Frames of Legacy: Shooting 50 Years of Century Park Hotel Manila, From the Laundry Room Up
Hotels are built to be photographed from the front. The lobby, the pool, the view from the best suite. Century Park Hotel Manila turned fifty this year and decided to do the opposite. On August 14, 2026, it handed a room full of photographers an all-access pass and sent them into the laundry room, the kitchens, the back corridors, and the guest rooms, with one brief: show us the hotel the guests never see. CameraHaus, Canon Philippines, and Ricoh GR Philippines came along for the ride. This is the first of two posts on Frames of Legacy. The second covers the gallery opening and awarding on August 29.
Fifty years of countless stories
Century Park Hotel opened its doors in September 1976, one of the wave of hotels built for the IMF and World Bank meetings that changed the Manila skyline. Half a century later it is still standing on Pablo Ocampo Street, still run by people who have worked there for decades, and still full of the kind of corners that photographers love: worn brass, green service doors, a laundry that hums like a ship's engine room.
For the anniversary, the hotel and CameraHaus built a two-part program called Frames of Legacy. Part one, on August 14, was a photography workshop followed by a guided photowalk through areas of the hotel normally closed to guests. Every participant shot a set of images for a competition. Part two, two weeks later, would turn the best of those images into a gallery inside the hotel and announce the winners.
The masterclass: Rommel Bundalian and Edwin Tuyay
The afternoon started indoors. Rommel Bundalian, one of the country's most-followed workshop photographers and a long-time Ricoh GR advocate, led the street photography masterclass: how to see a place with intention, how to find the frame in a corridor everyone else walks through, and how light inside a hotel changes room by room. Edwin Tuyay, the veteran photojournalist whose work has run in Asiaweek and The New York Times, joined him to share decades of experience photographing people at work.
Photographer Aron Garcia fielded the questions afterwards, and there were plenty. How do you photograph a stranger at work without getting in their way. Whether to shoot the laundry in colour or black and white. How much editing is honest. The underlying answer kept coming back the same: decide what the photo is about before you press the shutter, then get out of the way of it.
Gear for the walk: Canon and Ricoh GR
Before anyone left the room, Canon Philippines and Ricoh GR Philippines put cameras on the table. Canon demonstrated the current EOS bodies and handed them out for the walk, so participants who came with a phone or an older camera could shoot the hotel on something current. Ricoh GR brought the compact that Rommel has carried for years, the camera that lets you photograph a kitchen without anyone noticing you are there. Both brands stayed on the floor through the walk to answer questions.
The photowalk: all access
At five, the doors opened. Participants wore red lanyards with a 50th anniversary all-access pass, and hotel staff led small groups through the building, back of house first. The laundry room, where the linens for hundreds of rooms are washed, pressed, and folded every day. The kitchens, hairnets required, with a sign on the door that became one of the most photographed objects of the afternoon. Service corridors. Then up to the guest rooms, where the late light through the curtains did most of the work.
The laundry was the surprise. Photographers who had come expecting lobby architecture found themselves crouched between industrial washers, shooting steam and green steel and the hands of people folding towels at a speed that looked impossible. Several of the strongest competition entries came from that room.
What participants took home
The most photographed hotels in the world are photographed from the front. The story is usually in the back.
The laundry proved it. A place is its people.
Small cameras like the Ricoh GR let you work in a kitchen without changing how people behave.
Know what the photo is about before you raise the camera. The rest is timing.
Every participant submitted their best frames. Winners were revealed two weeks later at the gallery opening.
Part two: the gallery
The photowalk was only half the story. On August 29, the best images from the walk went up on the walls of the Kachina Function Room as a photo exhibit, and the winners were announced. Read the full recap: Century Park Hotel 50th Anniversary Photo Exhibit and Awarding.
Shoot your own city like this
Frames of Legacy was built on two things: a good brief and a camera you can carry all day. Ask about both at any CameraHaus branch.
Canon cameras Ricoh GR Find a branchFrequently asked questions
What was Frames of Legacy?
A two-part photography program for Century Park Hotel Manila's 50th anniversary, organised with CameraHaus. Part one, on August 14, 2026, was a workshop and guided all-access hotel photowalk. Part two, on August 29, was a photo exhibit and awarding of the photowalk competition.
Who were the speakers?
Rommel Bundalian and Edwin Tuyay led the workshop before the photowalk, with Aron Garcia and Red Auxilian on the floor, and Canon Philippines and Ricoh GR Philippines providing cameras for participants to use.
What could participants win?
First place won a three-day, two-night staycation at Century Park Hotel Manila. Second place won an overnight stay. Third place received a PHP 1,500 gift certificate.
Who won?
Raymond Lumbres took first, Raniel Jose Madrazo Castañeda second, and Mico Medel third. The full awarding story is in part two.
Thank you
To Century Park Hotel Manila for fifty years, and for opening every door in the building to a group of photographers. To Rommel Bundalian and Edwin Tuyay for a masterclass that made the photowalk better, and to Aron Garcia and Red Auxilian for keeping the floor moving. To Canon Philippines and Ricoh GR Philippines for the cameras in participants' hands. And to everyone who put on a hairnet and shot the laundry room like it was the lobby. See you in part two.
See the day on Facebook and the event announcement on Instagram. More CameraHaus events: Events.