From photo dumps on the now-defunct Multiply to documenting demonstrations mid-pandemic, photojournalist JL Javier shares how he captures stories of life and the human experience.

How did you get into photography? What was your background in school? 
In Ateneo, I took up a Bachelor in Fine Arts majoring in Information Design, which was primarily a design course. Before that, when I was still deciding what to take up in college, I was choosing between similar multimedia arts programs in other schools, and, as a closet math lover, civil engineering. I guess I found photography somewhere in between.
Up until the middle of college, photography was really just a hobby for me and not something I saw as what could be my professional career. I can't pinpoint what it was exactly that shifted my attitude towards it, but in my sophomore year I started to take it more seriously: I sought out connections and communities where I could learn more, joined student orgs as a photographer, and even began taking small commissions. At some point I remember flipping through old local magazines, admiring all the photographs, and hoping that one day my own photos could be published in that way, too.
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What subjects did you start shooting? 
A lot of the immediate people around me and a lot of inanimate objects that I found pretty. I remember bringing my camera everywhere every day, from when I was just using the family digicam to when I finally got my first DSLR. In high school, I was the type to take pictures of everything and dump them in albums on my Multiply blog, complete with accounts of my day, down to the most mundane details. Thank God those are off the internet now. I'm looking through my photographs from over a decade ago when I moved to Tumblr, and it's mostly plants and bokeh, with the occasional appearances of my friends and family.
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What stories do you love to tell with your work?
I absolutely love photographing people. I am most excited by portraiture and photojournalism because I get to take part in and capture different people's stories. And even when my photos don't have people in them, I realize they still have to do with human experiences in some way. Say, what a person used and left behind in a space, or how a man-made thing speaks to its natural surroundings&nbsp; &mdash;&nbsp; these are still stories about life and humanity. I take photos of these people and these things to connect, to document my own experience of them. I suppose photography is my way of navigating how I fit into this world and the stories of other people.

How did you get into photojournalism? What's your process?
I currently work at CNN Philippines Life, the local lifestyle and culture title of CNN Philippines. Working under a news organization has led me to covering more sociopolitical stories, photographing significant news events as well as related personalities and locales. I believe it's where I started getting more photojournalistic assignments.
Often, I work hand in hand with an article's writer to see what images can best accompany their story. Over the past year, though, I got assigned a lot of coverage and photo essays on the pandemic, for which I mostly set out by myself. For shoots like this, I can't necessarily plan the pictures, but I do get to decide on the places I visit. I fit everything within a day or two, to minimize contact. I also try to be strategic about the areas I shoot; I see if there are significant locations that have been reported about or could be relevant to the news, and then for practicality I arrange them throughout my day so that I spend at most an hour per area and am able to move to the following one quickly.
It's very important that I am critical about the things I point my camera at. The decisions I make, from where and where not to shoot to which images I ultimately select, all determine the story I end up telling. With my photos, I don't think it's ever possible to paint the complete, exact picture, but I strive to tell stories that are clear, expansive, and nuanced.

Have you ever feared for your own safety? What keeps you going?
In our current situation, any exposure to the outside world poses a risk, even more so that I'm visiting different places and encountering so many people. I've also been less worried for myself than for the people I come home to. I worry that despite how careful I try to be, I might somehow become a carrier and bring the virus into my household. I don't think I can ever forgive myself if anything bad happens to my loved ones because of me.
Simply working as a photojournalist in this political climate, too, has been a cause for fear, especially when I often end up capturing stories of injustice and dissent that this administration so strongly tries to obscure. I guess it's also in this that I find what keeps me going: that the quiet work of documenting life might be part of something greater, something many other people are working towards.
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How has your craft evolved since day one? Are you deliberate with changes in your work or do you surprise yourself and suddenly notice how it shifts?&nbsp; 
I'm the kind of person who cringes at the sight of their old work, which I've learned is a good indication of growth. To be honest, I don't think I'm ever fully satisfied with any of the work that I put out, which I suppose pushes me constantly to do more and to do better. I think over the years I have found some strategies that do work for me, which I refine and use as a starting point, and then I try out new things from there.
Sometimes I like to try things that are completely foreign to me or my work just to see what I can find for myself. For example, more recently I&rsquo;ve been experimenting with collage, a different medium, as a means of reexamining what images and photography mean to me. The things I&rsquo;ve learned here come back to my more traditional photographic work, in how I see a better grasp of the images I gravitate towards, a renewed sense of how much further I can push my work technically and conceptually.
So far, it's been a mix of deliberate changes and pleasant, unexpected discoveries.

What inspires you? 
Consuming different forms of art and human creation. I get inspired by the fruits of other people's stories and their creativity and their passion, because it reminds me that there is so much space for expression and invention, and it makes me ask, okay, what can I bring to the table? Just the promise of something new, something different, good or bad, has kept me going.
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How do you find that balance between work that's fulfilling and practical?
This still is very difficult for me to find for myself at times, but it helps to look at how the two inform my person and my work, and to see any kind of work as an opportunity to learn. The more artistic kind of work encourages me to be more expressive, to test my boundaries, and to push outside them; whereas work that's practical teaches me how to work within boundaries, to be more patient and diligent. There has always been value and meaning to find in both.

<h5>See more of JL's work on his <a href="http://www.jljavier.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website </a>and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/jljavier/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Instagram.&nbsp;</a></h5>

How Photojournalist JL Javier Captures Stories of Humanity

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