MANILA, PHILIPPINES — It can be easy to forget that outlets and opportunities for problem-solving and creativity can be found anywhere and not just within the confines of your day job. For Pat del Castillo, she has found those in photography. And recently, she has found those in the depths of Maldives’ underwater world.
Pat has made great strides in tech and marketing. She not only wears many hats that involve creative problem-solving and innovation in her role Product Partnerships Manager for Meta/Messenger APAC, but she has also made way for a more inclusive tech landscape in the Philippines as the Co-founder of non-profit org Pride@Tech.
But Pat’s exploration of her passions and creative journeys are not at all confined within her distinguished contributions to Meta and the industry as a whole. And as a photographer and advanced scuba diver, she’s got the photos to prove it.
Recently, Pat was able to not just show her photography chops, but also literally dive into a trip of a lifetime: an expedition into the Maldives Deep South. As part of the expedition, she lived at the MV Adora where she started her agenda at 6:00 am to kick off the first of four dives that day, exploring various dive sites, such as blue water and reef dive sites. Through these dives, she encountered – and captured with her camera — several marine beauties from remoras clinging onto whale sharks to majestic manta rays gliding through the water depths.
“Maldives has always been on my bucket list and is at the top of my dream dive destinations,” she told adobo Magazine. “This trip has been one of the best trips of my life, and I think I enjoyed this one all the more because I was able to take underwater photos. Interacting with sharks, mantas, whales, turtles, and dolphins is magical enough but if you get the opportunity to capture them in frame then the experience is taken to another level.”
For Pat, the best part of shooting underwater was the interaction between her and the subjects, an intimate and humbling moment of connection as she steps into their world. “There’s a moment where you feel they’re equally as curious about you,” she recalled. “Feeling that connection with them when you get that eye-to-eye contact between you and a shark or a manta, [feeling] that they want to get to know you as much as you want to get to know them, and then they let you shoot them? That moment’s priceless.”
Of course, not everyone can just go on a photography expedition like this one. With projects that go beyond studios and professional sets already set up for shoots, there are a lot more factors at play here. And that’s even more true when you’re shooting underwater.
“Shooting underwater has a lot of elements that need to go right at the same time,” Pat emphasized. “First, [you need to have] basic diving skills like buoyancy, trim, awareness of the environment, etcetera.”
“Then, when you have the basics crossed off, you have to consider your photography elements like lighting, composition, and framing [to name a few,]” she added. “But the most challenging of all of those is the subject. You obviously can’t control when, where, or how your subject will appear. If you’re lucky a manta, shark, whale, or turtle will be there. And if you’re really lucky, it won’t just be there, it will hang around with you and let you shoot them.”
Thankfully, the stars aligned in the Maldives waters and she was able to get stunning shots of her subjects, captured as they go about their day in their wild habitat. But as Pat mentioned, it isn’t just luck. It takes photography and diving skills too, which are two areas she definitely doesn’t lack experience in.
Photography and videography have always been a big part of Pat’s life. In fact, she took Film for her post-graduate studies and her first job was in production as a production assistant for Survivor Philippines. Even when she made an early career shift back in 2010, focusing more on product building and marketing, her interest in it never faded and she found herself back behind the camera.
“My love for photography and film never went away, just took a bit of a backseat [for a while,]” she recalled.
As for diving, it’s been a decade since she first got her open-water diver license. The moment she had enough money saved back in 2013, she immediately decided to get certified. The mystique of water — which takes up the biggest space on earth and is yet so unexplored and filled with unanswered questions — was always something she’s gravitated towards.
“We know more about space than we do underwater, and I’ve always been curious about both,” she said. “I think being underwater is the closest feeling on earth you’ll get to being in space. Zero gravity, exploring the unknown, endless space, and [meeting] ‘alien’ creatures.”
And, to Pat, the decision to explore and uncover more of the world has always been second nature — both out in the wild and within the routine of her day job. “I’ve always seen myself as an explorer whether it’s a new place or building a new product or putting together a business plan from scratch,” Pat said.
Expounding on how her experiences as an advanced scuba diver shape who she is not just as an adventurer but also as someone always looking for inspiration and making use of her creativity at her job, Pat said, “As a scuba diver you need to have your diver skills on point and ready to be used if the moment calls for it, but you can’t always plan or predict what you will encounter underwater and that means you need to be comfortable with ambiguity and agile.”
“The same goes with building products. When you’re building a product, you have a sense of what problem you want to solve and who you’re solving for. But as you get into the process of building, you don’t always know coming in what the product looks like or how exactly it will be built. So, you need to be able to observe, gather feedback, and react. Thrive in that space of ambiguity both underwater and on land.”
And it looks like that love for problem-solving, exploring, and seeking inspiration is here to stay. Just fresh from an amazing experience exploring the depths of Maldivian waters, Pat already knows what her next adventures and future goals are as a photographer. She even has her next big dive trip in the books!
“At the moment my goal is to have my photos hung on a wall at a friend’s house, then maybe display my photos at a gallery,” she said. “The ultimate dream is to someday be part of a National Geographic expedition. I want to continue to shoot nature and wildlife both underwater and on land.”
“Next year, the next big dive trip is Socorro, Mexico to shoot oceanic mantas, hammerhead sharks, humpback whales, etcetera,” she said. “[I’m] so excited already!”
