Category: Uncategorized

Took a walk today…found a few funny things.

Its obvious the non English speaking sign maker (its a Korean bar/restaurant) was trying to say Karaoke* but couldn’t figure out the correct spelling in English. I don’t know what the Asian script characters mean but I will find out.

As the owner of the facility, I would have made sure the sign maker spelled it right. Well, maybe I didn’t know how to spell it myself. ?????

*according to Wikipedia, “Karaoke is the Japanese blending of two words…Japanese kara 空 “empty,” and ōkesutora オーケストラ “orchestra.”

People were sitting at this bus stop near Don Quxiote. I was surprised yet I didn’t smell anything too bad as we walked by. I was curious at how much urine someone had to make to have the city come out and put up this official sign and danger tape.
I hope they washed their hands.

I can’t help but to wonder at the person who had the task of writing this sign. At least they spelled urine correct. Knowing Hawaii, I am surprised the sign artist didn’t replace urine with shi shi.

If the city didn’t want anyone to sit at the bus stop they should have written…

Oh, no sit cuz plenny shi shi ovah hear.

From Wikipedia….

a freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is a self-employed person who pursues a profession without a long-term commitment to any particular employer. The term was first used by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) in Ivanhoe to describe a “medieval mercenary warrior” or “free-lance”.

Today I figured out I am a mercenary. I’ve always figured but here is the proof.

Trade the lance for a camera and off we go, shooting all in sight.

from the New York Times.

I have a collection of the Best of Photojournalism books from the early to mid 1980’s which taught me how to see things as a photographer. How to expose film to get a feeling, capture a moment, and use the darkroom as a tool to make an image snap. As a young dreamy photographer, I would peruse image after image from revolutionary Nicaragua, Jewish immigrants in South Beach, and crack heads in New York City. That grainy portrait, the dark shadows and poppy highlights. Creative darkroom work made those images even better. I mean really really powerful. Those books made me dream of the day I would run around the world with an Nikon F3HP, a pocket full of Tri-X, and a few Nikkor primes.

Alas, those days are gone. Everything…youthful naivety, the desire to be a war correspondent and that pocket full of Tri-X. Film, sure it still around, but digital is king. I still use it but 99.9% of all of my jobs are purely from my Canon digital bodies.

I shot this bike rack with my Leica and a 1970s Summilux 35mm lens. I had to do a little “dodging and burning” in photoshop but nothing more. Well, a little tweaking in levels but really, its the film. The film was not able to resolve the shadows and expose the highlights properly. Sure I could have exposed a little differently but shooting a stop under really made this graphic snap. Digital would have captured this scene completely different. Even if I were to have dropped my exposure a few stops under, I don’t think it would have recorded this type of feeling. Digital has taken the magic out of photography.

I don’t think my photo above is something that special but it shows where and how I sometimes look at the world. In reality, I don’t think this image would have looked the way it does if it was shot digitally. Digital has way too much resolution and I would have had a great exposure with plenty detail in the shadow areas.

I shot this image this afternoon from my lanai err…balcony today and I kinda got the same shadow effect but the digital file just recorded too much. I completely played with this image to make a darker shadow but it wouldn’t budge. Its interesting but what snaps more?

Had a interesting job on the Big Island at a geothermal plant. It uses geothermal energy to produce electrical energy. A bit controversial as some native Hawaiian groups are upset their god Pele is being used as a source for energy and thus, taken advantage of…but its also controversial as the power plant sits atop an active volcanic area and the active rift zone. Earthquakes and possible lava flows could disrupt or even destroy the plant. The plant is very stable yet in a way, very unstable.

Well, at least my toes are protected. As we got access to shoot the plant, we were made to wear these steel-toe slip ons as well as other protective gear…helmets, googles, etc. But the toe protection was a really cool thing. I’d buy them.