Just a few samples to get you started:
For more similar shots, see my Gothic collection.
For other light effects over the water such as can only be seen in Hawaii, please view my sunset, sunrise, seascape, cloudscape, and God rays collections. (These groups are not mutually exclusive). Enjoy. Oh, and hey, bloodsucking is not allowed. We’re being Buddhist around here, OK?
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
For those who may think I have deserted my blog, I’m tagging my photo-site, the most boring of all possible admin tasks, and it could take over a week, because I have hundreds of graphics posted to it, most of them are untagged, or unconsciously tagged, and I just need to do this and get it over with, no matter what.
Anything for traffic, you know. To quote Poo-bah in Madame Butterfly (sticking his upturned palm straight out behind his deleted anatomy while begging for a bribe), “It disgusts me, but I do it.” It really does disgust me, because it’s SO boring, and there’s just NO way out of it for me.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
Welcome to my Neo-Gotho-Impressionist School of photography. We assert the fundamental value of BOTH the Dark Side, AND tons of tiny little edges in the image, as per our unutterable predecessors in the noble Impressionist and Gothic traditions.
This above started out as a grainy image (very high ISO) similar to the one shown below, taken in minimal light conditions. Almost all of the detail you see was invisible to the naked eye. Since this particular one was just over the top in terms of graininess, I tweaked it with the Gimp until it looks like something that could only have been fomented within the fertile brain of Vincent Van Gogh. I could go on and on about why the result is so compelling, and why people will in fact buy this kind of image, but it would be too much for here. Maybe I’ll write a page about it.
For a few more similar images, see my Malekahana Moonscapes album.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
One of my favorite dancers of all time. She’s improved tremendously since last year. I have to find out her name so that I can attribute all the great images that I have of her. There are other dancers in this halau, but somehow when I try to photograph them, the images are junk. This individual is usually doing something beautiful when I click the shutter.
Kumu Hula Kapiolani Ka’u is using Meher Baba’s sign for God. This is a very difficult individual to photograph. She often creates light effects that destroy the image. This is the first time that I succeeded in getting a number of decent images of her. In general, this Halau has more mana (spiritual power) than the others I’ve seen.
For more images from the last month or so, see my Halau O Ke Kia’i , Aug-Sep 09 Album.
For some other great images of this group, see my general Halau O Ke Kia’i Album, and it’s other 20 Apr 08 Sub-album
Remember this? It was another world completely only 16 months ago. If I tried to write all that kind of stuff about my images anymore, I’d be dead. And this lady got SO crazy at the end of her reign as Numbah One Gurl in this Halau.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
I cannot tell a lie. I did it with my spiffy little Olympus Stylus 1010.
(click image to enlarge)
Prince Kuhio personally created the world-wide surfing craze.
(click image to enlarge)
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The above are some examples of 35 shots in my new Waikiki Scenery Album.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
I originally misidentified the image on the left as Melia. It turned out to be Alohilani, who dances with the Pua Melia group. For a few more images of this fine dancer, see my Pua Melia Album
Sorry about that, ladies.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
The Hawaiian Honu, aka see turkul, is a world-class Aumakua or guardian spirit. Honu are the crash masters of the galaxy. If you want to be a crash artist, you need this Aumakua. Absolutely. No way out. They are also the best meditation teachers in the galaxy, better than Yoda. Honu can easily hold a single thought for CENTURIES, no problem whatsoever.
I have long since been adopted by the honu. Without them, I’d be dead. These are the only people that can save me from both hula girls on the make and Taiwan nuns on a mission. Whenever I’ve run out my own ideas, the honu is always there to show me how to keep on keeping on. Always.
For some other older shots of this great meditation master, see my See Turkuls Album
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
Check it out: Bon Odori Matsuri Dance
This is the first time I have noticed online videos of Obon. The one in the above link is particularly good, I think, because it shows how deceptively simple these dances are. These movements are really good for our health, because they are highly counter-intuitive in the mainstream. How often would you move your left foot forward at the same time with your left hand, and then do it again on the same side of your body, and then reverse direction, still using the same uncharacteristic gait, if left to your own devices? Admit it, never. We would never move this way without instruction, and it’s very good for our carcases, because it clears the toxic results of dead movement habits. Oh, and hey, it’s a real bliss-out when you finally get it to click as well.
The Japanese culture values beauty almost above anything, and excellent Obon instruction is usually free. In the future, I intend to get a video camera and to record Obon odori, because Hawaiian Obon is the most beautiful, both in constume, and in movement. More beautiful than the American mainland, and yes, more beautiful than Japan.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
For those who have been searching this site for hula pictures, they can be found from here: My He Hawai’i Au Album. There’s a right sidebar on this page with links to subfolders in it. Those links beginning with “Halau” (meaning hula school) are where you will find those pictures. Oh,and hey, don’t forgetMelia. That was a certain stage of my career on the Island of O’ahu, and I miss it.
Oh, and hey again, don’t forget Piilani.
IMO, this is the best photo I have ever taken, bar none. This was virtually a spiritual empowerment from one of the reigning masters of Hawaiian hula, to a young unknown dancer who is probably destined to follow in her footsteps. Only in Hawai’i-nei!
I have what is, no doubt and by any criterion, accumulated the best photo collection about Guan Yin Pusa that can be found anywhere on the English-language web: My Kuan Yin Pusa Album. Most of these images were collected from the Chinese-language web. I have signed the minority that I originated, or doctored. The 2nd page of my Kuan Yin Pusa Album contains something else that people have been searching this site for:
When the Lotus Sutra assures us that the Bodhisattva will do ANYTHING to save us, it is the truth. I assure you that the entirety of Central Asian magic, in full regalia, which should not be messed with by the insincere at all, has been attributed, one way or another, to dear Guan Yin. The nuns at Kuan Yin Temple in Honolulu routinely use the power of the lunar nodes themselves, which is something unimaginable that I have never even heard of before. Chinese pentology, of which the first basic is depicted here, is something that should be mastered by anyone who has either East Asian blood or East Asian karma. It allows you to break up a demonic etheric vortex, just for starters, and it allows you to to interpret the traditional cultural environment in the Chinese cultural sphere of influence.
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
This is a movie clip that happened by accident at a May Day celebration at the US Vets program, Kalaeloa, on 2 May, the same day as Buddha’s Birthday. It drained my battery so that I was unable to take more pictures of the action and color, which was considerable:
A couple dressed in red to represent the Big Island
What this proves to me is that it really is time for me to get a better camera with a bigger battery, an optical zoom, and a tripod. Next priority. Absolutely. Before housing. My unconscious mind is now in open revolt against my existing camera.
I did get this one other still of the festivities, below, before the above film clip ate the AAA batteries in my camera:
Namu Amida Butsu
Xing Ping
American Buddhist home schoolers, your lesson plan grief is over ! Dig H. S. Olcott's Excellent Buddhist Catechism.
