A man, his dolls, and a straw on Waikiki Beach

Last week as I walked the beach in Waikiki I encountered a strange yet compelling subject(s)…  I went for a stroll down Waikiki Beach, camera in hand, and I came across a small floatie anchored in a tide pool roughly in front of the Hyatt.

The raft, which I thought belonged to a child, held several dolls and small toys.  I thought “how cute..a young girl brought her toys out to the beach.” But strangely enough, I see a older Asian male walking towards the raft. He wore a life preserver, a red swim cap with the chin strap pulled tightly under his pudgy neck, a rash guard, and tight swim trunks.

He was sitting with a normal looking older Asian lady wearing a bathing suit and had a cheap green inflatable inner tube around her waist. I overheard her referring to him as Otosan, or father in Japanese.  They sat on towels, had an ice box, and were enjoying the sunny day.  I kept looking for the kids who’s raft I found but I saw no one around.

But a few minutes later, Otosan waded into the water, went for a brief swim then walked over to the raft.  He delicately took each doll out, cupped water into his hands and gently washed the dolls off speaking to each one as he did.  He took great care placing each doll back back and arranged them in a particular seating order.  He then waded back towards the beach speaking to other beach goers as he went.

He sat back in the sand next to the woman, took several large gulps from a large Arizona tea can and then poured tea into a mug with a straw.  I quickly waded back into the water as I what was coming.  He then waded back into the water and made himself towards the raft.

He took each individual doll and gave them all a sip from his straw. He lovingly took each figurine and gave them each a moment to drink from his mug so they might also enjoy themselves on the beach. Otosan was treating each figure as if they were real. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing as I took picture after picture but I couldn’t turn away.

So after rattling off a few frame, Otosan, who never noticed me, wandered back to his spot, grabbed a tackle box and rod and went fishing off the rocks.  I wasn’t sure what to think of what I shot as it was one of the more weird things I’ve ever encountered.  I guess you could assume anything but this was just a bizarre moment caught on film.

Oddly enough, my wife pointed out the pregnant bather wandering in the background.  I was a bit upset with her in the frame as she threw off my composure but the psychology of her in the back made the image more powerful.

I got bored waiting for him to return from his fishing spot so I wandered  but eventually returned to Otosan’s spot.  I saw him wading back from the rocks and over to the lady he was with and it appeared she told him to change out of his beach clothes and sent him to the bathroom. Sadly my parking meter was almost up and it was taking him forever to return so I had to leave the site leaving the mystery of the dolls to the wind.

I really have nothing more to say about Otosan and this image. I might re-write some of this at some point but I’ll leave it at that.

A note about the film…Kodak’s Ektar 100 held up nicely though I wasn’t very happy how the reds were over saturated in the scan from my Nikon 8000 but I couldn’t seem to control that either in the scanning software or Photoshop. I tried to pull down the saturation in both but all it would do would muddy up the color. I might get a drum scan of this image at some point.  I was shooting with a Leica M6 and a 50mm Leitz F1.4 lens.  The lens coating probably accounted for the over saturation.