Cactus Garden at Kapiolani Community College - 02/20/2017

It's been a long time since I went on a shoot and get together w/ fellow photogs Celia and Erick.  We decided to go to the Cactus Garden.  I got to use my 100mm macro lens. It was a great day and I had a great time.  

For post editing, I tried a different technique by looking at the histogram in the Camera Raw to adjust the photo so all the edges are brought back towards the center of the histogram by adjusting the exposure, contrast, shadow, etc.. setting.  Once I did that, I didn't have to adjust much after the photo opens in Photoshop Element.

I tried doing some close up macro shots..

There was a family of chicken w/ the rooster and 3 hens.. He moved around a lot so it was hard to get a good shot.

Some shots i took because i really liked the colors.

We went to Chili's for lunch and we had such a good time talking that I totally forgot to take pic of what I ate.  It was a great day indeed.

Voggy Sunset

Vog in the recent days made for an interesting Sunset.  I finally took my Canon 6D to take some full frame shots.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

I haven't posts as much this year but will try to do better next year. 
I've seen Santa on this boat docked near the Aloha Tower for weeks now on my way to Chinatown. Finally I made an effort to go get a shot of it before Santa's deflated.

"Super-est" Moon of 2016

Last night was supposed to be the largest super moon since 1948 and the next one isn't until 2034.  I can never figure out how to take pic of the moon since I'd either get the Moon and no scenery or scenery and a blown out moon...Until I figure out how that works, I figure I'd use my Panasonic Lumix.  This was taken just after sunset around 6pm.  I guess with the mountain and houses (Waialai Iki I think) to compare, it looks more impressive.

22nd Annual Honolulu Festival - 03/12 - 3/13/2016

Every year, I look forward to going to the Honolulu Festival to see my favorite performers, the parade and the fireworks.

This year I caught the lantern performance.  They balance lanterns on their head, shoulder and back side.  Side note, it was super dark inside and w/o the high ISO and work in photoshop, it would be impossible to get any pics.

It was really awesome to see their balancing skill.

These lanterns aren't that small or light..even though it's paper and bamboo.

I walked around to catch some craft booths.. pounding this leaf-shaped copper piece.

It turns into a cool chopstick holder..

At the parade, there were groups from all over the world like this band from Mexico playing the song 'Tequila'.

This group's from Taiwan.

Flag throwers from Italy.

The setting sun was hard to shoot because of the bright glare, but after the sunset, it started to get dark and even harder to shoot. 

Finally the lighted floats started to arrive... meaning the end of the parade is near.

After waiting 2 hours, I finally get my shot at the fire breathing dragon... very difficult to shoot because it's dark, and very bright and lots of crowds.. 

At 8:30pm, the Nagaoka Firework Show started.  The crowd seem larger than previous year,  The tide seems higher so there was less sand to sit on.. so I ended up setting up in the crowd w/ my tripod. I didn't read my manual so I couldn't find the BULB setting!!  I nearly panicked and called it a day but then I realize I can just set it for 8 secs. It worked out quite well at F11.  

It started to get larger w/ this chrysanthemum pattern.  I had to zoom out.. thus catching the coconut tree in my shot.

Towards the end when the fireworks got really large, the entire trunk was caught in my shot.. 

I learned a few things from this shot.. 1) Found the BULB setting in the turn knob after I got home, 2) even though my 'neighbor' next to me kicked my tripod (3 times), the darkness and the long exposure didn't pick up any blurriness. 3)Next time check for coconut trees.  I had no idea it would block my view.

At the festival, the guy pointed out that the fireworks show used only the two smaller balls, the ones in Japan uses the larger size one.  From the looks of the firework show, The Nagaoka fireworks show must be HUGE.

Chinatown Finds - 03/06/2016

Here's a collections of the food finds in Chinatown over the past few months.

These were available during the Autumn Moon Festival.  I was attracted to the evil shape it had.. I did some research and found that you have to boil them well since the water these things grow in could have bacteria that can get you sick.  I was hesitant to try it, but I did.  

The white meat inside was not crunchy like a water chestnut. It was like eating a grainy potato (hmm.. maybe I boiled them too long).  Cracking it required a nut cracker as the shell is super hard.

One day, I heard these ladies talking about these kumquats.  I've only had those from crack seed store, but not fresh ones.  The lady said you can eat the skin and all and it's very sweet.  So I bought a bag of them.  I think for about $2/lb.

She was right. It was sweet, but not really juicy.  Kind of remind me of this Yuzu candy I tried.  I ate a soft one, thinking it would be sweeter.. then i realized it had WORMS inside!!  I ate the rest, but made sure to look really good for worms.

I have no idea what this is.  I took a pic of it hoping I'd be able to google to one day find its name.

My strangest find.. This is a cacao. The guy told me it was $3 each.  It was very intriguing.

I read about the fleshy meat inside so we cut it open and surprisingly, it wasn't too hard to cut it open.

As with other fruit finds, I googled 'is it safe to eat raw cacao'  and it mentioned it wasn't too safe to eat them. I read that ingesting too many of it has the effects of LSD. Animals in the wild don't eat this, or those that live long don't. I was really hesitant to even try.

I did try a piece. It was kinda sour and had a tangy taste.  It wasn't too tasty and was hard to get the meat off so we gave up.

We cleaned off the seed.

The shell was kinda cool though.

I had all this leftover seeds, I read that for making cocoa.you have to ferment it. So I put it in a paper bag for a week. It started to turn a brown cocoa like color but it had a nasty smell though.

I'm sure I did that previous step wrong since it was still wet, but I figure why not try and bake it to roast it.  It turned dark brown, but was still goopy.

I cut it open to see what it looks like. I was not even going to attempt to try to taste it.  It smelled roasted, but still had a sorta bad smell.

It's been a few months.  Although the cacao experiment didn't turn out well, I still have the dried shell and it turned out pretty really cool. I still have the cleaned seed. Perhaps I'd plant it to see if it'd sprout.