It was a dark and dreary day

I've been photographing Yesenia (aka Jessie) since 2002. Except for the first hiccup, she has been an enthusiastic and dependable model for me and I truly enjoy working with her. She's exotic and intelligent with a unique sense of humor. After she got married, she left Texas for a while but we still managed to get together once to do a photoshoot in Lost Wages. She's driving over 100 miles to do a shoot, I've driven over 100 miles twice to her place to do a shoot and finally she's settled down in a community about 30 minutes from my sister's place in Dallas.

Well, I traveled to Dallas earlier this month to visit and spend time with my niece and managed to schedule a photoshoot with her on a Sunday. The day started out nice but by the time I left to meet her, it started to rain pretty hard to the point of thunderstorms. As I sat in the parking lot, it started to hail. Fortunately, by the time she got there, it was still raining but not so hard that I figured if I could find some covered areas, I could still do the shoot. After all, I flew over 4000 miles and to not do the shoot would have been a waste of time.

We drove over to the town of Grapevine (about 5 minutes away and discovered that the streets were completely deserted since it was already Sunday evening. Here are the results of the shoot.

OMG, she's getting TALL!!!

This is my 10 year old niece who lives in Dallas. I swear last time I saw her (Aug), she wasn't this tall. I guess it's just a matter of time before her height shoots above me. Her California cousins are pretty tall too but she may surpass them. These shots were taken a couple of blocks from her house.

A Photographer's Wedding

On May 5, 2007, Stanley and Shiho Shigematsu tied the knot in an afternoon ceremony at the Shingon Misson in Wailuku Maui. Being a photographer, he had several photographers capture the event for him. I took the opportunity to capture the candids with a special wide angle lens to get a different viaew.

It was a local wedding so removing the shoes to enter the worship area is a must.



The bride emerging from the limousine accompanied by her uncle



The uncle receiving the traditional Hawaiian Maile Lei



Walking down the short aisle




The participants remain seated as the priest goes through his mantras. At this point, I had forgotten to turn off my cell phone and it started blaring the Olympic theme. I went to apologize to the priest after the service and he said he didn't hear it. Being that the priest was a classmate of the groom, the photographers had free access to do whatever we needed to get great photos



The bride and the groom share sips of sake at the altar.



Finally, he's hitched!!!



The bridal party. The best man is a school friend of the groom and the maid of honor is a friend from Kanagawa, Japan.



The Bride


The Groom - never saw him smile so much in one day.



Portraits of the couple taken on the grounds of a private estate in Wailuku





With their stretch limousine and the driver



The fabulous photo crew!!! (I'm on the left)



Shots from the reception







The groom was not very nice to the bride during the cake cutting.



Of course, the "famous" money dance.



Best Wishes to the newly wedded couple.

Another year, another fashion show...

Since the mid 70's, I've kind of "volunteered" to photograph the garments of the Fashion Design students at the University of Hawaii Department of Fashion Design and Merchandising. I don't remember how it started but it was a good way to develope my technical and posing skills and the "cash strapped" students were able to get photos for their portfolios at a reasonable price. I got to work with novice models, established models, some up and coming models and actresses (including Tia Carrere when she was Altheia Janario).

I've seen styles change and was able to photograph some very prominent fashion designers outfits when they were part of the program (including designer Anne Namba).

New Art Type Photos

I recently learned a new technique for changing an straight image into a work of art. I'm still playing around with the technique to use it more effectively. Below is a before and after image and a closeup of the artistic effect that I used. It's pretty neat.

On a happier note...

I was able to photograph two additional Miss Hawaii Preliminary winners. The first is Miss Garden Isle Sabrina Ponciano and the second is Miss Windward Oahu Marisa Kellett. Marisa's photo is a copy of her autograph pad.

Whew! Mom's OK

My Mom has been really fatigued ever since she had that bout with something similar to the flu about a month and a half ago. She's been to the doc and he's given her some medications but it really hasn't helped that much.

Well, she went in for her follow up checkup today and when I went to pick her up, the nurse handed me an envelope and said that I needed to take her to the ER for some follow up testing. The nurse said they called the hospital and they would be expecting us.

My mind's going all over the place wondering what is wrong and what kind of testing does she need and why did she have to go to the ER rather than just check in for a test like a regular patient.

So we go to the ER (Mom seems normal) and check in and no one at the ER has talked to the doctor's office so they don't know why she was there. This is at noon. But they check her in anyway and have us wait. The ER was packed and all the beds in the ER were occupied. Mom is confused as to why she's there as she thought she was going to the hospital for a couple of tests.

As we're waiting, the ambulances bring in a couple of patients with leg injuries. I think nothing of it other than it's getting really busy. So I take a break outside and I spot the wife of my high school classmate. She's there because her daughter in law was in the ER. I then remember the second patient with the leg injury so I go back into the ER and lo and behold, it's a bride whose wedding I photographed last year. I didn't recognize her because she was wearing glasses and had no makeup on. Of course she didn't recognize me when she first came in but recognized me after I said "hi" to her. She had sliced her leg in a home accident. Hopefully she's patched up and on the way to recovery.

Back to Mom. Finally about 2:00 pm, her doctor stopped by and advised me that she was sent there for a second EKG since the one he had done at the office was a little abnormal (nothing serious - yeah, right!). And finally, the ER staff knew why she was there so were just waiting for a bed to open up. She finally gets a bed about 2:30, they prep her and take an EKG. Earlier, they drew some blood for a blood test. Then it's hurry up and wait again.

After another break, as I'm walking in, I'm behind a husky oriental guy and I hear his name mentioned. One of the sons of another classmate was a male nurse so I'm thinking "it can't be him" but the name and his body shape sure looked like him. So I walked up to him and asked "are you so and so?" He looks at me and says "Hi Uncle Paul!" It was him. He's back from the mainland training to be a Physician's Assistant so we got to catch up on some of his life. That was nice.

Finally about 3:15, the attending physican came in to advise us that the tests were normal and Mom will be ok. We just had to wait until he talked to her Doctor and then she'll be released. Finally around 4:00 pm, they discharged her. Of course, not having any lunch, she was starving...

She's back home and resting comfortably. I hope I won't have to visit the ER again soon.