Honolulu Zoo - 5/8/2010

Celia and I were supposed to go to the Filipino Fiesta, but we didn't find much to shoot so we ended up going to the zoo. There's always something to shoot at the zoo and I actually have my long zoom lens so I decided to make good use of it. It was hard to get the right exposures on animals in the top of trees in the bright sunlight.
I got a super sharp shot of this bird while trying to get those lemurs who were mostly taking an afternoon nap.Hey..finally someone not sleeping.. yet.. I don't like lizards, but he has a lot of details on his scales so I thought it was neat.
The hippos were actually really lively, but the glass is really hard to shoot thru.
I could get a pretty close shot of the zebra w/ my long zoom lens that I hadn't been able to in my previous visits.
I was able to get thru the fence for this monkey.
Can't leave the zoo w/o a flamingo shot.
I once saw this bumper sticker that read 'the worst day fishing is better than the best day of work'. I think this definitely also applies to photography. Even though it was a bummer I didn't get exciting photos like last year at the fiesta, it was still a great day shooting at the zoo.

Eyes of Hawaii State Library Exhibit - 5/6/2010

This year, I decided to bring a small camera to take photos of the exhibit instead of using my cell phone. We had nearly 40 participants and again, it expanded to the back reading room area of the State Library. Overall, it has a nice representation of all different types of photographs and subjects. I took some shots of the set up.
Here's Ericks' submssion.Here's Celia's dancer in motion.My Tiger submission's the one on the bottom.The reading room has really bad lighting for my small digital canon s45 so it's not doing any justice to the photos in this shot.When it was finished, passerbys looked over the photos.
The sky lights in the library lobby area worked really well.
I took an overhead shot from the 2nd floor.
I've seen this type of photos in the newpapers and I tried doing a slow shutter shot to show the motions of passerbys walking thru the exhibit. Most of my shots came out overexposed except this one.. I still haven't figured out how to do this slow-mo thing..

Senior Shoot - 4/24/2010

Erick and I helped our co-worker C-A's daughter w/ her Senior Photos. This was the first senior shoot I did and I was nervous since I wasn't prepared as to what to shoot, so I just followed Erick. We took turns taking our shots and it was a great learning experience for me. She was a great subject and I ended up w/ a lot of great shots and it was a great shoot. Here are some shots of Erick's setup and my shots.
I knew when I got to the East West Center that I wanted a shot of the archway. I actually thought having her off centered would work best. I also thought B&W worked best.
I used my 70-200mm and wanted to get one shot of the blown out background.
Here's the setup on the steps.
Here's my shot.
We waited till it wasn't as sunny in the garden so the background didn't get overexposed.
Erick had the great idea of a walking shot.. but I couldn't get coordinated w/ her walking so all my shots had some parts of her chopped off. But I think it kinda works in B&W.
We then went to shoot at the mini bamboo 'forrest'. The sun was slowly getting lower and was getting really bright thru the branches.
I learned that I need to adjust how far I need to be when using the zoom lens. Through it all, I did manage to get some great shots.

East West Center HPS Outting - 5/2/2010

It was a rainy morning when we met for the photo outing. But rain will not not stop us die hards. The rain did stop a bit so I was able to get some pics. I decided to not bring my 70-200mm because it was raining, so I missed out on some nice closeup shots..

There was raindrops coming down this pole and I was trying to get a nice misty shot, but it ended up being too overexposed so I decided to do an HDR instead.

I accidentaly forgot to turn off the multi shot and ended up w/3 shots that I did HDR on.
Because of the overcast, the flowers came out really well.



After the outing, we went to have lunch at Cafe Kaila at Market City. I had the Scrambled egg with vegetables. It was $9.50, but the portion was pretty large and I ended up having leftovers.

May Day - 5/1/2010

May Day usually happen on a work day but this year, May 1st happen on a Saturday and seeing the ad in the morning papers, I decided to check out the festivities at Kapiolani park. I sat to watch some performance and decided to take a wide angle shot of the beautifully decorated band stand.

There were Lei making demos. I didn't know that these leis were made from carvings from that strange looking fruit.
There were demos of Haku Leis.

People were decked out in Lei Day Florals.

I had to stand in line for 20mins to see the Lei competion displays.
Here's the Mayor's First Place Winner.

Here are winners from other categories.


As I was heading home, I saw more colorful entertainment so I quickly got a couple more shots.