Honolulu Hale and New Years Day - 12/28/2011 - 1/2/2012

I can't believe it's 2012 already.  Here are some pics I took after Christmas and New Year. The HPS club usually go to Honolulu Hale after Christmas as it is a lot less crowded so that we can get shots w/o other people in our shots.

I always strive to get one w/ the light bulb lights along the walkway.. here's this year's version..

I even tried a closeup shot..

I saw someone's shot and I wanted to copy the same angle w/ the lighted reindeer in the foreground.

There were lots of tree displays this year and it seems like Angry Birds was the popular theme.  I did find this Kung Fu Panda right near the main entrance.  It was really dark w/ super bright spot light.  In fact, the first time I went in, I completely missed it..until Celia told me about him being there..

I actually wanted to take pictures of motion as people walked in and out of the Honolulu Hale..but in this slow shutter speed shooting, people just seem to disappear.

Then over the New Year weekend, I took a quick walk down to Princess Kaiulani Hotel to see the gingerbread village.  It's really hard to shoot because of the low lights and all the houses are dark brown.  It's actually kinda strange to see a snow scene of Iolani Palace..

That evening, the haze created some awesome sunsets.. it was really beautiful..but I was unsuccessful in capturing the beauty because of the auto exposure of my Lumix.  So I decided to rework them in Photoshop Elements using some effects.

This effect was called "Plastic Wrap".

Then, yesterday, while I was at Ala Moana, I caught the most beautiful sun. Unfortunately, I could only see it between the building and above the trees.  The sun was really orange-red, but somehow, my camera turned it pink.  I'm not so skilled to change the color in PSE, but was able to erase the electric wire that was in the shot. :-)

Then, as I was leaving, I realized Christmas is really over when I saw this...