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M9 nuptials…I do…or maybe not?

A colleague and friend here in Hawaii invited me to her wedding and, of course, the big question loomed…”Can you bring your camera and snap a photo of us?”

Sure! Audrey is a close colleague and we’ve done plenty for each. I was planning to attend her wedding to her fiancée, Mike, anyway so to bring a camera isn’t much of a stretch as it keeps me occupied. There is nothing more annoying than to sit still through an event all the while wiggling my toes, itching for something to kill the voices in my head and quell the restlessness. Why not just view it all through the port of a camera and document it as it goes down? Sounds crazy, no?

So thanks to Josh at Hawaii Photo Rental, I took out his new Leica M9 digital camera along with a brand spanking, and rare, 21mm F1.45 Summilux lens he currently rents out of his shop here in Oahu and Maui. As many of my past posts have dealt with Leica and shooting film, this would be my first time to shoot a digital Leica in a “work setting” and see how the results turn out.

Shooting with a 21mm lens might not be the ideal choice for general photography but I made it a point to really capture the “big picture.” Maybe I should rephrase that and say capturing the big and

W – I – D – E

picture as this lens really stretches the view beyond what is really expected. I’m used to shooting wide lenses but there was something uniquely different with the 21mm. My “never take off” lens on my Canons is the Canon 24-70 F2.8 lens. So the 21mm stretch isn’t all that much more but its enough to keep me on my toes and forced me to compose differently. But what I found strange about shooting such a wide lens is that you don’t really see any distortion since the Leica is a rangefinder, not a SLR. You don’t exactly see all you are going to get and the rangefinder framelines are much different.

Hence, Hawaii Photo Rental also rents out the hot shoe 21mm viewfinder that takes a bit of getting used to as you have to focus through the lens then more or less compose with the view finder; two steps that takes a bit of getting used to, especially if you are shooting at a shallow depth of field. Using the external view finder did become a bit bothersome as I am a compose, focus, and shoot type of photographer (or a combination of the two, maybe even all three put together) that I found myself being bothered by the additional step. However, it did help me see that I was cutting off feet, and missing things that I normally wouldn’t have seen, considering the 21mm extend beyond the M9 frame lines.

The one noticeable difference the lack of strong distortion on the corners with the Leica 21mm versus the Canon 24-70. Sure there was slight bending at the ends but it was much more tolerable to me than the distortion from a 24-70 on a full frame Canon body. Also, since the 21mm Summilux is a bright F1.4 lens, a noticeable vignette is apparent wide open and it is pleasingly so. The Hipstamatic app on the iPhone has a pre-programmed vignette so I don’t see how the flawed (yet perfect) optics of shooting at 1.4 on the Summilux is a bad thing. The darkness at the corners is limited though yet its quite nice as it naturally aligns the eyes to the center of the photo.

At the shop when I picked up the camera and lens, Josh did suggest I take his new 28mm F2 Summicron lens along with the Summilux but figured the difference in the focal length can be compensated. Little did I know those 7 degrees of separation would make that much of a difference!

It was my first time to shoot “a job” with the Leica M9 and I was surprised at the handling of the camera along with the files and images themselves. I won’t review the camera other than to write the camera surpassed what I expected. It is surely the Mercedes of the camera world. Lexus makes a superb car mind you but its just not German engineering.

The Leica is not a Canon or Nikon DSLR so don’t expect the camera to respond, handle or create images like they do. It is not going to auto-focus, shoot 30 frames in two seconds, or correct your mistakes when you put it on auto. In many ways, the Leica is as stupid as you. Whatever you don’t know, the camera won’t solve it for you. So if you are don’t know what the hell you are doing, don’t use it.

Hence, before you run out and rent one at Hawaii Photo Rental, remember, it takes a bit to get used to, unless you’ve shot with an M series camera in the past. When I’ve shot my M6, I find myself more careful and a bit more cautious when I snap an image. A digital body creates such a freedom away from the constraints of 36 frames and allows continuous shooting. Again the drawback I found with shooting the digital Leica is the additional editing at the end of the day. In a way, digital takes away the craft of a Leica because you know you can just keep shooting till you get the shot. With film you are actually more cautious as you are limited to >36 chances to get it right. Digital allows unlimited, uninhibited, and uninterrupted shooting.

Again to argue about the editing side of “unlimited shooting” also brings to mind the fact that I consistently overshoot with a Canon body so its really not an issue to me. I guess with a Leica, I just expect to be a bit more concise. Now if I shot with one everyday, I would have a different feel for the camera but it’s a tool that isn’t always available.

Although I doubt the original Leica was designed with Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment in mind, the M9 does put you into a situation where you are further staring through the viewfinder. You wait….watch… compose…capture. With my DSLRs, I just shoot and hope it will be there. I am being to simplistic with my shooting style as I write this but compared to shooting with the M9, I feel like it is a much more composed and visual act. The M9 forces me to think a bit more about the art. Again, because of the nature of digital, I am shooting more in the hopes of getting the right shot when I should concentrate more and focus on that decisive moment.

A few weeks ago, when Josh got the M9, I took out the camera and played around with it in Chinatown. I think the lens was my 35mm Summilux. Now the image is nothing to spin about but I seem to have impressed Josh with the shot.

To note, all the images in this blog were taken with the Leica but were all treated by me at the end to give the look I felt the images deserved…or got stuck with…either way its a little bit of how I saw everything unfold.

Pearl Harbor Survivors

Ralph Lindenmeyer, who was stationed at Ford Island during the attack, was on his way to a day of surf and sun in Waikiki after attending Church. He saw the swarm of Japanese planes flying over the base towards Pearl Harbor.

I grew up in somewhat of an anti-Asian family. Its not like we were totally racists and threw eggs through the neighbor’s windows…its just my father had some issues with who the US chose to go to war with most of his life. Mrs. Hymer, our next door neighbors for most of my childhood, was Japanese and her half Japanese kids were my childhood pals. Al was my hero, there was nothing he could do wrong. Chris was the brain and I wanted to be smart like him and Nina, well, she was a babe. My parents loved the family. My super close friend in high school, Sant, (now Cheksant for some odd Buddhists reason) was from Bangkok, my NYC buddy is Yong from Korea, George Lee is Chinese, and Yukako is…of course…Japanese. Not to mention I do live near Chinatown and can’t escape all the Asians around me here in Honoruru!

So to say anti-Asian, I mean that in a propaganda type of way because of how the US stereotyped Asians (even Bugs Bunny got into the act!) In the 20th century, we did wage war against three, no four, possibly five types of Asians. My father fought against two (maybe three) so I guess you could say he wasn’t fond of people who were trying to kill him. (They weren’t found of you either, Pop!) Of course they didn’t hit him but the pleasantries were duly noted. I also think my father was racist in a foodie type of way because he never forgot the revolting stench of fermenting kim chee in remote Korean villages as a young soldier. And he claimed (and believe me, he claimed LOADS of things) he encountered little kids in Vietnam gnawing on dried rat skins but, again, eh…?
But the attack on Pearl Harbor is what got him started on his anti-Asian rants. He told me how he and his friends thought of ways to join the army as teens. He was somewhat upset when the Japanese surrendered because he missed his chance rain revenge on those who dare to attack a military base on an American territory (that quiet possibly had been occupied by the West illegally for some time…er…what?) But he wouldn’t have to way too long for his wish to come true.

Anyway, as a kid, we watched all those old war movies where Filipino or other non-Japanese actors portrayed the mean, cold-blooded Japanese. They always seem to laugh when they killed a poor, unsuspecting, fresh faced, white American soldier. (Funny, there were no black actors in those movies…and the only Latinos were, uh, well…ah Anthony Quinn…yeah…but, he covered his Mexican-ism.) That mocking, sinister laugh that only murderous non-Japanese Filipino or slanty-eye Latino actors (Ah! That’s where they all were!) make when they portrayed those blood thirsty Japanese soldiers. I recall my father saying once…or maybe I saw it in one of those movies…the Japanese laughed when the bombed Pearl Harbor. They laughed as they killed all those milk-fed boys from Iowa. I grew up thinking “those dirty Japanese rats!” forgetting that I just spent a good long summer afternoon playing with that “half-dirty Japanese rat” Nina, who, as I must confess, my first Asian love. I think she was about five years older than me but it didn’t matter.

I digress…it was just stupid propaganda films my father watched when he was a kid and then made my brother and me watch when we were kids. Propaganda is powerful.

Seeing how Pearl Harbor was dramatically attacked on film, I developed a special spot for a place I had never seen. I never gave much thought to the men aboard those sinking ships as they were always actors and in the back of my mind, I knew they’d be all right. So when I first came to Hawaii on a work trip back in the 90′s, the first place I visited was the Memorial. It was stunning. Unbelievable to see the dreams of my childhood, from film/video to reality. I though “wow.” What else could I say? From the Memorial, there, swimming just about 10 yards away…the smokestack of the USS Arizona!

But what was more unbelievable were the real, live, in living color, survivors! Not those young actors I saw in the movies. Grizzled old war vets in cheap aloha shirts. Tough old guys who made it through the attack. Some smiled gleefully when approached by tourists while others seem to suspiciously eye those young Japanese tourists who probably failed to understand the chaos created by their grandfathers. The survivors were living history right before my eyes. I think I might have talked to one or two of those guys but it was just small talk and we went our ways. Still, it was like seeing George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, at least for me. As I said, from cellulose to reality.

So years go by and somehow we end up permanently living in Honolulu. I went to several Pearl Harbor ceremonies for work and realized many of those survivors I saw about eight years ago were gone. I knew at that point I needed to make portraits of some of these guys before it was too late. With the help of Daniel Martinez, the National Parks Service historian at the USS Arizona Memorial, I was introduced to the right people to start my documentation project. He and Lisa Ontai share responsibility for helping me create these images.

The project evolved over the years since my first tries in 2006 and 2007. My technique and vision have evolved from the beginning as well. This last session in 2010 took place at the Hilton Hawaiian Village during a ceremony dinner for the survivors. Jamm and Erica, my best assistants for the day, helped do lights and wrangle veterans to stand for my camera. Again, there is no way I could have created this work without them.

During the session, I could tell Jamm choked on a few of the stories the vets told and Erica seemed visibly moved by what she saw and heard. They are a little younger than me and grew up in Honolulu so they probably didn’t think much about Pearl Harbor as much as I did, but I think they walked away with a bit of history and understanding. I’m glad they helped and participated in this project.

When talking to the survivors, its as if these men still live in the past. I don’t mean that to disparage these men but they surely cannot escape the past that defined their lives. Its hard to image being 17 years old and seeing friends dying horribly. Seeing bombs blowing up all around you. Seeing your world torn asunder. We Americans always have that we-are-the-best attitude and nothing can stop us. Before the war, propaganda portrayed “…the Japanese as nearsighted, bucktoothed, harmless children…” How could these nearsighted fools do this? And do this to, us…THE US!?!?! It surely was a blow to the American psyche.

The attack, of course, defined the Pearl Harbor survivor’s futures. It defined their attitudes, the way they lived, how they lived…even what car they would drive. I once asked a survivor if he drove an imported Japanese car. He emphatically stated… “no.” But these days, little if any of these men still carry hate towards the Japanese. “They had a job to do as did we,” said one veteran. And so many buried the hatchet and went on to befriend many of the Japanese war vets brave enough to visit Pearl Harbor and pay their respects.

In 1991, Japanese pilot, Zenji Abe, who participated in the attack on Pearl Harbor, attended several of the Pearl Harbor memorials the name of peace. During a live broadcast several months before the 50th anniversary, he extended his hand in a sign of reconciliation to several Pearl Harbor survivors. They begrudgingly accepted his hand shake but it was the start towards peace and understanding. However, many Pearl Harbor survivors still refused to accept Abe or other Japanese war vets presence at the Memorial’s solemn ceremony. But over time, Abe’s yearly persistence to reconcile with the past, finally won many over. Abe now has a special part in the lure of Pearl Harbor as a man who created chaos, yet begged and finally won closure and forgiveness for a war half a century before. And as that Pearl Harbor vet said…”They had a job to do…” Mr. Abe died in 2007.

There is nothing more to say about the portraits as I feel they stand on their own. I feel their eyes link all the portraits together. Their fears, painful memories, and horrors cling to them, 69 years later. Yet, through the wrinkles and stubbly faces, you can still see that young boy, on the deck of his ship, fighting for his life, and for the life of his country. As we know, those who survived won. They won with a vengeance. A sad vengeance if you think of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…yet that’s a story for another day.

So just like his son, my father’s fake anti-Asian stance never amounted to anything other than heated words over popcorn and old war movies. He cried when the Hymers moved away. He loves watching Jackie Chan movies, and he loves Yukako. He also likes bad Chinese food but once accused us of feeding him dog and baby fetuses when we took him to eat dim sum. I think he eventually ate it but I didn’t think to check under the table when we left.

My father has always embraced my nutty friends, whether they were Asian or not…so long as they left their kim chee at the door.

You can see the entire gallery at www.marcogarciaphotography.com The survivor’s gallery is under projects.

The humble beginnings…

While editing and doing some archiving, I found a disc of old images from my time working for the community newspaper in San Antonio. How humbling to see how I started off and what images I shot as a student and budding photographer.

I shot the Mexican dancers at a community event on the West Side of town. I remember being in love with this shot because of her loving reaction to her partner. She’s so happy. I photographed this event for the San Antonio Express News community newspaper, The Sun. Each district of town had their own edition so there was always something different to shoot.

So many times, I’ve seen how digital has changed the field of photography. Even more importantly, how cheap credit has allowed many people to purchase pro equipment and how digital has allowed the average flickr type to create amazing bodies of work. Now students and prosumers can compete with full-time professionals. I know I’ve talked about the old Nikon gear and manual focus lenses but I can’t stress how it was such a different time. There was no Photoshop, no Lightroom, no computers! Darkroom, stop bath, fixer. A steel can and reels. A red light bulb. It was so long ago and technologically speaking, it was truly the dark ages of modern photography.

What may have taken several hours to create can now be produced in seconds. I remember shooting an event like football or a late night press conference. I’d have to leave half way through to get back to a darkroom, develop film, print from the negative and make a 10 pm deadline. Now I’m shooting boxing matches and transmitting images in between rounds. I’m talking seconds to get an image from a digital camera into a laptop, process the raw file, caption it, and ftp’ed to a client. Seconds! And technology will eventually allow streaming images to be sent directly to an editor thousands of miles away as the photos are being shot. I mean they do that now with TV live feed so surely they will find away to get images on line immediately.

A mime play shot for the San Antonio Express News community newspaper, The Sun. I was probably paid $25 per assignment back in 1997.

Whats more interesting is seeing how my professional career in Hawaii has evolved. How my views have changed…from portraits to street work. How I’ve visually grown. I constantly read art books. Study old paintings. Visually stimulate my senses so I can “see” when I put the camera to my eye. And its working. My timing is different, my angles are changing. My views are evolving. I try to look at images as paintings. I try to think of how a painter or sculptor would see a face or scene. My actions seems so far away from what I used to shoot.

The family above had parts of their home catch fire in San Antonio due to faulty wiring in a junction box. The family holds the box which caused the problem. (I think thats what happend!) The Sun Community Newspaper, 1997.

These images seem so long ago but when I view them, I can clearly see how I naturally had a vision but it wasn’t developed. It was raw, unexpected, and unreliable. I was just a kid with a few cameras and pocket full of film. Sure, I was in my 20s. I though I knew more than I did but couldn’t prove it. I knew I wasn’t good enough to get a staff job at the Dallas Morning News or the LA Times but I though if they gave me a chance, I could do it. The Express News gave me that chance but it was shooting for their community newspaper. It was really bad work on my end but in many ways, I think it was some of the best stuff around. I shot so many images of real life that it made me realize what life was about.

Lilly Tejeda is the mother of Frank Tejeda, a local politician who had high hopes but sadly died of cancer a some time after this picture was taken. His death was a loss to the Hispanic community as he might have gone to much higher positions. I remember going to her humble house on the South Side of San Antonio and asking her if we could take the photo of her and her son’s pictures. How much they looked like. Funny, this image still makes me sad. She held a brave face but she knew her loss.

How far I’ve come from the 90s to the 2010s. How arrogant I was to think I new so much but in reality I knew nothing. The base was there but the experience was not. So many kids and prosumers I’ve encountered over the years here in Hawaii and elsewhere seem to think because they have a digital camera, have a few images published here and there, they are equal or better than me or anyone who has shot for years. Maybe they are. If I had top digital cameras and technology back on my side in the 90’s, maybe I would have been just as good. But what they lack is experience. They don’t have any experience shooting high school plays, community dances, kid’s swim meets, or a local strawberry fair. I regularly would drive an hour or so out to the the middle of nowhere to shoot a portrait of man who raised a prized steer. All for about $25! There is lots to really say about starting from the bottom. It humbles you and makes you realize you don’t really know what the hell you are doing.

I shot an event for Reuters a few weeks ago and worked next to the Honolulu Star Advertiser’s senior photographer Craig Kojima. He’s in his 50’s or so but walks around like he’s a nobody. No attitude, no beef, no nothing. He wears those ridiculously stupid shoes that you can put your toes in…you know the ones! Ugh! He’s such a great guy and he knows how to shoot. After looking at his take the next day in the paper, I realized that experience trumped anything I did that day. He shot unbelievable images that I failed to see. And why was that? Experience. I called him a few days later and told him so. He laughed in that soft, fatherly way and denied he was any better. Yet he clearly has 20 plus years on me. Experience counts. Not workshops, or degrees, or attitude. Experience makes up for anything some stupid classroom can teach.

Would I go back and shoot the community newspapers again? As Sarah P would say, “you betcha!” In a Texas heart beat. Those were the best days of my learning photography years. From there, it just got more complicated, harder, and more depressing. Moving to New York essentially took all the romance out of what I though photography was. At the community newspaper, I was in a dream world. I thought this last Sun’s assignment would get me into the doors of National Geographic. I really did. And who’s to say it wasn’t going to happen? A youngster can dream, no?

So when George Lee comes knocking on your door to shoot a Pulse assignment, you might want to reconsider his offer. You just never know…

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.

36 Hours in Honolulu

…0r as I’ve said before, Honoruru…

After several weeks of anticipation, the New York Times (find it here) published my travel piece, written by Jocyln Fujii, on 36 Hours in Honolulu. The piece loads of locations for me to cover but I got to choose the more scenic and most exciting places to photograph.

Of course Masaharu Morimoto, (yes, the Iron Chef…you might remember him from my posting here) made for the most exciting images as his relationship with me allows him to tako…uh…i mean octopus…uh…ham it up (yeah, that’s it) for the camera. Its always great to photograph someone when they do all the work for you.

I shot all over the East Oahu and Waikiki and had a darn fun time doing it. As I’ve been told, its not work when you love what you do.

I was sad some of my hotel work from the Edition Waikiki wasn’t used but alas, you can’t publish it all.

The three floaters just lined up perfectly for this shot. I mean who wouldn’t want to swim around in a pool in Honolulu? Or at least see it on print…