Batangas | Galleria de Taal

BATANGAS | Galleria de Taal

The Country's First Camera Museum

The Philippines First camera museum, a Bahay na Bato neglected ancestral house that became a gallery to showcase rare vintage Camera's.

By this time, after looking inside some of the Old Ancestral Houses in the Heritage town of Taal Batangas, we had our fill of them. Galleria de Taal proved to be different, because it doesn't enshrine people who are long dead. We didn't choke on historic information that we will soon forget, instead we feasted our eyes on some of the rarest camera's, restored and glorified in their pedestal. We even had a glimpse of the most expensive camera this gallery had, which is in the first photo shown above, cast out from a body of 24K pure gold. Makes me glad I had Nikon Camera slung on my neck.

This house was restored to its original splendor by the grandson of the first owner, Manny Inumerable, the owner of Galleria de Taal. Like any Bahay na Bato houses, this has 2 floors, and the Gallery is on the 2nd floor, the camera's placed inside glass panels and pedestals, lighted not only by the sulfuric light of incandescence and fluorescence, but the Capiz  shell windows give the olden vibe. Perfect set up for vintage cameras to be shown. All over the gallery walls, hung old photographs in Glam Portraits and Urban Landscapes, this is not just a Gallery of Vintage Camera's as it is.

The camera's, some may look decrepit, worn and old, they were all restored and are actually working cameras. It was fun to be surrounded by the forefathers of today's modern DSLR's, my own camera felt like long way off compared to these collections. Placed inside their protective glass panels, labeled by their history, and even a short description of the time that they were created makes me appreciate more that I was born into this time and age, that the art of photography of painting with light is for everyone to enjoy.

The glass panels made it difficult to photograph these cameras, as glasses provide reflection adding to  details that aren't needed in these photos. The gallery has a big collection of items, and probably much more to come as Mr Inumerable is still in the lookout for some of the rarest cameras around the world, makes us glad that these items weren't closed up for our generation to see.

Francis Balgos is a Call Center Agent, Weekend Travel Warrior, Amateur Spelunker, Sometime Surfer, Newbie Mountain Climber, Photography Enthusiast, Certified Beach Bum, A first born son, Faithful lover, True Explorer...

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