MANILA, Philippines - A Filipino photographer based in Melbourne, Australia, set the record for the most expensive set of pictures sold at the recent Christie?s Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary Art auction in Hong Kong.

?The Passing of Light? by Emmanuel Santos, which comprises 38 black-and-white pictures measuring 26 x 26 inches, was sold for US$44,000 (P1.9 million).

It?s the highest on record for Philippine contemporary photography and Southeast Asian photography. They were a combinaton of first- and second-edition prints.

They were exhibited at Silverlens Gallery in Makati last September.

The work?s subject: angels common to the Torah, the Koran and the Bible.
?There are 72 angels, both good and bad, and he has made photographs of 38 of them over the last 10 years,? says Isa Lorenzo, owner and curator of Silverlens Gallery.

Santos, born in 1957, grew up in Sagada, Mountain Province, and moved to Australia in the late ?70s where he established himself as a photographer of the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Melbourne.

In Manila, he was a photographer for the United Nations.

He is one of the foremost photographers of the Jewish Diaspora, and his work has featured in Jewish and Holocaust Museums worldwide.

Santos? work is special because he has been able to document customs and traditions of the very private and little-known Hassidic community, such as a group celebrating the festival of Purim, where ?the community celebrates with wild abandon?Santos filmed children dressed as clowns, as Father Christmas, and one boy even dressed as a Palestinian terrorist,? reported the Melbourne paper The Age in 2003.

?As you know, photography is huge as contemporary art elsewhere. And we are only in its infancy here in the Philippines and Southeast Asia, but we are going to get there,? says Lorenzo.