Through the camera lens

In the world of journalism where pen and papers are weapons, she wields a different kind.

At first glance, you would double take. She does not look like your average Filipino teen. She is fair-skinned; has wavy brownish hair and striking light brown eyes. One of the most notable things about her that you would notice would be her eye. Her stare gives this melancholic vibe as if she’s holding on to a thought she can never voice out.

She opens her mouth to speak but immediately closes it again. She is hesitant. She is not good at speaking in public nor is she at writing. She’s approachable but you will never get to tell what runs on her mind.

She shows it all though – all that’s in her mind. She voices her thoughts not through words but through memories captured. She has done it a lot of times. She has shown people that her medium can move hearts.

Her pictures can move hearts, lives and people. She has proven just that when her photographs garnered numerous awards. Her voice reached the people that looked at her photographs, they felt what she intended to say without words.

She does not speak of what she won; she does not boast what she has. She’s just there, observing everything around her. She’s there blending among the crowd of lives, taking pictures and voicing her thoughts.

Through the lens, she sees the world in a whole new perspective. She communicates things that could not be summed into words. She is a photojournalist. She is Mabelle Leoncio.

Photo by Mabelle Leoncio