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 […]
Hawaii 2 – Volcanoes and Stargazing
Sunset at Mauna Kea, across the road from the Visitor’s Center. At 9200 feet, the cloud layer is below us, so you often can get a clear view of the sun setting. The road to the summit was closed again (this was our second attempt at going there), so we settled with this view. View […]
Hawaii 1 – Celebration and Hilo
Sunset at the Lava Lava Beach Club in Waikoloa Village, Hawaii (above). The last time we were on the Big Island was over 50 years ago, so it was interesting to see the changes. There were a lot more resort communities and restaurants. Saddle Road, formerly a dirt road connecting Kailua-Kona with Hilo has transformed […]
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 […]
Lunar Eclipse Honolulu 2022
There was a total Lunar Eclipse here in Honolulu starting Monday night, November 7th-8th. At totality, it transforms into the Blood Moon, a reddish-orange color cast from the light of sunrises and sunsets, seen at the top of the above composite. A lunar eclipse happens when the sun, Earth and moon align, and will be […]
Star Gazing in Honolulu
Only two days after the full moon, I got this photograph with my iPhone 14Pro and 12″ telescope tonight. Read below to see how… I attended an interesting Star Gazing event with Star Gazers of Hawaii, which is a local small business owned by a private citizen (Nick Bradley) with a telescope. Twice a month […]
ShakaCon Backstage
We were asked to photograph another charity photo event last Wednesday night at the Polynesian Cultural Center. There were five different categories we were asked to document. This was the second event we helped on the Shaka Project, which is making a documentary on the origin and history of the shaka, a Hawaiian gesture of […]
Honolulu Pride Parade 2022
Last Saturday was the annual Pride Parade in Honolulu celebrating the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community. There has been no parade since 2019, due to COVID, but has otherwise been annual since 1974. The parade went along Ala Moana Boulevard then along Kalakaua Avenue fronting the beach, from Magic Island to the zoo, and took […]
Chinatown Art Festival
The Plein Air Painters of Oahu (PAPO), led by Mark Brown, was invited to showcase their plein air paintings at a Chinatown street fair yesterday. Approximately 20 painters from our group participated in the fair. The organizer was DAC (Downtown Art Center, in the Chinatown Arts District in Honolulu). The show was called “The HEART […]
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 […]