How I Spent My Summer Vacation

My birthplace of Hawai’i is situated 5000 miles away from my current home in New York, so I don’t get to go home very often. Two years ago, I t...

My birthplace of Hawai’i is situated 5000 miles away from my current home in New York, so I don’t get to go home very often. Two years ago, I traveled back to celebrate my Grandpa’s 100th birthday. This time, it was a combo visit to see my parents’ newly rebuilt home, celebrate mother’s day, and celebrate my Grandma’s 93rd birthday (they live long in Hawai’i).

The original house was built right after WWII, so it was in need of some repair after nearly 60 years. The new house maintains much of the same footprint, but the folks added a partial 2nd floor with a few more guest bedrooms. My grandma had been living alone since my grandpa passed away in December 2007, but she has now moved in with my folks.

We celebrated her 93rd birthday with family and played some Bingo. Turns out that Bingo is pretty darn fun.

I brought along my Elinchrom Ranger to take some portraits, but when I tested it upon my arrival, I was sorely disappointed to get an “Er” message on the console. I spent several hours trying to figure out what was going on, and the instruction manual indicated that the battery was either dead, or there was something bad with the charging fuse.

I went to Radio Shack to try to find a replacement fuse and then an auto parts store, but no one stocked the 40amp fuse….So I bought some 30A ones instead.

(They didn’t work. The battery is dead.)

I went to the beach and shot some photos of my friend Jessica. It was incredibly windy, and I ended up getting a ton of sea spray on my camera.

Of all the times to forget to bring lens cleaner…Unfortunately, Honolulu doesn’t have very many camera stores, and the two Ritz Cameras that I visited don’t stock lens cleaner of any type any more…damn digital photography. So I tried to be resourceful to clean the UV filters that sit atop my lenses. First I used a “lens pen,” which has worked pretty well for me in the past, but didn’t do much against crusted sea salt. I probably scratched the filter, right?

Then I decided to dunk the filters under tap water just to get the crusty stuff off. The filters looked a little cleaner, but when they dried they had a lot of residue probably from the minerals that are in the tap water.

(Are you cringing yet?)

I started reading online about people using vodka and isoprophyl alcohol. Fortunately(?) I finally found a Hakuba lens cleaning kit and microfiber and Longs Drugs in Kahala.

I put a few drops of the cleaner on the filter, and started rubbing in a circular motion with the microfiber. Result? Lint on my filter. I don’t know the people at Hakuba, but recall this dusty rag that you have parading as a microfiber cloth. It’s clearly not appropriate for camera optics.

After a special combo of water, lens cleaner, microfiber and the lens pen, I was able to get the filters clean enough (to the human eye).

On Saturday, my sister pointed out that our high school, Punahou, was having the annual Holoku pageant — a celebration of Hawaiian May Day (“May Day is Lei Day in Hawai’i, Flowers are blooming everywhere!”). The Holoku pageant has always been a notable event, but there’s been a huge resurgence in all things Hawaiiana in the past decade, so Holoku is more popular than ever. When I was in high school, I played guitar and ukulele in the Holoku band, but this year I figured I’d photograph it instead.

Here’s the Holoku Queen doing her solo hula dance. No, she doesn’t wear a grass skirt, but she did wear a ton of leis.

And here’s a cool little picture I made using the “Live View” function on my Nikon D3.

Hawai’i is one of those “evergreen” travel destinations, so I figured I’d try my hand at shooting some travel stock photos since I’ve been exposed to a lot of travel stock photos and had the benefit of speaking with our editors and people from travel magazines. Armed with my camera and bevy of lenses, I headed out to Waikiki.

It soon became very apparent to me how difficult taking good travel photos can be. I tried to keep in mind all the tips that we compiled for our Travel Stock Photo Primer, and it turns out that it’s pretty easy to fall into those traps of shooting really mundane and mediocre photos of building facades or generic vistas.

I also realized that I might have a little vignette problem with my camera:

That is 17mm at f/5.6 on my full frame D3. I don’t think it’s supposed to be doing that. If you’re from Nikon, fix my camera!

On my last day at the beach, I had a little surprise in the form of a Hawaiin monk seal. Initially, I was concerned that he was hurt, but I think he was just relaxing. I crept up near him with my 24-70mm, and started snapping away. Turns out that he didn’t like the noise of the shutter too much, and he started barking at me. I took that as a sign to leave…

All in all, it was a good vacation. I tried not to check e-mail too often, and only hopped on the forums once. I ate the exact same thing every day for lunch and actually got around to exercising, and I watched a lot of TV. On the plane ride back, I noticed that Laird Hamilton was sitting in front of me. He’s a cool dude.

Ah, but vacations can only last so long. So I’m back in New York and ready and refreshed. I’ll see you at the New York Photo Festival Awards….