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New York Times, again…


I shot a Chinatown story for the New York Times in Jan. and it just ran.

The story, written by Bonnie Tsui, noted how Honolulu’s Chinatown is becoming hipper by the moment. Funny thing about the girl above, Monet, is that she is from HNL but living in New York…I assume the City, so I hope she opens the Travel section and sees herself chomping on an expensive piece of pie. Otto’s cheesecake is not cheap.

Advice, check out the cheesecake at Eileen’s on Cleavland St. in lower Manha’n.

That’s some damn good cheesecake, son!

See the Times story here.

I was also lucky enough to shoot a wedding for the Times (look at me, the Times’, as if I am somebody!) Vows section (the society page for those in the know.) I never shoot weddings so this was kinda fun. It was on Kauai. Nice couple, good vibe, and great haka! The couple worked for the UN in Africa of all places. The bride is the grand daughter of all people, Audra Lindley!

Anyone know who she is?


ITS MRS. ROPER!

I had to keep it together with this one. The mother, or daughter of Mrs. Roper, was, of course, present, and her mannerisms, tone of voice, and speaking pattern were so familiar. It was insane! OH STANLEY!

See that here.

The vog was a bit of a damper but love is love and little girls love to jump into pictures.

Either way, what a great wedding. Thanks to all around! Congratulations!

Disgusting!

I’m not a big on Spam. I mean I’ve eaten the spam musubi bit a few times and well, its ok. Its not my favorite but most cooked foods from 7/11 are not necessarily my favorite either…but its local food, whatada wanna do ’bout it. Eat and no complain.


Spam musubi…a slice of fried spam on a rectangle of rice wrapped in dried seaweed.

Today was where I drew the line. Like I said, Spam is one of those things we’ve had a few time but not much. Its processed and to me it taste faintly of dog food. I mean it actually smells like canned dog food to me. I don’t know if I have tried dog food and I probably have knowning how nutty I was back in college and whatnot…well…I actually remember eating cat food once with Laura Ehrisman. I don’t know why I did…I was at her house and one thing lead to another and we were eating, I should say, I was eating dried cat food. I don’t recall it being that bad but, like I said, it was college, no wait, that was high school. EITHER WAY…it reminds me of cat food, errr…DOG food.

Spam spread in the Pacific during WWII as fresh meats were hard to come by. The military fed their soldiers Spam and the local communities adapted into their diets. Hawaii consumes the most Spam in the world.

But like I said, I found something very unique at the grocery store. SPAM flavored Macadamia nuts. Bleach…cough cough arf…blaahh…I gots to try it.

Got a can, popped it open. I found large macadamia nuts with a reddish power on them. They smelled like mac nuts and barely of Spam. To be quiet honest, they were not that bad. They tasted mostly of mac nuts and thats that. Very little Spam flavoring until the very end. And thats where it got me.

As of this writing, I had to go and rinse my mouth out, twice! The after taste was pretty nasty but its a slow kick a few minutes later. I am fairly disgusted some knucklehead came up with this flavor but loads of locals love it. Not me, I’ll stick to the cat food.

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.

a roll of film on Sunday, or was it two…?

After a hard day of community gardening at Foster Botanical, (oregano, basil, jalapenos, and whatnot…) I took off to the beach with the Leica and shot a few rolls just to keep the mind sharp and the eye fresh.

I parked near the Ilikai Hotel* and walked down the sandy way and it didn’t take but seconds to find something interesting to put down on film.

The surfer was looking out at the small break out in front of the Hilton as well as waiting for his buddies to come along. I was hoping he’d cross my path but nonetheless, I got a different view of what I initially had imagined.

Sadly, I found myself wishing for my pro body and high resolution…yet the limited resolution adds to the mystery of what I saw and what I didn’t or wasn’t able to record. The mistakes of film (resolution, silver, development) all equal character. This is what we forget in capturing imagining. I spent so many years in New York working with photographers and never realizing the reason so many looked the same is because there systems were the same…A Mamiya RZ with a 110mm or 140mm lens on Kodak 160 VS filmed pulled to 80 developed at Duggal at such and such temp…blah blah blah!

It all looked the same except for Steve McCurry…

Now, he looked different. His new book, The Unguarded Moment, is simply what I hope to achieve with my life. Alas, his life is photography. For the rest of us, its a bit different. Its not easy to sacrifice EVERYTHING for your work.

His book can be found here.

As I find, sometimes using a different tool will yet a different experience.

SO back to Hawaii…

Walking by the new lagoon at the Hilton, I stumbled upon a well dressed man with two dogs. I couldn’t help but to snap one off. He was so interested in having me get his shoes. I am not sure why he had the duds on but he was very happy to pose and the dogs cooperated as well.

I’m not sure why I like this image of this woman at the Halekulani but it struck me as something I wanted to scan.

Anyway, its been about two months since I’ve wandered the beach. Might go back today.

*The Ilikai Hotel is the spot where Hawaii 5-0 filmed their famous spot with McGarrett on the rooftop. See it here around 16 seconds into the clip. I just realized Jack Lord played the original Felix in James Bond. He was in Dr. No! Book ’em, Jimmy! McGarrett is the BEST! Chee ho!

I think my father has shades like that.