I don’t think its much fair to snap pictures of homeless or the disadvantaged but I couldn’t help myself when I found a woman on Hotel St. in Chinatown putting an entire box over her body. Its like a true to life Jackie in the box.
Jackie in the box
Category: Hawaii
A few tearsheets
Its been a very busy few weeks and I just wanted to post a few new tear sheets to my growing list of clients and images.
The above shot was the Spring issue of Modern Luxury. I sat atop a secret hill top and shot the city at dusk and waited for magic. I had to do this three times as one day was good, the second day was cloudy, and the last day was magic. Its just amazing how much we can’t control when we do outdoor shots. A cloud rolls in and the day is over. These things take time, luck and a little skill. Not much skill, but a little.
I’ve had the chance to photograph the owners from Fighting Eel a few times and this shot happens to be one of my favorites. I’ve not had the easiest time photographing them as they seem at times, slightly uncomfortable with themselves (or maybe it was just me) and I haven’t nailed a great shot of the pair. But this pix seems to really be what I would call the shot. I like it. Thanks Rona and Lan.
Having been dressed by the Hawaii Five O duo for my shining start on the Rick Springfield episode, Five O costume designers Michelle and Anthony, were surprised I put them behind the camera this time. Erika, the handler of all handlers, coordinated a great time, location, and helped set a great image of the two. I think of the shot, along with the Fighting Eel girls as a portfolio piece. Its another great environmental shot. Both shots were for the Spring issue of Modern Luxury.
My last tear sheet is actual an image from the LPGA Lotte Championship Golf tournament held in April at Ko Olina. The winner happened to be Japanese golfer Ai Miyazato. She led the last round and kept steady and focused. She stayed par the entire time but nailed the last few holds to win the four day tourney. Unbeknown to anyone, even her, she started doing a hula with the hula dancers during the award ceremony. She danced really well and surely deserved the dance.
Los Angeles Times goes organic.
Just a quick posting of tearsheets from a travel piece I shot for the LA Times and the new travel trend of Agrotourism in Hawaii. Well traveled tourists are now recognizing the value of eating off the resort and eating and shopping locally. Fresh fruits, vegetables, and produce can be pretty good albeit rather pricey at times. But on an island, everything can be pricey.
So some have asked how much certain things cost here so here is a quick rundown:
gallon of milk: around $6 for mainland, $8 to $9 for locally produced.
gallon of gas: HNL: $4.45, outer island $4.70+
lb of bananas: local apple bananas are about $1.30, imported are around $1.09
pineapple: Costco price is $3.29 or so, tourist price at fruit stand, $6
lb of ground beef: $3-4
locally grown tomatoes: $5/lb, imported are about $2.99/lb
But some of these costs didn’t surprise me from New York but they are shocking when you go to a place like San Antonio where you pay like $1 for 10 limes/lemons where at Safeway locally you get a lemon for like $1.29 EACH.
But to get back to the shopping locally at local farmer’s markets, things are obviously fresher and more unique and you will get a taste of the small farm as opposed to the corporations growing produce on the west coast. You can’t buy mangosteens or rambutans at Safeway but you’ll pay for it at the farmer’s markets but the tastes and joy of eating something exotic really do make you feel like you are in the middle of the Pacific.
Lots of the exotic fruits and produce grown here are not native but they do add flavor to the local cuisine. Its great tourists are now recognizing the value of having a sustainable trip where things are sourced locally rather than imported at high costs. This creates local jobs, demonstrates we shouldn’t convert every inch of ag land into condos and resorts, and sustains a better way of life for everyone one on the Islands. The drawbacks…well the major one is the costs of doing business, and the costs of labor. Hawaii has no access to cheap immigrant labor to work in the fields, labor laws are strict and surely add to the costs of doing business, and Hawaii is clearly not business friendly. Costs and taxes are high enough to drive small and start ups off the Islands. Historically, the plantations took advantage of the labor here which drove a rise in unionism and now housekeepers at the big hotels are paid as much as the night managers. How the hotels survive is by passing that cost onto you.
Regardless of my ranting, locally grown whatevahs is the trend across the country. I’m glad we’re pushing more of this into our lifestyle even if it does costs a little more. A locally grown avocado is pretty tasty. Locally grown greens are crisper and its always neat to know I got an egg from a local chicken and not off a boat.
Oh, the above picture of the farm girl, Norah Hoover. Ah, what a beauty. She was working on the Kauai farm that produces stuff for Common Grounds in Kilauea. As the staff was walking me around showing me parts of the farm and gardens which produce a good portion of the food for their restaurant, Norah walks over, barefoot no less, to plant kale into the field. I immediately was drawn to her as her off the shoulder shirt, overalls, and bed head red hair fit my image of what organic farming and life is like on Kauai. Sure enough, the LA Times and others have used that picture to be the lead for the story. She made a great picture.
The gaffer’s tape that saved the day!
May 1 UPDATE: SHE’S ONLY 10!!!!
As the last few bags spun around on the conveyor belt at Kona International, I got the sinking feeling my large Tenba duffel just wasn’t around the corner. My Lightware case with the Profoto 7b, grids and dish came through and I rolled my Pelican with cameras with me as carry-on. In the Pelican, I had my cameras, cards, lenses, and on camera flash so I was set but I knew without my duffel bag, I was sunk to pretty low depths.
In my duffel was an all-important C-stand with boom arm, flyaway sandbag, a few mafer clamps, softbox, umbrella, and a few other knick-knacks that make a quick afternoon shoot take place on the Big Island. Without a stand, I had no real reasonable way to light my subject. A law mag commissioned me to fly out for the afternoon to shoot a lawyer (imagine…me saying I shot a lawyer…folk hero status?) and I had scheduled to shoot the job at a beach near KOA.
Now imagine I have to light a portrait at sunset with no stand. Impossible, indeed. Truly impossible. Without a c stand, how the hell am I going to hold up a Profoto head?
After a panic and heated discussion with Hawaiian Airlines customer service at the airport, they were certain the bag would be on the next flight arriving a little after five. I had about an hour to stew and figure out a strategy to make this work.
My subject offered to pick me up from the airport saving me the hassle of having to rent a car but at that moment I was wishing I could have had that car to drive far away from my sunset nightmare. She luckily was super understanding when I said Hawaiian Airlines lost my bag and quickly started to help me create solutions to my dilemma.
First thoughts aside from sheer panic…a broom and gaffer’s tape. I figured I could tape a strobe head to a stick and have someone hold the light. The lawyer had her 12-year-old daughter along on the shoot and I immediately commandeered to be a living light stand. I have a solution. I asked Margaret, my subject, if we could rush over to Home Depot and purchase a broom handle but she oddly had a had a telescopic broom handle in her work vehicle. Shazam! Her offices were like four minutes away and zoomed down the highway to pick it up. We got the stand and I “MacGuyver-ed” my 7B head to the stick. The endless possibilities of gaffer’s tape! In the back of my mind, I knew there was the overpriced Lighthaus Camera in Kona but the sun was sinking quickly and I had a portrait to shoot. And the time it would take for me to head into Kona and pick up a stand might have been the time lost in creating the portrait.
Now the next issue was teaching a 12-year-old girl the basics of photography. I mean how tough could it be as much of photo assisting is done by kids with about a much sense as a broomstick? As a matter of fact, most photographers…well…that’s a story for another time. So the kiddo sorta figured out directions but had as much interest in the lighting as I did in her friend’s text messages. Failure. Complete failure. She, the poor darling, couldn’t hold the stick up at the right angle and surely didn’t have the patience to stand still for the time it would take to make the picture. I asked her if she could do any longer but she shrugged her shoulders and when crab hunting amongst the lava rocks and ocean. Slowly the voggy Kona sky was opening and the fireball of a sun began to burn through.
Dread. So I started to pick up the broom stick myself and fire away a few test shots and it seemed to work decently well. I knew I would have to use an open dish sans grid as I could no way handle aiming with the left side of my body as well as shoot with a full size dslr on my right. It wouldn’t be the portrait lighting I needed but it was going to be something.
I started looking around the near empty beach for a random beach goer to recruit into my photo shoot but alas, no one was around. I asked where Margaret’s husband was and he luckily was around the corner coming to join us. Solutions were happening but not as quickly as I would have liked them. But out of the blue my cell phone went off. IT WAS HAWAIIAN AIRLINES!!! They had my bag and it was at the airport. Margaret, me and the kid hopped in her Honda and sped off to KOA just in time to get the bag and get the job done.
I dodged a big bullet. A really big one. I quickly assembled the right stuff and got my picture shot. The pictures came out fantastic and the sun gave up that fireball friendly flicker only a voggy Kona can deliver. Hopefully the clients will be thrilled…and rightfully so considering the absolute panic that rang my ears for an hour plus after arriving.
Now what lesson do I take away with this as a photographer? Not much. There isn’t very much I can do if the airline’s misplaces my bag. My broom stick magic would have worked but I didn’t have a reliable adult to act as a stand. At least I had my Profoto set but what on earth would I have done if my powerful 1200ws light had gone missing? Sure I had my Canon on camera flash I don’t care what strobists claim, a Canon/Nikon/Vivtar flash will never mimic a Profoto with modifier. I know Joe McNally does magic with his small flash units but he has a dozen or more and really does some outrageous lighting schemes. You can create really nice ambient flash portraits with ETTL but I’m set up with big powerful Profoto packs. Maybe the ETTL is a little nice if not weaker than the Profoto but I don’t have the time or the expense to figure out how to spend a few thousand dollars and make McNally lighting. Besides, my Profoto stuff was and will always be expensive.
I can’t carry a Profoto kit in my carry-on. I can’t bring a big c stand in carry-on either. I’m kinda stuck having to rely on the airline and TSA for me to get my gear to my location. I really have to rethink my travel procedure and figure what I can carry on. Manfrotto makes a tiny light stand that could be used in a pinch. I could stick that into a carry-on messenger bag or laptop bag. I put all my pocket wizards in my check-in but now I think I’ll always carry a few in my check in just in case. And just maybe I have to figure out how to really make magic with an on camera flash.
In the end, I could have shot her with ambient light and made some fantastic images as well but the clients were expecting a certain look. If I couldn’t deliver, I’m out of a client and a paycheck.
The true hero of the day is gaffer’s tape. Don’t leave home without it. Gaffer’s tape, that sickly, sticky, fabric wonder, saved me even if my bag showed up just in the nick of time. I kept thinking as my 12-yr-old assistant (whom I quickly fired after I got my back) kept trying to wiggle away, hmmm…how long before the adhesive comes off her if I taped that broomstick to her hands? Then taped her to the rocks?
“ITS ABOUT DAMN TIME!”
Oh how tide does change. I never would have figured my hometown newspaper would call me to do a freelance gig for them. Out of the blue (brah!) Kevin from the San Antonio Express News calls me inquiring on my availability for a quick job the next day. His southern drawl caught me off guard warming me with memories of family, BBQ, and those spring days only found in San Antonio. I quickly jumped at the job and proceeded to tell him of my sorted past with the SAEN and my time shooting for their community newspapers. Sadly, he said, The Sun is no more.
I wrote a while back about my humble beginnings and shooting for the community newspaper ($25 per assignment!) so to get a job from the actual newspaper took me back to my days of desire…days of longing for a staff job at the only reality I knew at that time. In little ol’ San Antone! Leaving to NYC was a distant dream and to think I’d end up in Honolulu was unheard of! I mean only Magnum, Danno and surfers lived in Hawaii, not me.
Kevin and I had a few chuckles as I told him I’d been sitting by the phone for the last 20 years waiting for the Express to finally call.
The job was to cover the change of command ceremony at one of the military base’s where San Antonio native U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Jim Rendon would take over the top position here in Hawaii. The story can be seen here. The ceremony was the usual ho hum of long speeches, a little pomp and some circumstance all topped off with a brass band playing all the old favorites! At the end I grabbed Adm. Rendon, his wife and his parents and posed them for a really informal picture for the paper. After a few snapped, I told they they were all in Hawaii and I needed to see some “shakas.” Sure enough….
and the smiles they produce!
At the end I told the Rendon’s there isn’t much Mexican food on Hawaii but she countered it would all be made in her kitchen. Sadly as the job was over and I drove away, I realized I should have given her my number. Ah the missed opportunities of home cooking!