The 2024 Shinnyo Lantern Floating Festival is an enlightened ceremony that honors our fallen soldiers and loved ones lost. It brings closure for family members regarding friends who recently passed. We will never forget our own friends Wayne Spencer from Oregon, Frank Grillo from Ecuador, and several other close friends who have passed recently. The […]
Floating Lantern Festival Hawaii 2023
After 3 years of absence due to Covid restrictions, the annual Shinnyo Lantern Floating festival returned to Oahu, Hawaii this Memorial Day again. Shinnyo-en is an international Buddhist community and teaches “reality, or the true nature of all things”. The red lanterns provide light and guide the souls of the deceased toward peace. The light […]
Bolivia 6 – Parade & Finale
The Republic of Bolivia was founded in 1825. Although Spanish is the official language, there are also 36 Indigenous languages that are officially recognized. The indigenous people felt they were being ignored by the country’s political leaders, and it is estimated there are between 40-70% of the 12 million population are indigenous and minorities. In […]
Bolivia 5 – Fumerols, High Desert and Lagoons
After hours of driving, we stopped at a fumerol field. As the image of our elevation app shows lower-left, we were at over 16,000 feet elevation at this location. I wondered if my drone would handle this altitude, but though it kept complaining about the high altitude, it did amazingly well. Our guide, Alvaro, is […]
Bolivia 4 – Flamingos, Trains and Night Sky
When arranging our trip to Bolivia, we had two major photographic goals — the mirror scenes on the salt flats, and flamingos in the high desert lagoons. We never got the mirror images we envisioned, due to the current drought in Bolivia. Flamingos though, were a different matter! We have chased flamingos across many countries. […]
Bolivia 2 – Copacabana
After leaving La Paz, one of our first stops was to Copacabana, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca (you can see our visit to the Peruvian side last month here). To cross the lake, while staying on the Bolivian side of the border, you take tiny car ferries that only take two vehicles at […]
Peru – Lake Titicaca
Lake Titicaca is a UNESCO heritage site and is the highest navigable fresh water lake in the world at an elevation (12,507′). It is also the largest lake in South America, bordering Peru and Bolivia. There are an estimated 70 – 114 small floating islands, with the bulk scattered in the shallow depths of the […]
Hukilau Reenactment
The Hukilau event in La’ie last Saturday was staged for a documentary film on the shaka gesture. Volunteer photographers were recruited and provided with a shot list that may be used for the documentary produced by Bizgenics in association with Henry Kapono, a Hawaii legendary performer and song writer, who was nominated for a Grammy […]
Balkans 3 – Montenegro
After leaving Bosnia, we traveled South and entered Montenegro, which means “Black Mountain.” This country is ringed by mountains that are… you guessed it, largely black. In recent history, this country was declared a kingdom in 1910, then merged into Yugoslavia after WWI. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Montenegro combined with Serbia to form a […]
Hawaii – More Music with Friends
After painting together en plein air at Three Tables Beach, some members of the group got together at Marina’s North Shore home on Sunset Beach just a few minutes away to eat and make more music. It was like paradise, as we got a chance to paint on a sunny day with no gale force […]