Shooting Ignacio de Loyola. Photo: Paolo Dy
Aaron Palabyab has worked on several projects traveling around the Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Europe.
He won first place in the FJ Moto Mountaincross Adventure documentary competition in 2023 and the first-ever Cordillera Experience Travel Vlog Competition in 2022 with his piece “The Call of the Cordilleras” In 2020, his short documentary “Tubbataha Reefs: The Coral Heart of the Philippine Seas” was selected to the 2020 San Pedro International Film Festival. He is a cameraman and the editor for Filipino celebrity Chef JP Anglo’s popular My Favorite Kitchens series on Youtube along with several branded content pieces. In 2019, he directed the Philippine indie food + travel series Lasa Explorations: Cordillera.
He was second unit director, second camera, and night sky and time-lapse photographer on the international award-winning Filipino independent feature Ignacio de Loyola (2016), and was time-lapse photographer and a cameraman on the ABS-CBN International travelogue series Discovering Routes, shot with an international cast and crew all around the Philippines.
As a cameraman and videographer has worked with clients such as Fujifilm Philippines, Uniqlo, DHL International, the United Nations World Food Programme, GRID Magazine, Banwa Private Island, and many more.
As a commercial director, he directed all the TV spots until 2015 for Sulit.com.ph (now OLX.ph), and did work for Rockwell Land, Honda Motors, San Miguel Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Roche, Sony, UNESCO, Antel, Taft Property, and the Ateneo de Manila University, among others.
His first short film, “A Second” (2012), which he co-directed, co-wrote, edited, scored, and acted in, was a finalist in the short film category of the Crystal Palace International Film Festival 2012 and official selection in the International Film Festival Manhattan NYC 2012 and Shorts From the World section of the 15th International Eskisehir Film Festival. It was also broadcast in November 2017 and February 2018 on the Lifetime Channel Asia. It can be watched on his Vimeo or on Viddsee.
He has been working in the film industry since 2008 and shoots narrative, factual, corporate, and commercial projects as a director and cameraman, while also creating his own content centering on travel, time-lapse, and photography.
PHOTOGRAPHY & ART PRACTICE
Alongside his career in the film industry, Aaron is also a landscape, night sky, and time-lapse photographer. A lifelong resident of Metro Manila, Aaron seeks images that express a longing to reconnect with what people born in the city have lost: connection to nature, intimacy with awe, and the wonder of a time before our cities dimmed our stars.
His work as a photographer has led to him pursuing an international art practice, mostly as part of the Kometa duo with Polish artist Agnieszka Rowińska. Their first collaboration, produced at the Nes Artist Residency in Skagaströnd, Iceland, received the special award for Creative Filmmaking at the 2017 Syrp Everyday Humans Short Film Competition.
His time-lapse film “The Light in the North” produced during the same residency also received an Honorable Mention at the 2018 International Photography Awards Professional Moving Images Category.
Residencies
The Seedling at Sagada Residency, November 2018
33 Officina Creativa, Toffia, Italy, October 2018
Brashnar Creative Project, Skopje, Macedonia (FYROM), August 2018
Nes Artist Residency, Skagaströnd, Iceland, October-November 2017
Photography Awards
Silver, Professional Nature, Sky - PX3 Paris Prix de la Photographie 2017
Honorable Mention (series), Professional Special, Sky - International Photography Awards 2017
Grand Prize, Platinum - Air France KLM Flying View international photography competition
Honorable Mention, Professional Fine Art Landscape (series) -Tokyo International Foto Awards