After the advent and fame of Slam Book, a notebook bearing questions to be filled out by the keeper’s selected friends that is later to be passed around for other invited contributors to write down their respective intimate answers.  And before the genesis of Slam Book’s virtually formatted type – i.e. social networking sites like Friendster, Multiply and Facebook – a conspicuous hype came into being in the pop culture of young Filipinos in the late ‘80s until early ‘90s.  A lot of people think that after Slam Book has depleted its popularity among the youth it was right away replaced by the web-based social networking sites.  Let me insert, inject and connect what transpired in between these two Herculean cultural revolutions.

What happened in between was the young populace’s visit to a photo studio.  During those years, if my memory serves me right, the most popular photo studio for the youth in Pasay and its nearby cities was “Dimension or Dimensione”.  Young people would schedule an afternoon wearing their most bewitching casual attire, sit on a high chair with a background or lighting of his or her choice and flash their sweetest smile in front of a camera.

The picture is not a group photo but a personal/individual close-up that is ordered to be printed on a wallet size photo-paper in abundant number of reproductions. When the photo in immense copies are already picked-up from the studio, he or she will then write a sweet dedication at the back which will be later given away and distributed to his or her friends and classmates.

Recipients then will collect all these photos and bundle it as part of their cherished possessions.  During those times they will not insert it inside a photo album since they enjoy reading the dedications written at the back from time to time.  They would not leave the thick collected close-ups in their respective houses but to be bizarrely brought along with them wherever they go.  The thickness of their photo collection would signify the degree of their social friendliness and congeniality.

Here are 2 of the amazing samples of my collection which up until now is in my possession…

marie & jhong, my wacky close friends now living in california and new york respectively

Para tayong mga ewan noon! Hahaha!