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..

Work(ing) Garden Update 2 04/19/2015

I haven't posted this month due to 'Life' happening at a pace faster than I can catch up, so I figure it's a good time for an update to the Rooftop garden being it's been six months since the last update.  The Rooftop Garden completed with a phase 3 planting of Hawaiian plants.  This completed the three sections of the raised planter that was given for the effort.  There has been cleanups and removal of dead plants and they have grown at a slower pace than when it first started.  I suspect it is due to the rainy and windy winter season we've had.  We even had an attack of aphids which took a toll and killed some of the plants.
It was starting to rain the other evening and I caught a perfect rainbow over the garden.

There are some Hawaiian plant and herbal plants.  There is even taro plants and a couple of stalks of sugar cane.

The popolo berries were quite plentiful.

A Pineapple actually developed.. we think.. hopefully, It'll actually become a fruit since usually it's supposed to take a year and it hasn't been that long.

There's been cleanups and harvests.  The carrots didn't do as well in the garden as they had really strange shapes. A few were roundish and this one looked perfect for Holloween.

There was also a purple variety of Kale.

I've never seen flowers on green onions and chives, but it sure is pretty.

In December, my coworker who raises prayingmantis released some of them in the garden in hopes of controlling some pests.  There were around 30+ released altogether. They were really tiny and really fast.

We've been able to track the growth of several who had shed and grown larger.

We even found a few ladybug that found its way to to the garden and it's been a nice discovery. There's going to be a one-year anniversary in June and perhaps more plantings of more hearty vegetable plants. 

An update on my bottle bean plant.  I've had a couple of more harvests but those have never been as large as the original.  I also planted chinese pea and I was able to harvest one pea. ha ha..  Unfortunately, the pea plant turned yellow and died..  I'm starting a new bean plant.

21st Annual Honolulu Festival - 03/07 - 03/08/2015

The Annual Honolulu Festival is always a great shoot. You experience the Outdoor/indoor lighting shoot, the street shoot, sunset and even a fireworks shoot.. what more can a learning photographer ask for? I wasn't able to spend a lot of time, but I saw a LOT of great performances on stage and on the street. I'm glad I'm able to photograph it every year.

They are my favorite Taiko group.. I was so lucky I managed to catch their performance on both days...

There was a modern dance performance.  I had to shoot between the heads of people in front so my pics have a vignette-like effect on the bottom edge even though I tried to crop the heads out.

The inside stage is quite large and they even show the performance on a large screen.

There were performances on the street before the parade.  Next year I'll find a closer spot than where i sat..

There were a lot more traditional Japanese performers at the parade and less Hula performers this year.

This is the 10th year the Sonoda Gakuen High School girls joined in the Honolulu Festival parade.  There must've been more then 200+ girls marching and dancing in the parade.

Taiwnese Performers

Traditional way of carrying goods in Philippines..

Not so traditional goods ... hey, you'd never lose your cellphone if you carried it this way..

The sunset.. then it got really dark so I couldn't take any more performances in the parade since my 50D doesn't have high enough ISO to handle the noise.. and the flash is too harsh.. I guess time for an upgrade to 7D Mark II? :-)

I did manage to get lighted floats though.. this float is a trademark of the Honolulu Festival Parade.. 

These lanterns were carried horizontally and then as they passed my area, they raised them high up..  I had to run after them and shot a short video and also got this shot w/ my iphone!

Then, after about an hour break, at 8:30pm, the giant fireworks..They fired it off from 3 barges or boats.  It was so large, my 16-35mm lens couldn't get the entire bursts..I managed to get just a few good shots including this one..Next year I'll be more prepared.. (I tell myself that every year... )