My name is Estan Cabigas and I am a religious colonial architecture enthusiast.

An inveterate traveler, I have gone around the islands and marveled at the still extant religious heritage structures in the country. In fact, I was the principal photographer covering 100 of the 160 churches included in the coffee table book Philippine Church Facades. My ethnicity is a mixture of Filipino, Chinese and a minority, the Subanen tribe of Western Mindanao. I call Cebu as my permanent home, studied in Manila, worked in the cities of Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Makati, the Philippines.

Right now, I’m a freelance photographer based in Makati City, the Philippines. I am also a blogger, movie fanatic, beetle collector and do graphic design. Other than this blog, I have my other online presence.

• Estan Cabigas Photography is my portfolio as a photographer
• Rough Groove is my blog on anything
• Binary Silver is the photoblog and other photography related postings
• Langyaw is devoted to travel
• Salagubang is the one and only blog on Philippine Coleoptera (beetles)
• Flickr

You can also head to estanli.net that serves as a portal to all these websites or contact me for feedback

About the blog

Simbahan is devoted to religious colonial architecture and covers heritage churches, cemeteries, fortifications, parochial houses or what is colloquially known as kumbento and other related structures. As much as possible, I highlight these as detailed as I can. The posts that you can read here are based on actual field work and from research. Background and history, however, all depends on the references that I can find. All photographs, unless stated otherwise were personally taken at the site.

About the Photos

If you are interested with my photos, send me an email via the contact link of this blog or you can check out my stock photos at Alamy by clicking the logo at the left.