Pacific Beach Natsu Matsuri - 7/23/2010

I drove by and saw this happening at the Pacific Beach Hotel parking lot and I found out it's the Natsu Matsuri or Summer Festival. On Friday, I brought a wide angle lens and flash. I couldn't get the photos sharp because of the darkness and the flash was kinda too harsh (ARGH!!). However I was able to get some wide shots. I decided to bo back on Saturday and used the 50mm F1.4 lens. The shots were a lot better, especially with use of the available light. My first shots seemed dark and a bit grainy. I caught the performance by Bruce Shimabukuro who also plays the ukulele, like Jake Shimabukuro (not sure if they're related).
There was Taiko performance and bon dance from 7:30pm til it ends at 9pm.
In the hotel lobby, they were selling masks and toys for the kids.
There were also small game booths outside.
They urged everyone to participate in the bon dance saying "very easy, same move, over and over again...great for exercise."
A Taiko group performed both Friday and Saturday night.
A group of bon dancers also joined in the dance.
On Saturday, the 50mm lens really brightened things a lot. It didn't even seem dark at all. I recognized Dazz at several bon dances. He helped MC on Saturday's performances and dance.
I was able to get more sharper image being able to shoot at higher speed. It really made a big difference.
I shot mostly w/ available light w/o using a flash.
I even tried it in this dark lantern lit area. There were all kinds of authentic Japanese food. They made fresh Takoyaki.
They also had Okonomiyaki. It got darker so I had to use a flash.
There were grilled corn and squid.
It smelled really good.
There were also Yakitori.
The dance ended at 9pm with a final performance. The festival runs every Friday and Saturday night thru August 28.

40th Ukulele Festival - 7/18/2010

This is the first time I've heard of the Ukulele Festival only to find that it is the 40th annual this year!! I was only able to spend a couple of hours on Sunday and I decided to check it out. When I got there around 9:30am, there were already LOTS and LOTS of people and every good photo spot was taken so it was a challenge and I had to take photos from angles different from where I usually sit.
For this post, I followed the instructions (most of it) from the link on Jalna's Post. Can you see a difference?
Roy Sakuma organizes the event each year and there were non stop ukulele performances. I was surprised there was such a huge ukulele community.
Danny Kaleikini was the MC of the event.
There were all sorts of ukulele performers. This is Tommy D.There was also Nico Salsac, a performer from France, who played a version of the Pink Panther on the ukulele.
There were groups of performers who came from Japan.
I managed to sit briefly on the steps of the band stand to take closeup of the performers as well as stay in the shade on this hot day.
It was good I had my long zoom lens so I can still get close enough so I can still crop to get closeups when I had to move back to the side of the of the stage.All the benches were taken and it was standing room only for most who were there.
I had to take a photo of all the photographers/videographers who were situated at 'my usual spot'. Can you spot 11 cameras/video cameras in this photo!??!!
I even bumped into a 'famous' photog from the Eyes of Hawaii group.

Korean Festival -- 7/10/2010

The thing I like the best about the Korean Festival is the colorful Costumes. This year is no exception and Erick, CD and I braved sun and some drizzle to catch all the entertainment. This year was a bit overcast, so the lighting was not as harsh on stage so my setting at shutter speed of 1/200 and sometimes higher worked out pretty good to capture sharp shots.
A performer from Korea performed the dance w/ the scarf.
This year, as with last year, the chinese lion dance group was invited to perform.
It was amazing the sound that came from this small bamboo instrument.
There was a Korean singing contest with prizes like a round trip ticket to Korea and a 42" flat screen TV. Even though I didn't know what they were singing about, I thought there were pretty good singers. After the sun set, the Korean pop singer performed. My flash didn't work too well w/ my zoom lens and it was really dark. I had to do some photoshop to get the color of his jacket corrected and still I can't get the olive green color back w/o messing up his skin tone. Maybe next time, I'll stick to my 50mm. I happened to look up and saw the beautiful lighting on the tip of the band stand and I decided to take a shot.

Macro Test Shots: Q-Tip - 7/9/2010

I just got a macro lens. After seeing all the cool closeup shots you can get, I decided it was time to expand my lens collection. I'm still learning how to make it work to get sharp shots. In closeups, the depth of field is so tight that things easily get out of focus.
I got great practice w/ my friend's pet mantis. This is Q-Tip and she is a female mantis. I used to be afraid of them, but since I've seen them numerous times, I'm no longer afraid. Q-tip was a pretty cooperative subject for my test macro shots.
It took quite a few shots to get Q-tip in complete focus.
My friend fed her a live roach and she quickly devoured it.. I didn't even see a crumb left..
I tried to also take a photo of my opae shrimp.. they're so small and quick it was really hard to get a clear shot. This is the best I could do.
This is sort of a miniature shot processing I learned from Erick. It's called Tilt-Shift fake miniature photography. This can be done w/ Photoshop (I used Elements and it's a different workflow). This takes a real life photo and by blurring parts of the photo to make it look like a miniature. This is my first try and I thought it came out pretty cool..