Tag: Marco Garcia Photography

Aulani Magazine

Aulani Magazine

A few weeks ago, I shot a great story on Paulette Kahakepuna, a Hawaiian lei maker who makes Lei Hulu, or feather leis, worn only by Hawaiian royalty.  Using mostly natural feathers and materials, Kahakepuna wove amazing leis and tales of her work and seeing some pieces she’s made, its easy to understand why some would be considered priceless.

You can see the story and magazine here starting pm page 16.  The link is to Oahu Publications on line magazine where you can page through the actual mag online.  Alternatively, you can stay at the Aluani, if you have the bucks.

I must say, I was super impressed the photo editor was able to pick out the first image as a cover.  It surprised me as I just didn’t expect it nor see it in my edit.  Clearly a nice piece of photo editing.

III

III

I hate the Canon 5D Mark II.  I hated mine copy so much I sold mine within weeks of purchasing it.  Not because it busted while on assignment in Nara, Japan.  Not because it didn’t make some amazing shots because it did.  I hated it because of the handling.  I hated the feel of the body.  I hated the focus points.  I really hated the focal points.  But in reality, I hated it because to me, it wasn’t a 1D series camera.  I purchased it as a back up to my full frame Canon 1Ds Mark II body.  Canon’s 1Ds Mark III body didn’t match up to my expectations and I figured why bother doing an expensive upgrade when the gains were so little.  But I sadly found the 5D was a fancy toy that non professionals used, not something serious pros would consider as a primary camera. (Just another GWC uttered in disgust as a wannabe wandered over to work next to us with a 5D.)

Yet, 5Ds were flying off the rental shelves at Hawaii Photo Rental.  Major photographers were using the camera to make amazing stuff.  TV shows and movies were being made with it.  I made a timeless shot in Kyoto with the camera.  The 5D Mark II can take some pretty amazing pictures and videos!

Maiko in Kyoto, Japan with a 5D MII

I know so many people who use it as their primary and love it.  There are thousands of photographers and cinematographers who use it and do amazing work with it. But for me, a rough-and-tumble kinda photographer who uses a t-shirt to clean his lenses, the 5D Mark II is and was a toy.  Mind you, so many pros, from White House photographers to travel-in-the-jungle photogs use and love it.

I didn’t.

Low and behold, Canon released the new Canon 5D Mark III with some major improvements.  As I’m faced with upgrading my 1Ds Mark II (this is a whole different story…the Mark II is amazing…at times it feels like there is enough flaws within technology that its like shooting film…you get organic-ism, not perfect-ism.)

So thanks to Josh and the crew at Hawaii Photo Rental, I had the chance to test drive and review the new Canon 5D Mark III for the shop. What made it more exciting was I was going to lunch with two amazing photogs, Eugene Tanner, AP and commercial guy, and Jamm Aquino, full time bad ass staffer at the Star Advertiser.  I pitched my review idea to Josh and he liked the idea that he’d here from three professional opinions on the newest Canon camera.

I picked it up from Austin and Natalie (and Christine) at Hawaii Photo Rental and immediately, I felt the camera was built a thousand times better than the 5D Mark II.  Natalie quickly pointed out how the flash card door was now lined with a piece of “leather” making it harder for the card door to slip open.  She, and Austin, noted the seals, feel, and design of the body stating Canon must have listened to pros and made major improvements.  The selection dial on the left of the body now has a lock to keep your settings in place.  That feature alone was one of the better and noticeable upgrades that can make it a winner.  The menus were updated and a bit complicated with numerous upgrades and features.

We rattled off the motor drive and it was fast for a prosumer camera.  Its about 4.5 frames a second?  Plenty of time to do moderate action.  But the greatest thing about the camera as the increased focus points.

The 61 focus points ROCKED.

Oh what joy to see a camera where you can actually find focal points throughout the frame.  The ability to move your focal points to almost any part of the camera gives the camera a major improvement in handling.  This was the main Achilles tendon of the camera for me…along with it just feeling like a toy.  The Mark II always reminded me of my first Canon digital camera, the 10D.  Just a prosumer camera off the shelf.

So I walked out with the camera and went to meet Jamm and Tanner for lunch over at Murphy’s Bar and Grill in downtown HNL.  We were having a late birthday lunch for Eugene but it was a celebration none the less as it was good cheer around.  We passed the camera around and all took pictures and made pro comments on the feel, style, and responsiveness of the Mark III…all over burgers, fish and chips, and a few adult beverages.

Kramer by Tanner.

Jamm, being a bit snobby in the use of in his gear, said immediately it was a GWC camera but after playing with it for a few minutes, he changed his tune.  I think all three of us are snobs with gear as we rely so much on our cameras to give us 110% all the time that its hard for us to “trust” a prosumer camera.  But again, we were quickly proved wrong.

The handling, structure and feel of the camera was reasonably good and beyond our expectations.  Eugene liked the fact the Mark III could easily fill the void a Canon Mark IV’ cropped sensor lacked.   But as we started to feel out the camera further, we three quickly noted several shortcomings and issues…all in reference to professional standards, conditions, and situations.  Immediately we all said the response was good but was it good enough, rather quick enough?  I stuck my Canon 35mm f1.4 lens on the body and took it for a spin down Ft. Street Mall.  I immediately felt it wasn’t responsive as a professional body.  Both Jamm and Tanner said roughly the same thing.  It doesn’t fire when you want it to.  Jamm pointed out it was probably a custom feature but we just felt it didn’t snap when you snapped.  Those instances when the decisive moment appears, you need a camera that will do what you tell it to do.

Knocked kneed on Fort St. with the Mark III

Now, we really only had this new tool for a short time and can’t really speak with any major authority about the camera and its functions but the responsiveness was noticeable.  So it could have been the custom function in the menu.  Knocked kneed was out of focus.  I aimed, fired, and the camera didn’t catch it.  There are so many quirks that we are not accounting for (my lens being out of tune, the camera settings, my lack of precision to catch the focus properly…there are numerous things to ask before I judge this scenario) but I would have expected some reasonable sharpness on the girl.  Who knows.  On the elevator in my building, I tried to sneak a few frames of one of the maintenance girls in our building and shoved the camera in her face.  Wouldn’t fire.  Nada.  Again, I have to refer back to Jamm and the custom functions in the menu but alas, no book and no time to fuss with buttons.  I feel strongly that if you gotta mess too much with the menus, etc…then you can’t take a picture.  Fire away and deal with the after mass later.

Lunchtime Stella

The one noticeable and wonderful feature was the lack of noise in high iso.  25600 is ABSOLUTELY useable.  Why you, the average user, would need to hit this high is beyond me but its absolutely useable.  Butter as some would say…silky smooth as butter.  The above shot of the lunchtime Stella was shot at 2000 iso.  Clean.  Amazingly clean.  Like shooting at 640 0r 800 iso on an older body.  Just simply amazing a prosumer body is capturing files like this.

Padded elevator rising to 32nd at 2500 iso with the Mark III.

Now the issues we all agreed upon was the focusing and the buffer were not 1D series standards.  Does that matter?  Should any of our shortcoming decision force you to spend $6700 over $3500 for a little bit faster focus and longer buffer (think renting for at least $150/day versus doing a three day rental from Hawaii Photo Rental at $185)?  I think not.  Most of you who have been renting from Hawaii Photo Rental have probably used a 5D Mark II and know its a fantastic camera.  Whatever short coming I (we) found or you might have figured out shouldn’t discount it.  Now with the new Canon 5D Mark III, the game shifts drastically and you can now rent a semi pro camera that works as close as to a professional 1D standard as you can get.

Deep thoughts with Tanner by Jamm and a Mark IV.

In reality, the 5D Mark III is a super camera.  The fantasy world we live in in reference to long buffers, etc…also reflect a world where we sometimes don’t live.  90% of what I shoot could be done with an iPhone.  The camera, priced a little too high (a strong demand and possibly a lack of production due to tsunami damaged factories or last year’s Thailand flooding) but it is a camera well worth its weight.  To rent it is to see where you stand with it.  Jamm, Eugene, and I all felt it was a superb camera but lacked just a little bit to make it a professional grade body.  Now does it matter as I stated above?  To 99% of you GWCs who are going to use it to shoot your dog, family or friends, absolutely not.  To those of you who will rent to shoot a wedding or paid job?  Absolutely not (maybe if you are picky) but no way if you’ve done well shooting with a 5D Mark II.  For a picky pro, its a great tool and if you are a pro you will have to know your limitations like anything.  If you are shooting a sporting event and your timing and focus mean the difference between a paycheck or going home empty handed, you’ll have to know your limitations with the tool.  And again, its a tool.  You can’t shoot an elephant with a bb gun, but how often do you get the chance to shoot an elephant?  The high ISO range expands your horizons drastically.  You can literally shoot in the dark now with little notice.  I find that option fantastic.  What a great new tool.

To note, I didn’t process any of the raw files as my version of Photoshop isn’t upgraded to open the new Mark III files and I couldn’t be bothered to deal with downloading it at this moment.  But the damn jpgs files are so damn good, its almost as if you don’t even need to shoot raw.  The files are amazing.  This is a superb camera and well worth renting from Hawaii Photo Rental.

We three photographers did not do any technical testing.  This is just talk over beer (and a whiskey) over the use of cameras, handling, and whatnot.

I highly recommend renting this fantastic camera from Hawaii Photo Rental.  Its a really, really nice camera and its a huge improvement over the Mark II.  Well worth the rental fees.

 

12-7:9-11

12-7:9-11

A Japanese bullet hole remains in a glass windowpane in a Hickam AFB hangar.  The glass has never been changed…a reminder of the Japanese attack on Oahu in 1941.

As the world remembers 9/11 on the tenth anniversary, Hawaiian dreams drift me back towards Pearl Harbor, December 7th.  The surprise roar of motors buzzing over the harbor.  Torpedoes like hornet stingers piercing steel and flesh. Explosions rocking hillside homes around the base.  Smoke filling the skies.  A world changed.

Then silence.  The sound of fire and smoke all around.  Black, billowing clouds of burning oil, flesh and steel.

We were not in NYC when the planes attacked.  In Miami, vacationing of all things.  We argued about the dates.  i wanted to go the following week.  We thought nothing of it as South Beach beckoned us to its sandy embrace that mere mortal Tuesday.  We awoke in a cheap South Beach hotel.  Never figured what laid ahead in the world.  We thought a tourist plane slammed into WTC.  “Eh… fuhgeddaboutit!”  Swam in the green sea.  Rolled in the golden sand.  Though about the afternoon flight back to Newark.  The struggle back on the Path.  The struggle to get back home.  Never thinking much of what would remain.

Once we got back to Manhattan.  We heard silence.  Heard the smoke and ash around the Trade Center.  No honking.  No rudeness.  Not really anything.  Just shock.  What we once romantically looked upon from Exchange Place…was gone.

The hardest part of living in post destruction New York was the reminders all around.  I don’t really remember any pictures I have from that time.  I didn’t rather i tried not to take any.  I just didn’t.  I don’t know why. It just wasn’t in me.  I probably have film somewhere but its something I just don’t really think about or want to see.

……….

Small reminders dot Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam.  If you look close enough you can see scars and wounds around the base.   In this one particular hangar, bullet holes glare like angry eyes from the past entwined in the wire-meshed windows of the hangar, it’s crooked eyelashes splitting from the brow.  Blue faced specters stuck in a Mondrianesque monotone malaise.

At first you don’t notice.  You wonder, why don’t they replace those busted windows.  Then you realize what those cracks in the glass are…

Pearl Harbor served as a lesson in history.  Why we didn’t learn enough is a question we should ask ourselves.  Yet past conspiracy theories suggest Roosevelt invited the attack to force the hands of the isolationist into war with Japan.  Many modern conspiracy theories point to a new world order after the Towers collapsed.  Some suggest they were demolished on purpose.  70 years after the attack on Pearl and we still don’t know what they knew then.

Will we ever know what they knew now?

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.