Lantern Floating Festival 2015 - 05/25/2015

The last time I went to the Lantern Floating Festival was in 2012.  That time, I didn't know how large the crowd was going to be so this time I was prepared to face the huge crowd.  Since it would be too difficult to change lens or do much of anything else in the crowd, I chose to take my favorite lens, the 70-200mm thinking I'd be pretty far away. I had recall seeing photos people shot from standing in the waters of Ala Moana Beach so we headed into the sand with the packed crowd. 

There were two large screens projecting the ceremony. and the crowd seemed even larger since I was in the middle of it standing in the sand. The sun hadn't set when we got there so it would be a wait before we'd see lanterns.  Since i only had a long lens, I chose to take wide shots w/ my iphone...like this one.  

My long lens was pretty useless since I was really too close to people this time so I caught some zoom closeups of lanterns.  I had to be careful that I don't whack anyone from behind w/ my lens.

Around 7:15p after the sun had set, they made the announcement to release the lanterns.  The crowd started heading closer to the water.  Being stuck in the crowd, I could hardly see anything, I decided to take a Panoramic w/ my iphone. 

Then I tried taking pics between people's heads, arms, cellphones w/ my zoom lens, it was quite challenging.  

I kept walking closer to the water to get better shots of the lanterns that my shoes had gotten wet twice from the surging water.

By around 8pm, the team on surfboard and paddle board had started to gather the lanterns to a corner section near the rocks on Magic Island side of the beach so we decided to walk towards Magic Island.

By the time we got there the crowd had subsided and there were only a few photogs in the water with their tripods.  I was finally able to get a lot of cool closeups of lanterns w/ my zoom lens.

Since there were many lanterns, the lighting was perfect and no flash required.

So finally, I got a lot of shots I was hoping for.

Even this iphone shot came out pretty good with just his flash light and the lantern light.

I got closeups of the team collecting the lanterns.

This was really awesome.. some waiting but what I thought wouldn't be a good shoot, turned out to be a great shoot.

May Day - 05/01/2015

It's the 88th annual May Day festival at Kapiolani Park and Aloha Friday all at once. I took off the day from work to go because I really really like seeing all the colors I find from the leis on display. There's always a long line when the exhibit first opens at 1pm but after the initial crowd goes thru it'a a breeze to get thru to see all the rainbow colors of flowers and also ribbon leis on display. After checking my photos, I didn't realize I took so many pics.

The grand prize winner gets a special display. 

This was one of my favorite photos from the pics I took.

There are so many colors in the leis.. red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet.. every color of the rainbow.

Even a white and silver one too..

The coronation of the May Day queen was held in a ceremony at the band stand just before noon.

They have lei make and take.

There's a category for haku leis.

I love going around the demo tables where they have flowers laying on the table.

Can't wait for next year's displays..