BUTUAN CITY - Twenty-seven participants comprising Agricultural Extension Workers (AEWs) and staff completed the photography training on February 17-20, 2020. This was hosted by the Agricultural Training Institute-Regional Training Center (ATI-RTC) 13 which was held at Almont Inland Resort in Butuan City.

It aimed at capacitating participants specifically the Information Service Specialist (ISS) of FITS Centers in terms of documenting good agricultural practices, success stories, as well as promotion of programs in the respective Local Government Units (LGU).

Mr. Heracleo Paler, Acting Asst. Center Director of ATI-Caraga graced the opening program in the first day. During his talk, he highlighted the need to document activities and programs of the organization to showcase what they have done and best practices of farmers to inspire others to emulate. On the other hand, Ginalyn Arbutante, Project Officer of the training, gave the overview for the four-day training as well as the preliminaries.

Mr. Erwin Mascariñas who is a multi-awarded photojournalist and correspondent of Philippine Daily Inquirer served as the Resource Person for the whole duration. In his presentation, he stated that photography is a record of history. It originates from the word ‘fotos’ which means light and ‘graphos’ which means drawing. Some of the topics he discussed where on photojournalism, test on image recognition, relationship between light and photography, rules of photography, focus, framing, composition and tips in photography. He then allowed the participants to take pictures outside the venue which he later critiqued one by one. There were series of lectures and workshops within the sessions wherein participants really learned a lot in terms of capturing photos with message up to editing their best photos using editing apps.

"I have attended two similar training before but with all honesty, I can confidently say that a Training Course on Photography and Image Editing with a theme “Drawing with Light” conducted by the ATI-Caraga was the most effective one. The success of the event was of course firstly, because of the resource Person, Sir Erwin Mascariñas who patiently shared his expertise with the participants. Secondly, the program or sequence of activities planned by the ATI personnel was relevant.” Joanne A. Langres, Instructor I of Caraga State University (CSU) stated.