Category: Uncategorized

Its hard to really talk straight about your family as too many personal things come up. Life isn’t always nice or perfect but life…it may be hell, but its my hell. Either way, the last 9 days with my family was great. Not perfect but great.

Its hard to see family as everyone grows differently regardless of what or who you are. Oddly enough, you see your family and its like seeing a prediction…you know exactly who you are and who you will become. I embrace it. Actually, I look forward to it…screws and all.

Funny, I add this thinking about my title and the picture.

I watched Diamonds are Forever and at the end where James is trying to catch Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the voice, that voice…two minutes and counting…

Life isn’t that far away.

Ala Moana paddlers at sunset.

As life is slowing working itself back into simplicity, picking up cameras and walking around soothes the restless beasts of boredom.

I waltzed down to Ala Moana on Friday and today with a new film in the Leica, Ilford XP2 (a monochromatic film I decided to try comparing it to Kodak 400CN–essentially, black and white film developed in C-41–more later.) I decided to keep the Summilux 50mm lens on the M6 and readied myself for a few surprises. Film always allows for so many mistakes, user and quality, but always delivers that organic feel which digital can’t touch. Mistakes are good, as it keeps us in a real realm of reality. Digital kinda creates perfect life…almost like a video game or cartoon.

Walking back from Chinatown this morning proved worth wild…with trusty camera at side, I found myself standing in front of a unslightly smoking memorial. About 8-10 guys on scooters were buzzing around the backside of a funeral home on Kukui St. Several of them formed a line back spinning their tires throwing smoke and noise into the air. What a racket but what a site.

Come to find out I see a guy I know, Smokey is his name and I actually shot him a few months back AND oddly enough, I blogged about him and posted his photo.

See here at

http://marcpix.blogspot.com/2007/10/smokie.html

He told me one of their “gang’s” friend died in a bike crash. 80’s miles and hour into a wall. Bam…what a way to go. His friends were giving him a really noisy send off. I wondered what his family thought of the ruckus his buddies were giving him. I guess no worry about the environment with the smoke.

And speaking of Smokie, he was quiet the character…40oz half drank bottle of beer at hand. And it wasn’t even noon. Gotta love it.

Oh–and the film. Kodak and Ilford make these great monochromatic films you can process at any daylab and get great black and white images. The reason I love using it as you can use digital ice from the Nikon scanner programs to clean up dust, etc. Traditional b/w film doesn’t allow good results using “ice.” And besides, a hour’s processing for cheap at Longs really saves the day and the pocketbook.

After what seems likes weeks of shooting for Frommers (well..it has been weeks) I finally am wrapping up my three island tour of Oahu, Lanai, and Molokai. I have a story brewing on my trip on Molokai and I should put something up soon. After a four days/three nights grueling trip I returned on a Friday only to have a scheduled UH football game to shoot the next day for AP.

Saturday morning proved to be tough as as anything as I had only slept about 4-5 hours tops each night on Molokai. Strange beds, odd environments, and the constant pondering of the next day never makes for a good night’s sleep.

Storm clouds covered all of Oahu on Saturday and I could feel I was going to be in for a tough evening of shooting rainy day football. The lack of sleep and stress were really wearing on me. And the dread of shooting in the rain.

Most professionals constantly fear rain no matter what their camera makers tell them. A Canon rep recently stated to a group of us that Canon Japan tests their pro camera gear in rainy conditions up to 7 inches an hour. For some reason I’d like to believe my camera can take a dunking but when its your dollar on the line, you best take precautions.

I never could figure out the proper way to really ensure my cameras/lenses would be safe in a rain storm, heck, even a sprinkle. I’ve seen and used everything from trash bags to zip lock bags to keep cameras dry. There are several camera outfitters which sell super expensive raincoats for long lenses and camera bodies. Most are well though out and seem very handy to use but the costs, over $150 dollars for some kits like Aqua Tech are hard to swallow. I do have to pay for all my gear and accessories so thats lots of money for once in a while use. I mean how often am I forced to stand in the rain to get a shot?

A few years ago, I fould quirky Rebecca B fooling around with a long camera lens and a pair of rain pants pulled over the lens, I mean, the leg of the pants slipped over the lens hood with the waist over the actual camera…get it? She basically draped her pants over her camera and viola! a raincoat for cheap. Rebecca is the origin of my current rain suit pants concoction on my 400mm lens. She is the OG of the lens raincoat pants thang.

Thank you Rebecs for your good idea and creative way around keeping your camera dry. I must say you inspired me to create my own!

Istead of cutting up a good pair of rain pants, I purchased a stanky old pair of army surplus green pants from God knows when they were made. The good thing is the military makes things to last and short of the stench of what ever, the pants proved to be perfect. They slipped over the lens hood snuggly and after a snip or two, it works perfectly.

And the OD green keeps me completely camouflaged from irate golf pros and mean looking security agents.

What I never could figure out was how to completely keep my camera body from getting wet. I’ve tried several options including a now discontinued Nikon soft camera pouch used to silence or rather dampen the shutter slap of a camera. The sound aspect was never the best but did dull the metallic snap thus keeping my shutterbuggery (ha–its my new word you bastards!)

Hell today I am changing my blog post title! Welcome to Shutterbuggery.

Anyway, back to the rain…

So it took a sharp Chinese guy, yes, you George F Lee, to completely show me the light on how to keep the rain at bay.

As George will quickly admit about himself and his Chinese decent, they are patient, will observe closely, and thus attack accordingly. He didn’t say it in so many words but I think you get the picture. At the game I saw George and his big camera lens all wrapped up with a clear garbage bag, and his camera eye piece stuck over the bag thus covering the and solving my problem. As my picture suggests, the back of the rain pants comes over the body completely and yet, a surgically placed cut into the material allows you to peer into the view finder and the eye piece diopter keeps all in place. George readily admits he stole, no copied the idea directly from Aquatech.

So thanks George for your sharp observations and wit to figure out a simple problem to keeping the rain away from cameras and lenses.

I should point out that George’s use of a clear garbage bag allows full “chimping” or reviewing of images. I’d like to limit my “chimping” of images keeping my mind focused on the task at hand. Editing should come later!

Now on to football and the shot of the week:

Yes, this is the catch that won the game for UH and to tell you the truth, life can be tough as a lone wire photographer. In all honestly, the glory days of Hawaii and their odd bid at a Sugar Bowl title are long gone…and so is the strong media attention. No one really cares about UH football nor of their opponents in the WAC. Games starting at 6pm in Hawaii start at midnight on the East Coast. All news editors are gone for the day and the night crew is just pushing through images to the wires. UH football is sadly just another image to push. How can UH compete with Texas or USC for attention. We are just a small state with a small team.

Yet this does not stop the job I have at hand. I have to visually tell a story within reason and send out images to make West Coast sports deadlines so all is not in vain. My first initial shots of the opposing team from Nevada or where ever that team on the West Coast may be will surely be used by the paper and their website.

Now with rain pouring down for almost the entire game, its truly hard to concentrate on a game. I am in a constant hunt for the all telling shot that conveys the entire game and most of the time, that shot never really appears nor or it just happens just beyond where you are. In brief, if you are a lone wire photographer, you can never predict which way a sports event will turn. You can be downfield when a fumble takes place and the winning shot runs away from you. You can station yourself left of the QB and he will pass to the right. The running back can get the ball and run straight towards you and quickly change pace and snap the other way. Action is unpredictable. Its never where you need it to be.

Hence we come to the shot…

Its seconds left when the UH quarterback needs to make a touchdown to win the game or go into dreaded overtime. He pulls back out of the pocket runs directly opposite of me and throws the ball to the furthest corner away from me and the receiver makes the catch. Quick thinking and a hail mary burst nails me this shot. A little shabby once you see the original but I had to drop the long lens act and option for the shorter lens as you never know which way they’d run or throw. I just so happen to be quick on the draw and, thanks to razor sharp optics, Canon digital technology, faster than light focusing, I got the shot. Oh, I forgot to mention a little post production.

I could have taken this shot with a longer lens, the 400mm, but at the time I didn’t or couldn’t predict which way the receiver would have run. I was just lucky I got the game telling shot.

UH won the game 38-31. If you didn’t get it, he did…catch the ball, that is.

Lanai Cowboy…a real one

Funny…I’ve gotten really rave reviews on this image yet the first thing my journo friends ask, its it posed….? What the hell do you think? You think magic like this happens by chance? Am I Steve McCurry? Sorry, I gotta make my art…it doesn’t come easy.

I wanted to give this image its own space as I find it deserves it.

Big skies in Lanai

You’d never think, knowing how big Lanai is, and know what’s there, rather whats, not there, that you could fill your time being on such a small island, an even smaller town, and enjoy a somewhat siren-less, traffic jammed, noiseless place.

With no stoplights, two, maybe three restaurants, one gas station (Oct 18 price: $5.39/gal) Lanai might drive some insane…at least I figured I go that route. I didn’t…strange to say…but might quickly lapse into a state of vegetation due to the lack of stimulation.

I don’t think I could easily live in a small town as such as I’d piss off too many locals with a bad New York attitude or just plain loose my mind for whatever reason…(What? NO McDONALDS???) Well, to set the record, McDonalds isn’t the best of food but its nice to have options.

As far as nature, its hard not to miss it…with spiders, quails, deer, and other critters and creatures of God running around the island. I didn’t see deer but heard they are abundant as Islanders hunt them for food and fun. (what the hell else you gonna do on an island if you are male, got a gun, and a 4×4 pick up?)

Found lots of interesting folks, good stories, and fun times among the locals. I guess you can equate the friendly quality with the fact that you can’t beef with anyone in a small town. Surely you just can’t close your door and hope not to see that guy/girl ever again…I mean, the town is only 3000 or so…thats how many people live on my block, if not more! But to me, you seem to just take people for what they are, try not to judge and live as you can with everyone in a good old fashion way. Make sense? You just live, and something more important, share yourself.

Kevin and his wife Beth, along with the extended family of friends, co-workers, and neighbors make up a great cast of characters. Kevin, along with many others, are a group of people I met on Lanai on a job I shot in April. In many ways, they all took me to be part of their oddly working extended family and I quickly fit in, quirky as I can be. All normal sense of making friendship went out the window as I immediately became part of the pack. I found anyone in the group would have done about anything for me, regardless if they knew me well or cared anymore than just a “Aloha, how are you?” handshake.

So maybe life on the little rock isn’t all that bad. Life can get back to what it used to be. No Real World, not E TV, no Presidental debates, or other foolishness. Just life…as it maybe should have remained.

I did find a bit of oddness from both Hawaiian natives and mahilinis, or newcomers to Hawaii. Some natives still hold an odd reverse racism towards white peoples, or haoles. Haoles, in many minds, came and stole the land. Sure, if you look at the situation in Hawaiian eyes, whitely came and stole it all.

One Hawaiian guy told me the white man came with laws and rules unfamiliar to them. They make and made sense but in a way didn’t quite make sense to natives. He told me that in the old days, Hawaiians buried their dead with their “legal” documents or as he said, papers, so once they were buried, those rules became oral history. The white man had proof, not just words. So when land was sold, it was a done deal.

I mean, much of the land was sold legitimately in the old days, but no different than the Dutch purchase of New York from the natives. Hey, both parties got what they wanted, even if you can look back and say one got cheated. That’s history. Sorry, no do overs or give me backs. I think we’d all like to do over what our ancestors did because hindsight is 20/20.

It isn’t any better on whitey’s side either. The regret and bitterness, in many ways, creates a tough situation, or relation among the white people who own and run the island as well as those who move here and do nothing but self absorb themselves into Lanai society.

Whitey, regardless of what many say, did bring organization, laws, and structure to an unorganized society. I mean, things worked well in Hawaiian society, and I could be making uneducated statements, but lots of Hawaiians want the land back and want to reinstall the king. Well, a King means all belongs to him and nothing belongs to the peoples. Its well known surfing was for the Kings and royalty…not the peoples. And besides, what Hawaiian native is gonna admit he is just a pure landless peasant who owns nothing and follows the King. I think anyone with a smidgen of brains would run around and state he is the King’s cousin…etc…

Sure I sound ignorant, maybe a bit racist (Can Mexicans be racist…?) but a bit realistic. I don’t know…do i care?

To get back to the mahilinis, the odd problem on Lanai just might be those new arrivals who set up shop to sell their jewelry junk, paintings, photos, etc…to rich tourist stopping buy, yes buy, for the day from Maui or stay over at the exclusive ($$$) Four Seasons. Surely you know I don’t bad mouth the artists who make crafts and such for life, but so much of this can be seen as a self absorbent selfishness to proclaim “HERE I AM! BUY MY ART!” behavior that’s so quickly found in so many resort type societies. Don’t get me wrong, lots of people really do make art for art’s sake but trinkets and junk sell so well on islands.

Ironic, here I am criticizing my brothers and I am nothing but a Xerox machine stealing what runs around me. How, my dear readers, do I make a difference? Maybe its not criticism but more of a reflection of myself.

The affluent visitors who come to places like Kauai, Lanai, and other “artists” havens create galleries and whatnot to sell their wares but sometimes it seems these types could do so much more for society as a whole of they did more than just scribble their false sense of art and humanitarianism onto a canvas. Let the ferral cats sort themselves out…they surely don’t need your colonialist sense of being or wellness. Locals are demanding more restaurants and services but the mahilinis only bring themselves, jewelry and trinkets. Locals…step up! “We sailed anywhere around the globe just using the stars!” one Hawaiian proclaimed, sadly, his brothers couldn’t put down the ice pipe. All natives were given their vice, sad to say.

Anyway, onto the better things in life other than my rambles…

Garden of the Gods, sunset, windy, and cold.

The above captures me with a 14mm, fast gushing winds, and red dirt. Red dirt stains like no tomorrow. Havoc on the shoes, clothes and anything else that it touches. As I reflect on Lanai, I do see myself in a different light. I feel older, as my picture portrays. I am facing heavy winds and a dust cloud but this mortal picture makes me feel my age…all of 37 next year February. The way I lived in the past, I never thought I’d make it to this age…well thats not exactly true but we all tend to forget how quick time flies. I don’t actually feel or look this bad. But its funny to peer into the future.