So Cool, Oahu, Hawaii, October '08, artistic view, click to enlarge.
Aloha.
No matter how many times you stopped there, North Shore of Oahu always feels good, always delivers. This statement is 100% correct, not stretched even a bit. There is some magic about it. We are going to take a slower route, drive there from Waikiki, along the east coast of Oahu, stopping very often, and reaching North Shore in the early afternoon. Good time to leave for this all-day long trip is in the morning, shortly after breakfast. From Waikiki, there are several possible routes to the east side; we are taking today Like-Like highway. Once already on the east side, we turn up north and drive slowly along the coast stopping frequently to take pictures, swim for a while in the ocean, and stop for lunch. There are indeed many quite good places to swim. The water is always warm in early October, and there is plenty of sun as well. No strong winds, means there is little to complain about. Just realized, that we never shoot any video at those intermediate places, but only at our final destination for the day. This makes subsequent editing easier since all clips are on the same subject, and there are no discontinuities in the story line. However, adding clips from different places could make the videos more interesting to watch. Need to sit down next time, write a script, something we never do before shooting, and try that second approach.
The whole fish is for lunch, cannot remember the Hawaiian name of it, with vegetables, and fries, and iced tea. Tastes fine, but we had to wait about half hour longer because one of the cooks did not show up for work! Now, try to write that into the script ahead of time. After the lunch, we drive along the coast; passing many food stands along the road. The sun is shinning, the local rock radio station is playing good music, we are singing along, pictures look decent – actually upon a second look, we need to delete many of them because of fuzziness. One more stop, another twenty minutes of drive, and we are at the Sunset Beach of Oahu’s North Shore, our planned destination of the day. The weather could not be better, nice surf, not too crowdy. We are taking some beach pictures, and then start to shoot video. It will be called Shouldn’t Have Fallen Asleep At The Sunset Beach, simply because we fell asleep during filming and probably missed some good action. The YouTube traffic is slower now, and getting people to watch your videos became increasingly difficult to achieve. Aside the video, we also make good quality audio recordings, just in case the video audio cannot be used, and we have to substitute it with something else.
The evening comes, the sun is out, and people are slowly packing and leaving in their cars. This was an excellent day, almost stress free, with some good camera work, and with good-recorded audio. Now we are on our way to Haleiwa, then turning south to Honolulu and Waikiki. Later in the evening, after eating something bought at ABC Stores, we head for Waikiki Beachwalk. As always, plenty of people there, we mingle with them, trying to take good pictures at low light conditions. Some advanced skills are necessary; otherwise, nothing can be useable. At 11pm crowds are beginning to thin, shops are beginning to close, but not restaurants. We are going back to the hotel, a cold Steinlarger beer is waiting, taking a shower, and about midnight call it a day. Tomorrow we are going to go somewhere else, everything will be decided in the morning before the maid knocks on the door asking whether to replace sheets and towels. Of course!
Mahalo everyone.
Photo book: Michael Freeman, Pro Photographer's D-SLR Handbook, Lark Books, ISBN 978-1-60059-422-9. An excellent photo book to read.
YouTube videos: youtube.com/Vatsek .
On twitter: twitter.com/Vatsek .
Flickr photos: flickr.com/photos/25951201@N07/ .
