This website is an effort to show the world what Mindanao really is through photographs, from the point of view of a Mindanaoan who lives in this Land of Promise.

This website is a work in progress. Since I started going around Mindanao to document festivals and events for the Mobile Media projects of Business World Online and for MindaNews, I was able to accumulate hundreds of images of the people and places in the different provinces. Mindanao is a land rich in diverse cultures - Christians, Muslims and Lumads. It is also a land where nature unfolds in all its glorious magnificence - the Tinago Falls of Iligan, the Tinuy-an Falls of Surigao Sur, the marshlands of Agusan, the seascapes of Baliangao.

This photo gallery contains representative images from at least 60 percent of the provinces in Mindanao. These are the places I have visited in the course of doing my work as a photojournalist. I intend to explore the rest of the provinces, and keep coming back to those I've already visited. If your hometown has a beautiful festival or scenic spot you would like to be included here, just e-mail me.

I have received feedbacks from Filipinos living abroad who have viewed my photo galleries, saying that they are so thankful for the photos because it gives them a chance to get a glimpse of their hometowns. Indeed, a photo is a window through which you can go back and forth in place and time. If you want, you may order photo prints from this gallery and hang these pictures in your home or put them on your office table. It would be like carrying a piece of Mindano with you.

I'm Bobby Timonera, a journalist from Iligan City, Philippines. I'm a true-blue Iliganon and Mindanaoan. I was born in this Land of Promise, raised by my parents here in Iligan, studied here from kindergarten all the way to college. I worked briefly in Manila as a staffmember of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, covering various beats in the area, the last of which was the Senate. I went to the big city only because my wife was then undergoing her residency training at the Philippine General Hospital. But after she completed her fellowship training in cardiology, we immediately went home. It's kinda boring there in Manila, with the traffic, the floods, the rat race and all. So we decided to go home, bringing my Manileña wife with me, and continuing my work as a journalist here in Mindanao.

I later helped form MindaNews, a cooperative of Mindanao-based journalists, where I serve as one of the editors and help maintain its website. I'm also currently working for BusinessWorld Online's Mobile Media project, documenting my beautiful Mindanao through photographs and feature articles.

My photography is basically self-taught. I survived mainly by reading magazines and books at a time when there was no Internet yet. I also kept asking a few knowledgeable friends. With the Internet these days, I'm usually hanging around the Ph-Photo mailing list of yahoogroups.com.

You can reach me through my email - bob at timonera dot com.