Is It Friday yet?

For the past two weeks the fun just hasn't stopped. Wrapped up yesterday with a late afternoon trip up into the vineyards of Ulupalakua, yielding a handful of good photos, including the one above.


Otherwise, the past five days have brought a couple of other assignments but have otherwise been largely occupied with post work on images captured from the previous week's outing to the Big Island. In the employ, once again, of Prince Resorts Hawaii, this mission was to capture two resorts with refreshed rooms & suites, including the suite favored by Star Wars creator George Lucas. One day devoted entirely to capturing dining items from one of the resort's fine-dining venues. Long hours, lots of equipment schlepping to & fro yielded good results. Some samples of the effort: 

The very first Norman P1250D strobe pack I ever owned was sacrificed in the effort. 25+ years of service that thing has given me. It's beaten, battered, dented, scratched... it's been dropped, blown-up, recklessly abused and has only failed me one other time. Let's just see if our man Brett over in California can manage to squeeze another couple of more years out of her.


Return flights home booked for mid-afternoon of our last day left some time to head for the South Kona-Captain Cook area of the island where we visited Pu'uhonua o Honaunau, the fabled "Place of Refuge".

You've got to admire a culture possessing a tradition of refuge & redemption so strong that they built a sanctuary where the violators of sacred kapu & defeated enemy combatants would be spared certain death as long as they remained within the sacred walls of the heiau (temple) within the sanctuary. After a period of time, the refuge-seeker could endure some sort of ceremony where his or her transgressions could be forgiven, allowing the return to society.


Also a past home to many of Hawaii's ancient royalty, the 420 acre site was designated a National Park in 1955, is beautifully restored, maintained and now provides sanctuary for Hawaii's endangered Honu, green sea turtle population as well as being a cultural resource & popular sightseeing destination.

After serious consideration as to whether or not previous crimes warranted an extended stay in the refuge, we decided to take our leave, heading just down the road to a sacred site of another type entirely.

Overlooking historic Kealakekua Bay, where famed explorer Captain Cook met his fate, becoming known as "the other white meat", sits St. Benedict's Church, originally built in 1899 by Rev. John Velghe. The church is commonly referred to as the Painted Church. With no formal training and only ordinary house paint on bare wood at his disposal, the Good Reverend adorned the church's interior walls & ceilings with colorful frescoes of Hawaiian scenery & illustrated bible stories. In those days, few Hawaiians could speak english, let alone read... Rev. Velghe would use his works of art as teaching tools.