Kebs Cayabyab Street Photography

When a friend saw the draft of this photobook, he laughed and said, “Ikaw na ikaw!” (This is so you!)—a nod to my sense of humour and quirkiness. When I’m out photographing, I don’t usually look for anything specific. But over the past two years, I’ve found myself drawn to a certain kind of image—something that leans towards the surreal and is, at times, funny.

Many of the images here are pure happenstance, moments that align perfectly but often go unnoticed until framed just the right way. Some, however, took much longer to create. I had to wait, sometimes for hours, for the right moment to arrive. There was no fixed formula and no rigid approach. The line between chance and intention has always been blurry, and pre-visualisation and spontaneous discovery always blend. The result—the images in this photobook—is a mix of the planned and the unexpected, always unposed, never staged.

Many of the images here are pure happenstance, moments that align perfectly but often go unnoticed until framed just the right way. Some, however, took much longer to create. I had to wait, sometimes for hours, for the right moment to arrive. There was no fixed formula and no rigid approach. The line between chance and intention has always been blurry, and pre-visualisation and spontaneous discovery always blend. The result—the images in this photobook—is a mix of the planned and the unexpected, always unposed, never staged.