Cruise Ship Stories…A True Champion

I’m back from an unexpected cruise vacation. For safety concerns, the shore destinations were so programmed, I shouldn’t have even bothered getting off the ship, especially considering that we were aboard the world’s biggest cruise ship. When I did disembark, the memory card in digital camera malfunctioned and I lost 75% of all the trip’s images!!! I had to take the digital camera because I didn’t have enough film on hand…I should have just shot the two-and-a-half rolls I had left and called it a day!

Anyway, this is an example of a different way to photography your next vacation. This interesting fellow won the ship’s belly flop contest and I was glad I was up close and personal to document one of the greatest events in cruise ship history!

Circa 1979

I just received some “never before seen” family photographs from my father. Especially prized are those of grandparents and great grandparents. But what was really interesting was this photograph of yours truly and my trusty Yashica Electro 35. The building in the background sets the scene during college, circa 1979. I had hair!!! During this time, as a fellow athlete, I was allowed on the field to photograph football games. I have no idea where those negatives are but in the end, it helped me to develop as an event photographer.

P.S. My father still has this camera on display, in a glass cabinet, with other family cameras.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Quite a few readers were taken aback by my monochromatic view of Hawaii, but in the cold, hard reality of my well-deserved, selfish pursuit of photographic relevance, color would have been too regular; too easy; and too expected. To give context, the first two photographs were taken in a commercial submarine.

“Hawaiian Eye?’”

My wife thinks I’m strange with all my references to old TV shows she didn’t have time for.

There is no particular theme to these pictures from my first trip to Hawaii but this is what my “Hawaiian Eye” saw.

“Oh no he didn’t!”

…go to Hawaii and (with the exception of this iPhone picture) shoot it all in black & white film!!! I’m not the first one to do this and I will not be the last. This was weeks ago and I’m just now mailing the film to the lab. I hope to publish a small book from the approximately 180 frames I shot. In context with my photographic life, shooting 180 film frames was a lot more relaxing than shooting 1,000 digital frames.

Here’s my recommendation if you ever visit the Honolulu area (on the island of Oahu): take the complete circle tour of the island; book with Enoa Tours; but demand “Noah” as your tour guide. I’m a pretty serious guy and it takes a lot for me to laugh…Noah had me laughing so hard, I was in tears the rest of the tour! At one point, passing locations where scenes of Magnum P. I. were filmed, I thought Barry White had come back from the grave! Noah’s smooth, sensual recitation of specific scenes only middle-aged women would so fondly remember about the show, was pure genius…in content and delivery. Even back at hotel, I cried. On the plane ride back, I cried. My wife, who never, ever watched the show, probably thought I was going mad. By the way, I was a regular watcher of the show and my favorite character was Higgins.

a little public T & A is nothing

By local ordinance, January 31st was the last day of public nudity (genitally speaking) in San Francisco. At City Hall, I didn’t see the usual pro-nudity activists that day, but representatives from PETA showed up and “bared all,” as other members of the organization canvassed the crowd with clipboards.

On February 1st, the first day the law went into effect, I witnessed no arrests for the two “topless” females at City Hall. Later, I understand that the police later arrested a few people that went “bottomless.” Sexually speaking, San Francisco has a infamous reputation of being America’s Sodom, if not Gomorrah, so there are exceptions for total nudity at certain events. As a former East Coaster, I’m still fascinated in the unique liberal lifestyles that exist in California. So I took my place among the gathered gawkers; the press; the police; the startled tourists; adjusted for the light; quickly composed from different angles; and just as quickly, walked away. No big deal. The controversy over this has only expanded a political movement…that’s a good thing.

As I made my way back to the door of my office, I avoided NO LESS THAN five piles of human excrement, all because the city and state have forsaken their moral and ethical responsibilities and not allocated money for public toilets in an infamously downtrodden area of the city. Yet, they can find lots of money for a parade when the Giants won the World Series. On the whole, a little public T & A is nothing compared to what I’m cleaning off my shoes.

closed on weekends

Homeless, destitute, poor, needy, hungry. However one wishes to name it; define it; term it; these words are indicative of crimes against humanity. I thought of this as my wife and I stepped through mud and squalor to get to a small gathering of tents pitched along the embankment of a small bridge. The food we handed to the residents of one tent was graciously accepted.This was not the only place we went…we spent that Sunday morning assisting a Buddhist humanitarian organization as they provided food, clothing, and other needed supplies to the needy in San Jose, California. It seems that food is a scarcity on the weekends. If it were not for this organization, many people would be hungry from Friday afternoon to Monday morning.

I’ve participated in activities like this in the past, but on this cold day, I experienced a new level of outrage with those who say people in need are just plain lazy. It does not matter the reason when someone is living on the edge. The food, clothes, blankets, and toiletries are the equivalent of emergency-room supplies. In the emergency-room, you don’t question a life-threatening situation-you immediately address it. No one was handing out used iPods or other luxury items. It was the basics. Yet a bureaucracy on basic human needs exists in the richest country in the world. Closed on weekends.

P.S. We will be going back and bringing more volunteers.