Metromix must be getting tired of my face! Today, my Top 10, in which I listed my favorite places for hand roll (temaki) sushi for under $2, went online. Go check it out!
Also, don’t forget to subscribe to my daily photo blog, Visuals. I have gone 45 days with daily updates so far, so I’m a lot more faithful to that blog than this one. ;) KawaiiKon is coming up in a couple weeks, so if all goes well I should be churning out a few more designs.
Made the front page of Metromix, along with my roommate Gabriel and fellow photographer Cheyne! This photo was snapped at the recent Mochi Tweetup, where I got to try delicious Happy Hearts Mochi for the first time. Thanks go out to Tracy Chan, the Metromix photographer, for choosing me to be one of her models. :)
My fellow Hawaii Twitter photographers and I have started doing this new thing where we plan a tweetup asking people to take photos. Ed and I did this before he left just to get more photos of us together, and it worked out great! It can almost be treated as a workshop where we all share techniques and ideas. The most recent of these tweetups was for photographer Marc Orbito and family. There were around 5-6 photographers there at Kakaako Waterfront Park, but I somehow managed to avoid catching them in my shots!
Joining the rest are:
- Surfing spam musubi
- Maki sushi with friends
- Spam musubi solo
- Maki sushi solo
- Matcha cupcake
- “Say ‘NO’ to shooting on automatic!”
Again, buttons are 1″ in size, and are $1 each!
Here’s a preview of some of the new button designs I’ll be selling at KawaiiKon this year at our Studio Myo table! This is just part of the new designs, so I’ll post the next set once I get some made. Buttons are 1″ in diameter and cost $1 each.
Designs include:
- Digital pixel spam musubi
- Mochi ice cream
- Bubble tea
- Cameras with heart lenses
More coming soon!
Going to get these cards made soon to sell in my Etsy shop! The inside will read “Congratulations on your networking! Wishing you two a strong connection!“
UPDATE – 10/26/10 – I’ve had requests for these cards, but unfortunately, real life took over and I closed my Etsy store. Getting married, moving, setting up a house while husband is deployed to the Middle East, and shooting weddings once a week has really taken up a lot of my time. Maybe next year, once my husband is home, I can spend more time on things other than my photography business.
Sometimes it is through complete chance that I get to do unusual things in my life, and the fact that one of my father’s many hats is that of ‘Federal aviation safety trainer’ has allowed me early opportunities in my career to do aerial photography. Though I’ve grown up having the occasional helicopter ride thanks to his connections, my first time doing aerial photography was during the summer of 2007, when I photographed Kipahulu valley for Haleakala National Park. (Note that these shots were taken with a Canon Rebel XT with my eventually-stolen 17-40mm f.4L lens)
I even got to capture a near-perfect circular rainbow!
Having seen my dad don his flight suit for various helicopter operations for the National Park, I was quite proud to put one on myself and join him in the sky. Plus, it was just cool!
One of the best parts of the experience was getting to fly with no doors! Being 10,000+ feet in the sky and looking over the edge is an amazing thrill. (And my dad is posing in the pilot’s seat in the following photo – he’s not a pilot himself.)
(I don’t care how geeky those helmets look, it’s totally awesome!)
Fast-forward three years to 2010, and I’ve finally taken my first helicopter tour of Oahu, my home-away-from-home for the last six years. I was joined by my father, naturally, as well as my great-aunt, for the tour provided by Blue Hawaiian Helicopters.
It was fascinating to see Oahu from the air! Unfortunately, because this was a tour helicopter, there were doors present, and thus my photos were of an infuriatingly degraded quality than they would have been otherwise. The aircraft was also moving very fast, so if I missed a shot, the opportunity was gone within a few seconds. The tour was a good refresher in being aware of keeping my shutter speed fast enough to compensate for the movement of the helicopter. I was using my 5DMKII with a 24-105mm f.4L lens for its focal range and Image Stabilizer. Here’s a sampling of some of the practice shots I took today:
Finally, here’s a shot of Kaʻaʻawa Valley, though there is some glare from the helicopter’s plexiglass. This is the valley, a part of Kualoa Ranch, where several productions, including George of the Jungle, Jurassic Park, and parts of LOST have been shot!
Hopefully the next time I’m flying, I can do it doors-free for optimal image quality! If any of you ever have a chance, take a helicopter tour and practice some aerial photography! I highly recommend bringing a polarizer and swift reflexes for balancing ISO with aperture (for as much depth-of-field as possible) and shutter-speed (for compensating for hand-holding in a moving helicopter).
Finally, check out my 365 Photo Blog for one more shot from today!
A couple months ago, I ‘sold’ my Canon G9 to my dad, and upgraded to the Canon G11, mostly because I was interested in the better ISO performance as well as the swivel-screen, something I haven’t been able to play with since I borrowed my mom’s old point-and-shoot five years ago. I’d already hiked the 5DMKII up Diamond Head twice in the last few weeks, so this time I just took the G11 to see what I could do with it. Accompanied by Kaeo and Gabe, here’s what we came up with. (And yes, all shots have been post-processed.)
Overall, I feel the G11 is a great alternative for taking photos when you don’t want to haul your DSLR around! It might not have the tonal-range or sensor size of my 5DMKII, but it’s definitely capable of taking nice, fun photographs.
