A Tribute To A Life Lived Fully

Loss is a very hard thing to deal with. Loss of a loved one even more so.

My maternal grandmother would have been 100 years old on August 12th of this year. She was a strong & independent woman, much admired & respected by everyone who knew her. She outlived three husbands, all of her siblings & most, if not all of her friends.

A few weeks ago, she became very ill from an infection in her foot. She was treated at the hospital but treatment was unsucessfull. Last week her doctors recommended she be transferred to the local hospice in Little Rock, Arkansas. Members of my family called and suggested I catch a plane ASAP... no one knew how much longer she would last. I caught the first available flight to Arkansas last Thursday morning. Mamaw left while I was enroute somewhere between Seattle & Houston. She was buried Monday.

I miss her.

Here's to you Elsie Veazey Jacoway (1909-2009). You enriched our lives and set the bar high.

Photography, Rock & Roll, Film

The Maui Film Festival opens tomorrow and runs through June 21st at various venues & theaters around the island, culminating each evening with the top film picks projected in the Celestial Cinema on the golf course in Wailea. A giant screen erected on the grassy course, complete with massive, portable Dolby® sound system, this is an opportunity to bring beach chairs & blankets & beat the heat as you spread out under the stars each evening to view the best of the best of this year's crop on new film offerings from Hollywood and independent studios alike.

Of particular interest to me is a film screening on thursday evening at 8:00pm.

Rock Prophecies documents the 40 year career of music photographer Robert Knight, a former Honolulu resident, who has travelled the world photographing the biggest names in Rock & Roll and discovering the next wave of guitar talent. To find out more about the film and to order tickets online, click here.

Here's a trailer to the film to wet your appetite:

Hot Summer Nights

Yes, summer is upon us. Summer in Hawaii means Obon Festivals at all buddhist shrines & temples around the islands. This is a welcome opportunity to get out at night, to beat the heat and to meet with other friends & community members for an evening of fun, dance, spectacle and food. You don't have to be buddhist or even religious to take part in the fun. Regular participants will be more than happy to show you the ropes and encourage you to join in. The dance is quite simple really and once or twice around the center tower and you will be an expert.

For a brief decription of the Obon Festival, see last July's blog entry here. You'll also find a few pictures of Obon festivities at Lahaina's Jodo Mission at Mala Wharf. The Jodo Obon is my all time favorite as it also is the only Maui shrine/temple that holds a floating lantern ceremony before the dancing begins. This year's Obon at Lahaina's Jodo Mission is scheduled for Friday evening July 3rd. The lantern floating ceremony begins just after services at approx. 8pm with dancing, food & fun to follow until late into the night.

A complete schedule of Obon activities throughout the state can be found here.

The kids pictured above broke out in spontaneous hula-hooping during last weeks First Friday street festival on Market Street in Wailuku. First Friday is held, obviously, on the first friday of each month and features lots of live music, arts & crafts booths, food, great restaurants and lots of fun. The cops have even now begun closing down market Street for the past two events, making it seems even more like a great street fair/block party.

Business As Usual?

Chase the Light is pleased to announce that the recent inactivity here at the blog has been the result of a sudden flurry of assignments photographing outdoor luncheons at sewage treatment facilities, turning heavy-equipment construction sites into serene, oasis's of wellness, investigating the steamy side of the $200 per assignment editorial fee, pawning the trusty Nikormat to cover Generous John, the rep's 35% cut & fending off corporate legal teams hell-bent on demanding signatories on boiler-plate right's grabs templates. All in a day's work for today's busy image makers. 

Playlist For Tuesday, June 2

Playlist for Tuesday, June 2nd's Academy of Errors radio program, 6-10am every tuesday morning on listener supported Manao Radio, 91.5 FM and with live streaming via the internet here.