Since his glossy debut six years ago, maverick lensman of the moment, Mark Nicdao, has been blazing a fresh, uncharted trail in a cutthroat industry fiercely fickle over fads and changing fashions. During the star-spangled opening night of his first one-man show, Alive, PAOLO R. REYES pries open the camera shutters and turns the floodlight projectors on the man behind the lens 

You can’t miss these Mark-ed women even from a mile away: taut, softly-lit faces suppressing their million-peso smiles, the fragility of steel in their tenuous, transparent gaze, the forthright—almost shocking—honesty in their languid expressions.  

Stripped of their posh frocks and flashbulb-ready poses, they stand larger than life at the center of Greenbelt 5’s open-air fountain area, all 8 X 7 feet of their famous photographic frame, where the man of the hour, Mark Nicdao—the maverick photographer behind the star-spangled exhibit—is holding court like a reluctant gladiator in this artificial arena of glamour.  

“I told myself that if I were to have my first exhibit, it would be an ode to the classics, a throwback to the black-and-white portraits of the past.”

Smiling, self-confident, and sporting a blazer and a fresh new buzz cut, he offers his cheek or extends a firm right hand to a name-droppable noria of models, editors, designers, directors, advertising executives, and actors, who, in one creatively perverted way or another, have all played a part in mounting Alive, Nicdao’s first one-man show that marks his sixth year in the industry.  

“I told myself that if I were to have my first exhibit, it would be an ode to the classics, a throwback to the black-and-white portraits of the past,” says Nicdao, whose celeb-pretty subjects included Solenn Heussaff, KC Concepcion, Phoemela Baranda, Tessa Prieto-Valdes, Jasmine Maierhofer, Regine Velasquez, Divine Lee, Carlene Aguilar, and Sarah Geronimo. Six men also lent their fame (and 15 minutes) to the shoot : Richard Gomez, Jericho Rosales, Enchong Dee, Jake Cuenca, Luke Jickain, and Gov. LRay Villafuerte.  

Dwarfed against the overwhelming scale of his 20-meter mural—whose base is half-submerged in the stagnant, shallow waters of the fountain pool, where the rippled reflections of his muses cast a moonlit glow—Nicdao is almost invisible; a self-effacing spectator to his own artworks. Between the congratulatory besos, flying kisses, and deferential high fives, Rogue talked to Nicdao about his unrepentant scenes of the flesh.  

Fluidity seems to be the common thread of the whole series. We’re assuming this water element was intentional, since it was a collaboration with Viva.
You can say that. My main inspiration for this series was Caravaggio, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and German fashion photographer Peter Lindbergh. Most of their works are very fluid and almost dreamlike. 

You’ve always held a high regard for Lindbergh and Caravaggio.
It’s the nonchalance and the effortless drama that they create in every image. The whole feel of the picture or painting is so real you can almost smell it. Their work seems 4-D in some strange way.  
As a photographer, the most difficult thing to do is make a simulated situation look candid. Caravaggio was the pioneer of this, through chiaroscuro—the contrast between light and dark. Peter Lindbergh can create drama using the most raw, hardcore emotions of the model. At the same time, there’s a fluidity and softness to it. Their works never failed to amaze me. 

“Peter Lindbergh can create drama using the most raw, hardcore emotions of the model. At the same time, there’s a fluidity and softness to it. His work never fails to amaze me. “

The absence of color, the sleepy poses, the dreamy, moonlit haze—what were you going for?
The effortless nonchalance they have as celebrities. Most of them are really quite reserved in person, and I made use of that inner quality which a lot of people don’t see. I was also going for contrast. If you think about it, when you say “alive,” you think action shots. But I wanted something very calm and quiet.  

About the technical style, I used the simplest lighting—no fuss and nothing too fancy. It’s the type of light you’ll achieve only when the moon is full and bright, and you’re walking on a mountain and that’s the only source of light. 

It’s actually very Lindbergh, in that the styling is unfussy and natural.
My intention was to make the shoot laidback, quick, and easy. No fancy directions or poses. No gimmicks or special instructions. I wanted to try something new. In some way, it was also an experiment—and the result is totally different. I’m really thankful to producer Keren Pascual and Viva Mineralized Water for making my vision of these portraits come to life in their 8 x 7 feet glory! 

We’re curious. How did you go about selecting your celebrity subjects? We heard that you shot everything within a span of two weeks, with roughly 15 minutes per person.
The selection process was sheer luck—you could say everything happened by divine intervention! (laughs) How it all came together was very spiritual. The week I had to finish the series, most of them were on schedule with me for different projects, including the stylists and the makeup artists. It was my lucky week. I never expected everyone to pose for the exhibit. Their managers were also generous enough to trust my vision.  

Your photographs, especially of women, always have this natural, unguarded air about them.
When it comes to photographs, it’s really about connecting with the people—both those who look at them and those whom you shoot. You have to capture something in the subject that strikes a chord with the viewer.  
You have to catch that moment when everything is genuine, because, as you know, there’s nothing genuine about a photo shoot. It’s a situation that you manufacture with artificial light in an artificial environment. So the only genuine thing you get out of a photograph is real emotion captured at the right moment.