This young Filipino photographer’s photos explore solitude in a crowd

MANILA, Philippines – He is best known for evocative pictures of the Duterte administration’s campaign against illegal drugs but for a few months in 2018, up-and-coming photographer Basilio Sepe took a step back and captured both the extraodinary and the mundane. 

“The people want to be photographed, but at the same time they didn’t. They want to be seen but at they same time they didn’t. I was there but at the same time I wasn’t,” Sepe told Rappler of the pictures he took during a visit to New York City and Washington DC in the US in 2018.

The same photos are now the subject of his first solo exhibit, Neither Here Nor There.

“Kahit na sobrang daming tao (Evenif there’s a crowd of people), there’s still a tendency to feel alone,” he added. 

A University of Santo Tomas (UST) graduate, Sepe is a former photography editor of the Varsitarian and a Angkor Photo Workshops 2016 alumnus. He was the International Photography Awards (IPA)-Philippines’ 2018 Photographer of the Year. He is currently an independent photographer based in Manila. 

Neither Here Nor There was curated by veteran photographers Ben Razon, Sonny Yabao, Angie de Silva, and Gil Nartea.

It opens on April 2 and ends on May 4 at the Oarhouse Pub in Malate, Manila. – Rappler.com