Words by Joey Ong
Why is it relevant to know of the man named John Chua? What has he done that merits the many tributes and words sent his direction—for one, Lifetime Achievement recognition from the Creative Guild? Who was John Chua anyway?
If you have been an art director or in the field of Philippine advertising in the last ten years, chances are, you’ve probably worked with John or his legacy—the company he founded, AdPhoto. If your agency handles a car account, then the probability shoots up that John and his team are your go-to work crew.
My personal experiences working with John started with a short ride from my old office in Manila where the old J. Walter Thompson was, to his studio in Makati. I was barely out of University, working as a visualizer handling a Shell Lubricant project when I was given a chance by my senior to man a photo shoot. My producer gave me some tips as if I was going into my first battle and I was facing an intimidating foe.
“Make sure you have your pegs. John is quite strict and you should try not to piss him off because he will shout at you,” my producer tells me.
There he was, wearing a jungle safari-looking shirt, this sort of chubby, old Chinese guy—a dead ringer for one of my uncles. With his glasses and crinkled forehead, accompanying a loud commanding voice, he tells everyone in the studio what he needed and how he wanted his set up to be. I hemmed and hawed as I tried to make awkward small talk with John, until he discovered my love for surfing and broke out his aerial photos of small islands around the Philippines. Then he goes, “You should meet my daughter, she likes to surf too…” From then on, my impression of how intimidating this man could be morphed into complete admiration of how cool and approachable he is as a person.
John, although he was an avid advertising photographer, was waaaaaaaaaaay more than that. Although he excelled in the field of advertising, that was just the tip of the iceberg that was John Chua.
John Chua with his protégé in AdPhoto G-nie Arambulo
First and foremost, he was a creative problem solver. If you needed a shot and you thought it was impossible, John would gladly help find ways to make it become possible. The harder it was, the more excited he became at the challenge. That’s something we all should live by in this business. He saw challenges as a way to expand his skill set—the “drugs” of creativity and challenge that kept him forever high. Impossible was not part of his vocabulary, as foreign to his lexicon as a Swedish verb. If you knew John, you know this to be undeniably true.
Imagine flying an Ultralight (basically a large kite with a lawnmower engine) from the Southernmost tip of the Philippines to the Northern tip of Luzon. You haven’t done it, and probably never will. John did it. How about being adopted by an Igorot tribe from Banaue? A Chinoy Manileno, gaining the respect and love of a whole tribe up north seems improbable and even humorous, but yes, John is actually an adopted son and beloved member of the Ifugao tribe in Banaue. Some of us have special pets like a puppy or even snakes, but to go to the extreme that was John Chua, the man has a pet elephant. You heard it right, he took adoring care of an elephant named Mali who is one of the highlights of Manila Zoo.
His advocacies in life included teaching kids with autism how to shoot photos. And, if you are impressed by the touching nature of that endeavor, from there, he moved on to teaching blind kids how to shoot as well. But why is this relevant to us now in the advertising industry? So, what if the Old Earth loved to fly, cared for the environment, helped children, solved seemingly impossible challenges, and lived his life building one of the biggest photography studios in the country? The answer, the lesson, the word, is passion.
The diversity of the things in life he loved and the range of things he made better, combined and overlapped, in the end, completed a circle of passions that fueled one another to make him one of the greatest in his field.
It is important to be reminded again that nothing is impossible, especially when you devote time and hard work to make it a success. John, up to his last days, remained vigilant and passionate. Even as he battled cancer to the end, he kept dreaming big and still spent his time thinking of how to make those dreams happen. This is John Chua, The Magic Eye.
About the Author:
Joey Ong is the Managing Director of ASPAC – Dentsu Aegis Network.
This article was published in the adobo magazine Gender 2018 issue.
