Magayon Series | 1st of 2 Parts
Twenty Views of Mount Mayon | 1 / 20

For scientists, she is a classic example of a stratovolcano. For the people of Albay, she is Daragang Magayon - the "beautiful maiden," the pride of all Bicolandia. Whichever way one looks at it, however, the Mayon Volcano is a most marvelous sight, a postcard come to life, a dangerous beauty.

Legend says that Mayon sprouted from the grave where three lovers - Daragang Magayon and her two suitors, one of whom she loved genuinely - lay buried together, casualties of a tragic love triangle. A contemporary retelling of the legend remolds Magayon as a fierce young woman unafraid to take up arms as a form of resistance.

And Mayon is, indeed, as powerful as she is beautiful. The 8,000-foot high volcano is the most active in the Philippines, with nearly 50 recorded eruptions since 1616.

In my five-day stay in Sto. Domingo, Albay, I was awed by the beauty of Mayon. Though I have seen it thousands of times in postcards and advertisements, no image can compare to actually seeing Magayon as she looms before you, majestic in the early morning light. It was only then that I grasped how the beauty of a mountain drove Andō Hiroshige to produce his brilliant "Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji."

I have no claims that this series is as beautiful as Hiroshige's; the beauty of his series is the product of a lifelong relationship with Mount Fuji. I can only safely say that this series is petty, even insignificant - a photographic equivalent of an encounter.

Sto. Domingo, Albay. May 2006.