Waimea Landing

Inspired to head to Waimea for Jo Jo's famous shaved ice, my family got in our rental car armed and ready to eat as big of a snowcone as humanly possible. Of course, we were also prepared to walk the short distance to Waimea Landing and shoot like crazy. Here are a few of my shots from the day.

Before you ask, I don't know... I don't know what it is with me and rusty objects. I just can't help myself. I see one and I'll drop everything to get a picture. I'm actually adding a tag for this because I see myself doing much more of this in the future.

Local Sighting!

Okay, so. Here's the thing. I'm a little bit of a lot of things. I call it gypsy, because that sounds cool. With dogs, we say "mutt." Whatever you call it, it's definitely not 50% of this and 50% of that. My mamasita is English and Swedish. My dad is Hawaiian, Arabic, and lot of white stuff like (German primarily, we think). So I'm definitely not any one particular thing...

But everywhere I go, I'm told I look local. Years ago, at the age of fifteen, when I first visited southern Alberta to work with Native American youth through NAIM, they thought I was "brown." Every time I've visited Hawaii, I've been asked for directions or where the best eateries are, had my picture surreptitiously snapped, and been nodded at by other locals. Even the island mosquitoes won't bite me... something only natives can claim.

This year has been like all others... Two nights ago, while on a sunset photo excursion, a guy stumbled upon me as I sat overlooking the ocean. I was contemplating God and his glorious creation when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw him turn toward me and take a picture... Of course, this would have been much more subtle if he'd remembered to turn his flash off... Oops.

I can't lie; I revel in this. As a child, I told everyone I was Hawaiian. No, really, everyone. The clerk at the grocery store, the mailman, the pastor, my parents. I even told my younger brother that I was and he wasn't (though it may not be far from the truth... he tans to the colour of a strawberry). When filling out the bubbles on standardised tests, I always filled in the "Pacific Islander" spot, and the same on college applications.

This year, I think I've brought my native-ness to a new level. After six years of fighting it, I decided that the humidity and my hair just don't get along. So the moment I step out of the shower, I pull on an elastic hairband and let the curls fly loose. Depending on what I'm doing, sometimes I pull them back in a hair tie, but most of the time, my untamed hair dances in the tradewinds... and more than ever before, I've been treated local. I've even had Hawaiian boys have checked me out (locals don't deign to glance at tourists; it breaks some cardinal rule for them).

To add to the fun, my silly brother and sister-in-law scream, "Local sighting! Local! Look, a local!" every time they see me. Ah, this is the good life!

Glorious

(Do you need any words to go with this post? I didn't think so.)

Perspective

I'm a macro shooter. I like to get up close and personal with my subject... every person, rock and tree I've ever shot can tell you this. If you doubt me at all, take a look at my post of the aftermath of December's fires. I think the textures, the details, make the subject. You can never get to close (I regularly bump my 10.5 mm fisheye on my subjects trying to get juuust a fraction of an inch closer), you can never capture enough colour, depth and texture.

But sometimes, this is to my detriment. This morning, I hiked out early to shoot a place I'd visited a few days ago. I found interesting subject after interesting subject... through my macro shooting. Please excuse the unprocessed images below. They forgot to bring any editing software with them...











Here's the big picture problem, where my perspective needs a little tweaking. I stepped back after TWENTY MINUTES of shooting (twenty minutes... 125 photos... do you understand how much that is?) this ONE subject... only to learn something entirely new about it.


This is the shot I want. The beauty of the big picture. The whole thing. Those other photos mean nothing. This means everything. They are pretty and interesting. This is glorious. How much more beautiful would those first photos have been if I had first recognised what I was shooting, if I had taken a moment to step back and breathe in the whole thing... not just the patina on the metal, not just the interesting shape of the tip of the protruding bar, not just the way I could focus on parts of the misshapen head? What if, from the start, I had seen the beauty of the cross in my subject? What if my perspective had been a little different?

Top 10 Things You Must Know Before Visiting Kauai

I don't know if you've ever had the pleasure of coming to Hawaii, but there are some things I'd like to share with you if you haven't.

10. Under arms DO sunburn. Just today, I've spotted about 849 tourists with red, swollen armpits. In the future, Cameron and I plan on creating a deodorant with SPF to prevent such horrors. Until then, please consider keeping your arms at your sides while tanning.
9. There is such a thing as glow-in-the-dark. This afternoon, while reading poolside, I looked up only to be suddenly blinded... by the skin of a Midwestern child, who will be the first in many case studies about children who are whiter than albinos. My favourite reaction to this phenomenon was Cameron's, "He should wear an umbrella!" closely followed by Kat's continued laughter at my white jokes. Moral of the story: Parents, please... spray tan your children.
8. Everything here is expensive in a completely ungodly, unlawful, sin-against-humanity sort of way. Internet for a day: $11; Cheeze-Its (small box): $8; gallon of milk: $7. The list goes on and on, people. Even if you have a full kitchen like I do, it will likely cost you just as much to eat in for every meal as it will for you to fly here.
7. It is illegal to touch a sea turtle. And if you do, it will bite you. Neither the fine nor the hand puncture is worth it. For further reading, see Cwerwiak, Matthias.
6. It's probably cheaper to Priority Flat Rate ship your acquired items home than to pay $25 to check a second bag.
5. Don't fly Hawaiian. Please. Don't do it. Stick with Delta, United, or American. These airlines even offer non-stops to the smaller islands, and Delta planes have the convenience of personal TV/movie screens in front of your chair.
4. Leaving the sliding glass doors of your bedroom/living area/kitchen open will result in sparrows invading your food/suitcase/other items.
3. All the beaches are public. To prevent you and other tourists from invading their favourite surf spots, locals will sometimes (read: often) move "Danger" signs from one beach to another... just to scare you off.
2. Wearing Hawaiian print anything should be banned. It makes you stand out like a sore thumb as a tourist, no one looks good in it, and it almost certainly comes only in tacky colours. Please avoid.
1. Best way to lie out: bring a blow up raft to the pool. You can kep cool while tanning, and if you're tricky, it's even possible to balance a book and a mai tai.

Preparing for Hawaii

I know, I know. No pictures? Again? When am I going to post those wedding photos I did? Why even bother posting without some photos... any photos.

Here's the thing. My editing software is down right now. Also, my hard drive is down right now. So. That leaves me with very little to post. And while both problems are on fix-it-now radar, the fact that I will be IN Hawaii in nine days makes it less of a priority. Right now, I'm trying to focus on:
1. Getting my laundry done. I haven't done laundry in almost two and a half months; it's time.
2. Packing. Generally speaking, I don't pack ahead of time, but this year I have to be more strategic because I'd like to bring only one suitcase (so as to avoid the extra fee of bringing a second--pay $750 for an airline ticket, and then on top of that, they charge you for BOTH bags? Really? I mean, really?).
3. Not checking out of work, entering vacation mode early. This is important, and so far, I'm not doing well.
4. Hanging out with all the people I'm not going to see for a while. This means that I actually have no more free time until... well, technically speaking, I'm booked through the first two weekends in August.
5. Making lists.

I love lists. Here is a list of the lists that I am making for Hawaii:
1. Things to do before Hawaii that have nothing to do with actually being there
2. Things to do in order to have clothing in Hawaii
3. Toiletries to bring to Hawaii
4. Types of clothing to bring to Hawaii
5. Pieces of clothing to bring to Hawaii
6. Books to bring to Hawaii
7. People I am seeing before Hawaii
8. Camera equipment not to take to Hawaii
9. Assorted other things not to bring to Hawaii
10. Assorted other things TO bring to Hawaii
11. Things not to do in Hawaii
12. People who will be on Kauai at the same time as me
13. People I want to see on Kauai
14. Must-do's on the island this year
15. Things it's okay to spend money on at Shopping Horn
16. People to bring back souvenirs for
17. Ways to get to the airport day-out
18. Ways to get to get home day-in
19. Shoot Sheet for Bear and Tracy's Day After shoot in Hawaii
20. Restaurants to eat at in Hawaii
21. Ways to trick Russell Miranda into marrying me (I'll have to post some pictures of my cowboy crush Russell from last year's Poipu Rodeo. If anyone can think of things to add to this list, I'd be most appreciative...)

Clearly, my neuroticism is outstanding and worthy of note.

To satisfy your want of pictures (I mean, I guess this is, technically, a photoblog), I'll post some of my favourites. A little grace; these are just from my Nikon S1 point & shoot.