Visual Image- Crunch Time

While browsing through some animal pictures online i came across this lizzard eating a grass- hopper. I dont know what to say......

Reptiles as well as other creatures are facinating to watch, from the time they catch their prey and then eating it. "You gotta do, what you gotta do to stay alive, right?..." The colors on this lizzards skin is pretty awsome. I like it!

Personal Image- Valley of the Kings

Waipi'o Valley meaning "The Valley of the Kings". A place on the Big Island that i feel is a very strong, powerful, beautiful, calm and peaceful setting. A place where kings of old once lived. This picture was taken across the river of my papas' lo'i kalo (taro patch) as i've said before in my previous blog about working in "Papas' lo'i kalo".

The moutain/valley towards the back of this image is known as Waima. Not an easily accessible place to get to but very beautiful!

Waipi'o Valley is a very sacred place which holds many stories of the past. Stories about gods and wars, about ali'i (chiefs) claiming their land and also waterfalls that were named after special people and people of both human and animal stature. I grew up listening to these stories from my papa that were passed down from generation to generation, the same stories told over and over, never being modified.

I guess i chose this picture for the week because lately i've been thinking about my childhood days that were spent sitting on a lawn chair for hours, just listening to the amazing and exciting stories being told about Waipi'o Valley.

Everytime i'm back home on the islands, it never fails that i end up visiting Waipi'o Valley a place i call home.

Assign. 4 Scratch-2

At first i decided to draw triangles, until the form an volcano began to take place. So from there i began adding a ton of dots everywhere to make the lava as if it where flowing down. i looked up a picture of a volcano erupting to help with my drawing. I also used a filter (glow) to show dramatic outlines of the eruption and lava flowing down the hill.

Assign. 4 Scratch-1

I took five different pictures and combined them together as a whole. I decided to add a filter to make the image look less of an actual picture.

The filter i used was angled strokes. I also played with shapes in the background like, triangles and squares then used the smudge tool to make it less edgy.. Contrast and hue color was also used.

It was fun experimenting with the different tools in photoshop...

Visual Image- Bob Marley

Robert Nesta Marley whose better known as Bob Marley.

I found this picture off his web site while looking for songs sung by him and browsing his web page. I thought it was a great picture of him and his guitar, being that he is one of the best legendary reggae artist whose ever lived.

Growing up, I'd listen to his music all the time whether it be on a car ride going to school, on the radio, CDs, at home, with friends/family, out camping or just to "satisfy my soul" (Bob Marley). I can listen to Bob all day, everyday. His music has a lot of meaning and emotion. Life, wars, music, weed.... he pretty much sings about everything.

"emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds" (BM)

"one good thing about music, is that when it hits you feel no pain." (BM)

Personal Image- Papas' Taro Farm

Papas' Lo'i Kalo (taro farm).

This picture was taken awhile back, right in front of my papas' farm in Waipi'o Valley. I chose to take this picture in black and white... the post which both signs "private property and keep out" are nailed on to is really old and rusty so i figured, why not give it an old feel to it...and so i did.

Growing up, Papas' lo'i (farm) is where most of my free time was spent. On Friday's after school my parents, siblings, cousins, aunties, uncles and of course my mama and papa would pack-up our things and head down here. We'd stay over night in our farm house. Our job as young kids were to clean all the weeds in the taro patches. As easy as it sounds, it was actually a hard job.

My feet would sink into the almost knee high mud. With every step that i'd take moving down each row, mud would splash over my clothes leaving thick muddy stains that couldn't be washed off easily.

Cleaning the taro patches felt more like a chore to me rather than it being fun, as my parents would say. But in the end, some how cleaning papas' taro patches paid off....me and the cousins would go swimming, catch tad poles and prawns in the river, and even little guppies (the ugly silver ones). I'd have a blast!!!

Visual Image

I found this image on my sisters MySpace page in the comments section which her friend sent to her. I thought this was cute!

Friendship.........that's all i could think about when looking at this picture is, friendship. The bond between this little girl and huge elephant is unbreakable.

I like that its in black and white. If this picture was to be in color, i don't think it would show much emotion as it does here.

Personal Image

Lalakea waterfall, a beautiful place located on the Big Island. I took this picture a couple months back, during winter season.... as if anyone could tell the different season changes in Hawai'i.

Its about a fifteen minute four- wheel drive through Eucalyptus trees, a one way bumpy dirt road and sweet smelling white and yellow ginger flowers clumped together between spikey california grass. Access is only granted to those who own land in this area, lives near by, or for those who choose to do a horse or ATV tour.

I love visiting here. Swimming, BBQing or just takin' a drive... Lalakea is a place where i can take my mind off of things, be free and do what i want, or hide from people if i feel like it... whatevers.

Luckily its a fairly easy access for me as its located behind my mama and papa's house :D

Assign 2- Picturing the Other

For this assignment "Picturing the other" I pretty much needed to take a self portrait, a picture of a friend and a picture of someone I don't know. The objective of this assignment was to understand the relationship between photographer and subject; to practice digital photography, working in natural light and to compose and expose images.

Self Portrait (original picture) Self Portrait (edited)

Friend- Charlee (original picture)

Friend- Charlee (edited)
-I did some color and mid-tone change. Also played with contrast.

Someone i just met- Name: Mia (original Picture)

Edited

-I didn't really do much editing here, just some contrast changes.

Meet my friend Mia. I was having lunch with a couple of my friends and came a cross a little girl flipping through pages of a cook book. I was facinated by this. Her grandma is the owner of the restaurant. She was sooo cute that i had to take a picture of her, and her grandma was okay with that too.

Visual Image

Title of picture: Pau Hana (Finished work). Many jobs consist of a moving automobile. In Paniolo (cowboy) country their job consists of horses as a way to get around. I love this image of a Paniolo on the ranch. So many emotions and thoughts run through my head when I see this picture. I wanna know everything. I wanna know where he is going and what is he gonna do next. Is he gonna pack up and head home immediately? What is he thinking about? What is he looking at? Was it a hard day’s work? What is it about this picture that makes it so special and inviting, that I can’t take my eyes off it? Why is it that I feel I want and need to be there at that moment? Because in truth, I really don’t know. Randy Jay Braun, the photographer of this photo has captured an epic picture of a moment in time….

Personal Work

A reminiscent way I love doing of remembering the past is to look at pictures. Pictures from ten years ago or even thirty years ago. Pictures of color or black and white. Pictures that show water marks on the upper corners from the ring of a once ice cold drink that had been sitting on the table for hours. Pictures distorted from the heat in my car. Pictures that didn’t come out the way I wanted it to look and some that did. Pictures that had been edited by an amateur or done by professionals themselves. I look at pictures every single day. I think of the past and how things have changed. I look at this picture in particular that I took two summers ago and instantly I think of red hot dogs being grilled over a camp fire we’ve made the night before. As for someone else seeing this picture for the first time might envision relaxation or ocean breeze sweeping across their face, because I’m sure they aren’t gonna visualize hot dogs especially red ones.

Visual Image

I Spy…….
Animals. A farmer in his jumpsuit. Horses with their saddles. Cowboys with their spurs. BBQ. Country. Dirt. Being dirty. And being sweaty. Ranchers. Hunters and the hunted. A wall mounted by animal heads. Children. A rodeo. A Corel.
Actually… I don’t spy any of these things. I’m thinking about it.

I see the red barn. Why is it when you look at a picture, you begin to read something else from it? That something else is what I’m thinking about. You get it?

A beautiful picture. I chose this picture because to me, visually it’s a perfect image. It reminds me of things that I WANT to see. But the barn is all that’s needed.

Personal work/image

A picture I recently took at Anaeho’omalu bay. A random one at that. Beautiful, sunny weather. Blue skies. Calm water. Turtles basking in the sun. It quickly reminded me of my childhood days, especially this one event that happened about fourteen years ago which I should’ve listened to her.

Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!

My knees began to shake as I tried to tip toe towards the ocean. “I told you to put your slippers on!” mom would yell from the campsite across the beach. A thin stretch of sand lay between black jagged rocks and keawe wood trees. Lots of little poky acorns about the size of M&Ms spread across the sand. It would’ve been too late now to turn back. I was almost at waters edge, about half way now. I thought about the salty, cool and refreshing sparkly water. I stood on thin sand for a lil bit, sore and waited until my foot recuperated from those dumb, poky acorns. Maybe just this once I should’ve listened to her.

I was a kid at the time. And now I was ready to take on those black jagged rocks. Next thing you know I was in moms arms, being carried like a helpless baby back to the campsite. My feelings of happiness suddenly turned to anger. I watched my cousins run past me. The older ones barefoot, showing no pain as they squish the poky acorns and the younger ones with slippers. And again thought to myself “I should’ve listened to her”.

She sat me on a white plastic chair and grabbed my rubber slippers from the passenger seat of our car and put them on my foot. In no time I was off the chair and standing at waters edge. The poky acorns and jagged rocks didn’t even faze me, it had nothin’ against me and my rubber slippers. I thought about how fast it was for me to get from point A to point B, by wearing those rubber slippers. I could’ve been swimming with my cousins already and having a blast. And I said to myself “Damn, I should’ve listened to her”.

Assign.1- self portait