Stuart Dee grew up in Canada with faint memories of a child from a distant land.

Much to his delight, many of these recollections were to come back to him in vivid detail as an adult on his journeys to rediscover his native Philippines.

As a Vancouver photographer, Dee has returned countless times, capturing intimate portraits of the land of his birth, and at the same time, reliving the memories he took with him when he left as a child.

According to Dee, his latest work The Philippine Rediscovered II is not the usual collection of postcard pictures.

“I’m trying to show the beauty of the country, and at the same time, talk about the history and the culture, so that the people will know more about it,” Dee told the Georgia Straight in a phone interview.

Included as well are some personal anecdotes driven by the power of nostalgia.

One of these was from one of his trips back when the father of a friend insisted on showing him a rather strange tree, which had fruits growing out of its trunk.

It turned out to be a kamias (known in English as cucumber or sorrel tree), a tropical tree that bears sour fruit eaten raw or pickled, and also used for cooking.

Dee had completely forgotten about the kamias, but seeing one again made him remember.

“It brought me back instantly to my childhood,” Dee said, recalling how and his cousins would be playing around with a kamias tree nearby.

They would grab and bite a fruit, and often spit it out because it was too sour.

“The moment I saw that kamias tree, my mouth started to salivate, like it still remembers the sourness,” Dee said.

According to Dee, The Philippines Rediscovered II features over 450 pictures from a dozen years he spent returning to the country.

Added in are a number from the original The Philippines Rediscovered, which came out in 1999.

Dee recalled that he didn’t think much about doing a follow-up to his first book.

With advances in digital photography, he took it as a “creative challenge” to present a new work.

“I felt that people really needed to see the Philippines,” said Dee, who has a fine arts degree from UBC.

Dee is doing a book launch Friday (May 4) at the Philippine consulate in Vancouver (999 Canada Place) starting at 5:30 p.m. For book orders: www.studeeo.com