 | ||
Shaira Ana Teresiana Luna (born September 20, 1986) is a Filipina photographer. She, among others, was known as a "gifted child" and a "Promil kid", having been featured in Wyeth's infant formula ad in 1990.
Contents
Luna is currently a fashion and advertising photographer represented by the international creative talent agency Jed Root Manila, founded by American businessman Jed Root in 1989.
Early life and education
Shaira Luna was born on September 20, 1986 in Malate, Manila. She's the only child of her parents Bong Luna, a businessman and her mother Jenny Luna, a dentistry graduate of the Centro Escolar University, both of whom in their middle 20s when she was conceived. As an infant, Luna reportedly began speaking fluently as early as six months, and can read and write the alphabet at age one. At age two, Luna was already knowledgeable in different branches of science, as well as playing various musical instruments such as the piano and the violin; she even began having interests in learning French and Spanish languages while she also spoke English fluently. Her parents then sought professionals' help due to these unprecedented capacities Luna had been having. A personnel from the Department of Education, Cultural Studies (DECS) discovered that Luna had the intelligence quotient of a sixth grader, similar to that of a high school student. According to her mother Jenny, Luna's intelligence might have been a result of heredity, citing her family's history of achievers graduating from school with honors. She then was advised to have Luna attend a sixth-grade class at the Philippine Christian University as she would easily get bored in a kindergarten class. Another reason Luna was enrolled at PCU was to improve her social skills since she had the tendency to be shy in public, notwithstanding her early prominence.
Luna was only 13 when she enrolled at De La Salle University to pursue her BS degree in human biology, but after shifting to different courses, she dropped out in 2006.
Career
After she had bought a Canon EOS 350D, her first digital single-lens reflex camera, Luna began shooting for months and later evolved her interest in photography while still studying in college at De La Salle University, citing it as the reason for her dropping out in 2006. Luna has described her early experience in photography as "self-taught". She recounts that when she started to foray in photography, she said "I would literally shoot everything: I tried portraits, I tried food... I would shoot events, birthdays, binyag (Christening), fiesta, basketball ng liga (basketball leagues). Minsan libing din (Sometimes funerals, too).” She also said in a separate interview that, "Photography was really just a hobby during college. My career developed very gradually and organically—I really went through everything before it even occurred to me that this was something that could be done for a living!"
