42nd Ukulele Festival - 7/22/2012

Finally a festival that happens on a SUNDAY!! Roy and Kathy Sakuma hosts this event every year and it seems to get bigger each year. There was a large crowd that covered all the available seats at the Kapiolani Park Band Stand area. I walked around a bit and managed to sneak my way to the patch of grass right in the front of the stage. There was not a speck of cloud in the sky and it was super hot, great weather for listening to ukulele music in the park and also another chance to practice shooting in manual setting. I got there near 1pm and saw Manoa DNA perform.

I was lucky to get a a shot as Roy and Kathy were enjoying the performance.

There were LOTS and LOTS of photogs..professionals w/ the festival as well as lots w/ point and shoot cameras as well as video. 

Roy reminisce w/ his former student who's now part of Manoa DNA.

His current students also performed.

Roy introduced his friend and special guest James Ingram.  There was a lot of friendship and respect the two showed each other.

When James performed "One Hundred Ways",  the entire audience was silent listening to his beautiful voice.

There were SOO many cameras for his performance I had to grab this shot of just a few of them. 

He was awesome and he even came off the stage to shake hands w/ the audience.

Aiden James performed in 2010 and someone had uploaded his performance to YouTube and he now has more than 15 million hits.  It was cute that before he started his performance he gave a shout out to the person whom he's never met who uploaded his video.  He was an awesome ukulele player.

There were so many talented performers who truly enjoy themselves as they express it thru their music.

Roy is remarkable person who shares his love of music with so many and especially the young.  Listen to your what your children has to say, he tells us and let them express their thoughts and you'll be surprise what you'll find.   

This group from Australia actually performed  '"Somebody That I Used To Know" by Gotye on the ukulele.

Roy said Kathy had found Adrien Janiak's video on YouTube and actually wrote him an email to invite him to come..all the way from France!  It was interesting to hear distinctively French sounding music played w/ a ukulele. 

From Thailand is the last performer, Singto Namchok who sang a really cute song he wrote for his new wife.  I can't believe that ukulele is gaining popularity in Thailand too. I wasn't able to stay for the grand finale..hopefully next year.

Korean Festival - 7/14/2012

I got to check out the Korean Festival this year. It was hot and sunny and this year's crowd was larger than previous year. There were lots of entertainment and I had to decide when to leave my spot to go and check them out. There were lots of colorful costumes so lots of photo ops..

When I got there, they were setting up for the Choco-pie eating contest.  Choco-pies are like round chocolate covered cakes (kinda like a Hostess Ding Dong).  It was super crowded and I took this w/ my 70-200mm lens and the kid on the right won by eating 11 Choco-pies!  I think he won an ipad.

I checked out the tent w/ costumes..  it was DARK in there and i took this w/ super steady arms.

I spotted a long line where people were getting autograph from this K-drama star.  I forget his name, but I notice they didn't want closeup photos ..unless you're in line, so I sneaked one w/ my zoom lens from far away..

There were lots of kids performing traditional dances.

I'm pretty sure he's the youngest performer in all the groups.

Lots of ladies dancing wearing colorful Korean Hanbok.

I took this from way behind the bleachers and they were performing under the band stand so it was super super DARK.... I had to try all kinds of recovery to fix this.

You can't have a cultural festival during election year w/o some candidate..

They had a Taekwando Demo.. this guy broke two boards at the same time..

There was a Korean talent contest..all of them sang in Korean.

The finale performance started late so it was already dark.  She's supposed to be the Korean version of Madonna for her dancing in her performances.  I took a bunch of shots and exposure-wise, this came out the best.

More shots I took w/ flash..it was a pretty tough performance to shoot since they had some lights, but not all white and they weren't always on the performers either so it was really hit and miss..

Teddy Bear Picnic Harp Ensemble -- 7/12/2012

I was looking up the Foster Botanical Garden's web site and came across this free Twilight Summer concert series so I decided to check it out. I chose the Teddy Bear picnic "Harp Ensemble" since it sounded interesting. When I got there, I noticed there were teddy bears around..and lots of kids dressed as fairies and other costumes. I felt strangely under dressed.

Since I got there early, I decided to check out the green house and the orchids with my 100mm macro lens.  I was editing this shot and saw what looks like a profile.. pretty cool.. can you spot it??

I forgot to look at the name of this but my friend said it's called dancer orchid or something..I supposed it looks like it's dancing..looks more like a starfish to me..the 100mm took a bit of getting used to since the focus is not as fast as my 70-200mm it kept searching..but the result was pretty sharp.

The sun was still beaming even though it was after 5pm..It was hard to correct the exposure.. which lead me to start practicing shooting in manual mode instead of my trusty shutter priority mode.

Shooting Manual is hard.. but then the lighting was difficult w/ the sun beaming directly into my lens made it even worse..I felt I really didn't know what I was doing.

I did recovery in PSE and was able to pull what few shots I had.  I actually enjoyed the music way more than the shots..

The kids were really cute and they were really into the music and the finale Teddy bear parade.

OK.  I REALLY didn't know what I was doing.. and I totally overexposed this shot.. but then after looking at it for a while, I kinda liked the effects of the extra glow that came off this shot so I decided to keep it.  I gotta go practice some more so I can figure out what to do...doh..

Happy Independence Day - 7/4/2012

This year, wanting a different perspective of the Ala Moana Fireworks, we headed for the beach. I wanted to get some coconut trees in the foreground, so we settled in a clear area and waited with the masses.  I spotted this cool inner tube w/ a flag.

I totally underestimated how large the burst were and when the fireworks started, about 5 mins before 8:30pm, I settled with this view.   You can't even see the coconut trees on Magic Island.

My friend's daughter wanted to take the remote so we coordinated when to press the remote and when to release...we sorta got a heart shape burst.

The good thing about this show is there wasn't as many white color bursts.. I used F11 to keep the bursts from getting too blown out.

I tried brightening this shot to show some of the people in the foreground.

This was close to the end of the show. The show ended in about 15 mins, just as I was getting good at timing the bursts!