Day 5 of our Hawaiian Vacation

To all of you photographers out there you will not believe what I did today. I wanted to get some close up shots of Iain in the pool. I attached my 85mm 1.2 lens to my 5D body. Stepped into the pool and took a few shots. Then to my great surprise the lens dropped off the camera body into the pool. Yes, it was fully submerged. I am now in the business office of the hotel to FedEx it to the Cannon factory service center in Irvine. I think the lens is a goner. Anyone with a similar experience?

Probably no pictures for the rest of the trip. They charged a lot here for internet service.

See ya when I get home!

Day 4 of our Hawaiian Vacation

We packed up our 6 bags and flew to Honolulu. It was a short flight, about 30 minutes. We are in such a different environment now then we were in Kona. It is much more metropolitan and fast paced. No pictures today since my camera was buried deep into my carry on luggage.

Day 3 of our Hawiian Vacation

We took a car trip to see the Kilauea Caldera, an active volcano crater, steam vents, a lava tube that you can hike in and the rain forest.

Rain forest back drop...gorgeous.


Iain took this shoot. Not bad for a 5 year old.


I took this because telephone booths were everywhere. In California you NEVER see telephone booths anymore.

Visiting Hawai'i Volcano

Ok, I expected to see red rock spitting out from the center and something that looked like gray taffy flowing to the ocean. What we saw was steam and smoke. There are times when the visitors do see what I just described but today wasn't it. But it was a natures phenomenon to be standing this close to an active volcano.

Can you see the faint rainbow. It was raining and windy.

What is a Lava Tube?

Hiking in a lava tube

Nature Shoots on our hike near the Thurston Lava Tube (Nahuku)

We had the great honor of hiking in rain forest. And yes it was raining. I used a plastic shopping bag to cover my camera so shooting was a bit more challenging. The area was one of the most beautiful sites I have ever had the pleasure of viewing. The greens were only something use see on a color wheel not in real life. Even the dead plants were beautiful.

Hawaii's answer to graffiti

I made gently asked David pull the car over so I could snap some shoots of this. Anyone who is married and on their way to some place important knows that the husband doesn't really want to pull the car over for anything!!! I cant tell you this was the last time we pulled the car over to take any landscape shoots the whole day. Too bad because the landscape and climate changed more here in a short distance than anywhere in the world. It was a very interesting drive and very scenic.

The people who live here seem to really care about the damage people do to their land and in an effort to keep the land untouched they use this alternative to graffii. These messages are everywhere. They are written in white rocks.

Day 2 of our Hawaiian Vacation

No pictures unfortunately, I didn't want to take the chance potentially damaging my camera with the salt water.

We took a boating/snokeling trip on Captain Zodiacs tour. The boat was a large life raft with two jet engines attached to the back. Just kidding, but it seemed like it. Two Yamaha 150 horse powered engines pushing the craft about 45 miles an hour in rough seas. We were all sitting along the pontoons of the boat (that was our seats) with one foot slipped under a rope on the floor in case we lost our balance. Too bad I didn't have my camera because we saw a lot of interesting sites. The most impressive was the pilot whales that swam within 2 feet of the boat. We got our history lesson about Captain Cook and how he died. In that very cove is where we slid off the edge of the boat and did some snorkeling. Yes, even Iain was bouncing around in the sea. Surprisingly, the water was a bit on the cold side. This adventure was well worth it. and I would highly recommend this trip. Iain loved the speed of the motion and the bumpy ride.

Feeding the fish at the Hotel.

We brought some bread back from the restaurant and the staff at the hotel let Iain feed the fish. As you can see these fish are a little on the fat side showing they are well taken care of. But yet they were great dispair to get to the bread. It was really funny watching how wide the fishes mouths would open. Iain was even petting these fish.

Togetherness at the beach.

These turtles are wild and crawl up on the rocks to sun themselves. They were really calm and didn't seem to be bothered by us looking at them.

Welcome to my world...in Hawaii. The husband, Iain and me are on a little vacation this week. I will be back in the studio June 27th.

Until then I will be blogging about our trip for my family and friends. I can't seem to pull myself away from the camera and laptop even during a break. We landed in Kona last night. We will be on the "big island" of Hawi'i for the next 3 days.



This is what we woke up to.

Paul-Help, I need some serious photo-shopping...Ann

Mom, this one is for you!

This was the view from our buffet breakfast.

Day 1 of our Hawaiian Vacation

We are staying at the Mauna Lani resort for a little vacation with Iain and my husband David.

Click on the image to enlarge the image.

Our June PUG meeting

For those of you who dont know I host a monthly get together for Pictage who is the company that hosts my pictures as well as 7,000 other members. We have a studio spotlight which is a presentation by a local member who shows their work and tells what makes their studio successful. And a speaker who gives the group valuable information to make our studios run more smoothly and have better results.

This month our star spotlight was Jennifer Disney. Great job Jennifer.




Our valued speaker was from GIGbooks.com. It is a service for professional photographers to manage their emails, scheduling of events, income, expenses, etc. In the future this will be a plug in to Pictage. Great job Justin and thanks to your sister for helping. For a busy studio it is really worth looking into.

Some of the socializing that goes on

Our PUG meetings are a lot more than just another boring meeting to increase business. For me it is a social network where I can find mentors as well as drink a home scooped root beer float with.