Category: Photography

Shopping in Kauai with Jen.

Shopping in Kauai with Jen.

Last month, I had a great opportunity to photograph a travel piece on shopping in Kauai for the New York Times.  Story can be found here. My assignment took me all over from Hanalei to Hanapepe.

One funny incident involved me and actress Jennifer Aniston.  While at Kong Lung Trading Company in Kilauea, I was minding my own business snapping pictures of the store when all a sudden Ms. Aniston, Jen, as I’ll call her now, whose hairstyle launched a nation of Rachel-look-alikes in the ’90s, waltzed into the shop and stopped my photo shoot.  I did hate that Rachel haircut…I dated a girl…actually I stopped dating her when she got that cut.  I couldn’t bare it.  I never liked Friends.  Of course, being the non paparazzi photographer that I am, I couldn’t go against the good graces of the store owners who surely didn’t want to loose a customer, especially Jen, who is, as we say, is a celeb.  So I had to stay back and wait patiently as her and her entourage went from rack to rack of clothing and the likes, all the while I whittled my thumbs waiting for her to go. I wanted to rush up to her with cameras ablazing and take that great front page shot for the travel piece but I didn’t.  I imagined all these readers rushing to the store cause “Rachel'” er, Jen was there…I mean if its good enough for her, well…

Her publicist bodyguard marched up to me immediately and confronted me about what I was doing with a camera.  I stared her down and explained I had nothing to do with Jen and that was that.  I can give stink like the next person.  We then chatted about all the inside info I had about shopping on the island and I actually became the shopping hero to the publicist as she took Jen to the shops the Times would write about.

Finally Jen saunters past me and gives me a nice Hollywood smile so I gave her my Clark Gable grin and she left.  I must say, she is a very beautiful woman in person, more so that TV.    From top to bottom, she’s a good looking broad…as some might say…well the Situation might say, not I…well…she did have nice legs.

Hawaiian Cowboy…err…girl

Hawaiian Cowboy...err...girl

Shelby Rita is a real cowboy…but I’m not sure if she’d call herself a boy, though.  Shelby is a Hawaiian rodeo star on the North Shore of Oahu.  You ask…cowboys (girls) in Hawaii?  Well…yes.  Cowboys, or the paniolo, were first introduced from Mexico in the old days to help develop the cattle industry in Hawaii.  The culture and clothing stayed and now small pockets of ranchers ride around the range on horseback in the beautiful Hawaiian sun.  Shelby comes from a long line of ranchers so naturally she grew up riding horses, raising cattle, and competing in state and national rodeo events.

American Airlines Magazine commissioned me to shoot her along with her riding partner Troy Gomes for an upcoming article featuring the two young riders.  The catch is they wanted a shot on a seamless gray background.  Its not often I get to shoot in a “studio” as Hawaii is its own beautiful background; however, my assistant extraordiniare Tammy and I were given the task of setting up a seamless in the great wide open.  We succeeded in finding a nook in Shelby’s garage where we carefully set up the background, flew an Octabank and snapped away.  Luckily, the windy North Shore didn’t spoil our “Studio 59” and we were able to capture some wonderful pictures.  Shelby’s a beauty and our images came out fantastic!

Though, Shelby upstaged her partner Troy (am I bias?)  Troy held his own.  He naturally would stand with that cowboy swagger, thumbs hooked into his big belt buckle.  A real classic image.

Funny enough, the mag chose a secondary shot out on the range.  I somewhat argued with the editor about the background as an outdoor Hawaiian blue sky beats any gray seamless any day but the art direction called for a seamless.  How surprised they must have been when they got the secondary shots of Shelby and Troy on horseback with the green Hawaiian mountains and blue sky in the back.  The ed fell over backwards!  Nonetheless, the seamless were not chosen.  The American Way issue will be on planes sometime soon. If you happen to fly, please take a look.

Now on the issue of Shelby calling herself a girl…I saw her ride off on the back of a horse at full speed.  She controlled the beast with grace and power.  I’ll let her tell you if she’d prefer to be called a girl.

The Transmission

From my recent story shot for The New York Times, I spent behind the scenes time with Ryan and Jen Ozawa, creators of ABC’s Lost podcast “The Transmission.” Although not affiliated in anyway with ABC or Lost, the couple as spent the better part of every season (sans the first one) producing a weekly podcast for a legion of followers who download and comment on the Ozawa’s post show discussions.

Story is here.

I preferred my selects over the newspaper’s selections so I posted my outtakes. Jen and Ryan, two who couldn’t be more visually different, were hard to place. I wasn’t sure how to fit them into a frame and make sense of who they were and the environment. I mean this was a story about two podcasters, not the people standing in front of me.

We met way out in Waialua at Camp Erdman, aka, the Other’s Village. Dusk sank quickly giving a strange glow to all around and the sickly yellow walls of the camp lent to that eerie Lost feeling.

What was hard about snapping the couple together is that they didn’t say “Lost podcast.” Jen has a motherly school teacher vibe while I felt Ryan was going to lecture on derivatives or something very cerebral. I think my problem was Jen showed up in a red dress that seemed out of place and I think she knew it. Ryan showed up in Hawaiian work attire…an aloha shirt. Funny, once we got back to their home, Jen put on a green tee shirt and jeans transformed into a totally different person. That red dress stopped her, and for that matter me.

However, I stopped doubting myself and moved forward working with my awkwardness and placed them in juxtapositions. In the fence shot, I was thinking of Grant Wood’s American Gothic painting.

My awkwardness visually placed them into an interesting place.

I was very happy with the shot. Nothing says American Gothic…yet maybe it does. Sadly, the eds didn’t see it as such but it gives me a moment to write about it for my blog.

The Ozawas pushed me to make a tough story into a really great shot, at least for me. I really appreciated working with them. They were amused…well maybe annoyed with me…using the word “interesting” as I posed them in different situations and poses. It wasn’t so much they were making my job hard, I made it hard for them. I just couldn’t find what it was to make the image work. But it did. I think they were one of the better jobs I’ve shot as it allowed me to think out of the box and do something slightly different than the usual shtick for a portrait job.

Striking to me is how the couple have grown a small home based project into an international sensation all from the den of their home. Two mics, headphones, a bit of software, and the solitude of nighttime help them create a very interesting show.
Sadly, I’ve never heard it. For that matter, I’ve never watch Lost. I don’t know anything about the show other than I’ve photographed Lost red carpets events and cast members over the years.

I shot Daniel Dae Kim and restaurateur DK Kodama at the Counter Hamburger joint for Modern Luxury and

Michael Emerson for the cover of Hi Luxury Magazine. He loved the issue and images and signed a copy which I framed and am very proud of. I should have been watching the show. Thank goodness for reruns.