Tag: Hawaii

Blood, sweat, and…ring girls?

Blood, sweat, and...ring girls?

In college, I really wanted to be a sports photographer.  An 18-yrs-old with a Nikon F3HP, a 300mm F 2.8, and a quick finger.  What more did I need?  I worked at the Cactus yearbook and the Daily Texan at UT Austin in the early 90s.  Working there allowed me to shoot presidents, protests, car crashes, rock concerts…everything from Depeche Mode to Hillary Clinton.  But the best for me in those times was shooting UT sports.  Swimming, basketball, football, etc…what an amazing time.  Sadly, at that age, I wasn’t as serious as I should have been as some of my colleagues went onto bright photojournalism futures as I entered graduate school.  But while was an undergrad, I actually considered my future in photojournalism and sports and figured it was a career to nowhere.  I did see the end of the San Antonio Light and that was the paper I wanted to grow up and work for.  Shortly later, the internet took the fun out of the newspaper industry and job loss and newspaper closings became all the rage.

UT woman’s swim meet.  Possibly NCAA championship…1990-91.  Tri-X pushed like three stops to 1600 or even 3200 ISO!  Now that was some film processing.

I did recall a conversation with a staffer from the Dallas Morning News and we talked about the Pultizer Prizes won by several staff members back in those days.  The staffers exact words were “At the end of the day, you can’t hug a prize.”  I never forgot it.  I then continued to put more emphasis on life rather than career.  Whether its was the right decision to make a balance of life over letting a career take you over, I don’t know.

After grad school (international economics) went to New York to learn about commercial and editorial photography as a photo assistant…lots of good that did.  Yet I live in Honolulu and have a great shooting career and life.  Sure I think about moving back to New York but my friend Tracey Woods, a photo at a big mag asked me, “Why?”

She was right…why give up the sun, sand, and bad drivers?

But I digress…

On to the boxing.

I’ve only shot boxing once.  Its a brutal sport.  Too many punches and way too much blood.  On TV and from the stands, its ok..but up close, you get…well, you get the picture, rather you get it all over your picture and yourself.  Sweat and blood splatters all over the place.  And if you are next to the ring, you’ll surely get a shower.  The AP writer, Jaymes Song, told me he covered boxing once all the while drinking fountain cola in a cup.  Jaymes said after one particular bloody match, the inside and outside of his cup was flecked with red spots of…well…it wasn’t Coke.

Pingo got punished!

Needless to say, Jaymes didn’t finish his drink.

Boxing isn’t for the faint of heart.  Its tough to watch if you’re not into pugilism.  I could care less but seeing people get the hell beaten out of them, it can be slightly unnerving.  So last night I had to cover several boxing matches for AP and the big match was the Hawaiian Punch Brian Viloria in a title fight against Mexico’s Julio Cesar Miranda.  They went 12 rounds and Viloria was the victor.  A great fight although Miranda put up a good attack.  Viloria knocked him down a few times and I think the Mexican was shocked Vilora was such a tough guy.

Shooting boxing is tough to do. You have to anticipate each punch if you want to get peak action. If you snap when you see the punch going, you’ll never catch the actual glove connect with face.  All it takes is a little timing (and a fancy camera!) and you’ll eventually get the right moment.  The physically hard part of shooting the bloodsport is being bent over as you’re sticking yourself and camera through a few inches of ring rope.  12 rounds at 3 minutes each times 6 bouts…well…it’s a long time to be contorted over and through the ring and ropes.  My back wasn’t all that happy at the end of the night.

well…at least there are ring girls…

Its a far cry from the chicks I shot in swim suits racing at the UT swim center.  Alas, its a job…and I did have to shoot ring girls as a notation and separation to each round…really…its true.  Ask any of the guys who shoot boxing…

Anyway, I got away from the journalism life only to play one in Hawaii.  I’m glad I don’t have to shoot so much news and sport as I have much more fun now shooting travel pieces and portraits here and around.  But its nice to get a rush shooting a sporting event…all the while getting splattered with blood..as long as its not mine.

A QUARTER POUNDER!!!!

A QUARTER POUNDER!!!!

SO….

my remorse got the best of me.  I walked down Fort St. to McDonald’s and got a Quarter Pounder meal.

I am going to closet the burger and fries for a year and see what happens.  I’ll update this in a few months.  For now, lets see how the Mcfood does.  Its gonna sit in its original bag but also in a large zip lock to make sure no bugs or stench appears.  I don’ t think I’ll attempt to eat it a year from now but I never though I’d eat that McNugget…

To rot or not to rot…that’s the question…

Here piggie piggie…

Here piggie piggie...

Down the street from our place is Honolulu’s notorious Chinatown.  Once the first and only stop for Chinese immigrants and laborers in the 19th century, Chinatown’s colorful history has transformed it from a seedy prostitution and gambling den during the greatest generations of World War II (many from that generation onced lined up by the hundreds to visit their favorite girls at such places named Club Hubba Hubba)  to a trendy shopping and nightclub spot where homeless, hipsters, and drug dealers all co-mingle in a slight disharmony.  And don’t forget the Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrants  who step over and around mentally ill drug addicts to shop for choice produce, exotic fruits, and some of the freshest chops, slabs, and chunks of, well, just name it.  Roast ducks slowly drip their goodness in the window of a hole in the wall restaurant, tropical fish glare back at shoppers while on ice, and slices of durian fruit can be smelled a block away.  Very few things are like Honolulu’s Chinatown.  Small indeed but it packs a tasty and visual (sometimes stinky) punch!

Ola Magazine, the in-house magazine of the Hilton Hawaiian Village, tasked me to document Chinatown so as to entice daring hotel guests to drift downtown and visit the exotic side of Honolulu.

The spread, published this month, can be seen here in pdf form.

How do you whitewash the “exotic” and make it interesting for the average tourist couple to visit?  Like the Asian shoppers, you just jump over the homeless, avoid the drunk hipsters, and politely decline anything for sale by Kimo the dealer.

Overall, Chinatown is a fun place to photograph.  Its not as bustling as New York’s but its interesting none the less.  To photograph can be a challenge as language and misunderstandings can easily follow.  At some spots I asked to shoot at, I was met with suspicion as many thought I was expecting a bribe or a kickback for “advertising.”  Once people opened up, they easily allowed me to enter their worlds and see/smell/taste only insiders might.

Sweet gelatinous chicken feet in a brown soy sauce, Filipino balut (fertilized eggs…oh so good!) , fresh local lychee.  Cheap Chinese made sandals, jade jewelery, a steaming hot bowl of Vietnamese pho.  Fresh cut flowers, hand made leis, a legit massage.  Its all in Chinatown if you look and step over the calloused outside.

Yes, the poor thing…destined for a wok, soy sauce, and a pair of chop sticks!  Ooo la la!

So gone are the whore houses, the thousands of sailors, and bad art galleries have replaced shooting galleries.  Gone are the good ol’ days.

My father, stationed at Schofield Barracks in the 1950s, told me the prostitution was gone (historically, the State, which ran the brothels for the military, did close the sanctioned businesses of the brothels by the end of WWII) said the vice was still around and everywhere.  During the year he was stationed here, his claims range from having a pistol shoved in his face after racing to rescue a damsel in distress to escaping out of a just a bit too small window above a bathroom to avoid a thrashing by drunk sailors.  Said, “I’ve only thought it was in the movies that I would see a grown man thrown through a plate glass window.”  Hawaiian police with yard long batons, flying beer bottles, tattoo parlors…ahhhh…what life must have been like…