and then you decided to go to Cebu and hello world! You'll be greeted by the shock of your life coz Cebu has their own native language and it's not Filipino which is our national language.

Now let us go with photography which is my topic for today. There is a huge trend in Photography especially in the Visayas and Mindanao areas where there are a lot of "Bisaya" people, meaning people who speaks the Bisaya language. We call it "Pitik" or "Pitik Photography", in Bisaya pitik means to flick your finger to hit something or someone in a quick motion. Similar to it's meaning, "Pitik Photography" is also a type of photography where you take a photo of something that is moving either slowly or fast. While other people who do "Pitik Photography" that I know of also photographs still people but most of the time it would be a moving person example a person riding a motorcycle, or a person riding a bike or a person riding a car or in a car. "Pitik Photography" could also be the Philippine version of Street Photography since most of these Pitik Photography sessions occur in the streets, parks, roads and highways. But the keynote there is "most" since Pitik can also be done inside Malls, Restaurants and other not so public places.

I am not sure if there is also a Pitik Photography trend in the Tagalog areas, if someone can confirm this for me I would really be glad. Anyways if you see a bunch of guys holding a DSLR or a Mirrorless Camera on the streets, roads and highways then it would most likely be a group of "Mamitikay" or "Pitik Photographers". Some would pass by then slowly and look at the camera and say "Pa Pitik Master" which means "Can you take a photo of me please". Common phrases such as "Salamat sa Pitik Master" which means "Thank you for taking a picture of me sir" can be seen in the Facebook Pages of each of those "Pitik Photographers".

As an aspiring photographer such as myself doing "Pitik" is one way of practicing my photography skills while promoting myself to the public. I may not want to be a professional photographer who earns money with their photography skills. Rather I do it as a form of hobby and if I can blog it here in Hive and earn a little bit of beer money then that is good enough for me. To most mamitikay that I know is they do it to promote themselves since most of them are professional or aspiring professional photographers/videographers.

Earlier this afternoon, I was in the tennis court near our park coz I was teaching my son how to ride a bike. I brought my Panasonic Lumix FZ80 with me so I can take photos of my son riding his bike. Just a few minutes after we arrived at the tennis court a teenager boy came to me and asked if I was a mamitikay and I said "No not really" because I was not yet ready. I have already made my Facebook Page and posted some photos in it but it was not even a Pitik since there were no people in the photos that I shared. Then this kid said "Pa pitik kuya beh sige na" which means "Can you take a photo of me please". I couldn't really refuse since I was holding my camera in my hand and so I took a photo of him. And so he told me I should just go and be a mamitikay so that he and his friends could have a photo and might become famous in our town. So he called out one of his friend and so the photoshoot challenge has begone for me.

After we were done with the photoshoot, we talked more about my soon to be mamitikay career. They told me suggestion on how to improve my shots and how to improve my followers in Facebook especially from our town. He was the one who even suggested to me that I should take a photo of the guys practicing skateboard in our tennis court.

And lastly, a Pitik session isn't really complete, without including random people within the vicinity.

Never date your mistress in a public place coz you will get caught if a mamitikay is near the vicinity and has caught a photo of you together with your mistress. Now I am not saying that the couple above is a guy with his mistress but to be honest there have already been a few incidents where the wives saw the picture of her husband cheating through a mamitikay coz we mamitikay will take photos indiscriminately in public places since it is allowed by the law here in the Philippines 😅