Nyenuk Processions...

I've just returned from a month of wanderings in Asia. Though my best intentions were to make regular posting updates here throughout the journey... full daily schedules, excruciatingly slow internet connections and an unexpected, 12 day sail across the Indonesian Archipelago allowed little time for editing on the fly or opportunities to log on here to post the wisdom.

This trip... a month abroad, was made primarily o behalf of a mainland client who had retained my services as guide, consultant and sourcing agent for asia style furnishings, antiques  and objects'd art. Having previously lived in Hawaii, this fellow had moved to Kansas City a couple of years ago and was frustrated by the lack of interesting home decor. Consequently, he planned on opening his own furnishings gallery and through a mutual friend, contacted me about showing him the ropes and providing him with suppliers for the goods he hoped to stock his shop with.

After several months of brainstorming via email, a date was finally set for travel to Bali & Java, where all sorts of exotica could be found. 

The first two weeks of the trip were spent crawling around dimly lit, dusty warehouses in search of suitable items for export back to Kansas, leaving little time for photographic pursuits above & beyond the documentation of purchases. The client proved to be a good natured travel companion. We had never met previously and I was relieved to find that we shared a very similar world view and seemed to click immediately when Adi and I picked him up at Bandara Ngurah Rai Airport in Tuban. We hit the ground running immediately on the following day... in search of treasures. In between treasure hunting, we managed to dine on fabulous Indonesian delicacies, make introductions to several of my local friends in Bali and take in a handful of cultural activities... touring a temple or two, attending a colorful Hindu ceremony and the cremation of a member of the Royal Family of Peliatan.

The client seemed impressed with the sources I directed him to and by day 12 enough purchases had been made to fill a 40' container full of goods. While my trip was to last a month... my client would only be in Bali for the first 2 weeks. Many of the items he purchased had to be manufactured, leaving me behind to supervise production and follow my own pursuits for the remaining two weeks of my stay.

The adventures that ensued during the month abroad were many... so many that I will be posting multiple entries in the loose form of a diary/chronology of journey. There are many photographs to share and tales to tell... 

Ubud, The Start of An Adventure:

My home-base for the month would be in the small mountain village of Ubud. Again, I set-up shop in the nicely appointed home of friend, generous host and internationally renown photographer Rio Helmi. Located just a couple of hundred meters behind the Royal Palace in the heart of the village, Rio's home has been my camp for my last several visits to the island where, over breakfast, we have the opportunity to compare notes & share our respective photographs.

Having arrived during the full moon, the island was already swept up in ceremonial beauty with temple festivals and other rituals taking place at nearly every turn. During our shopping weeks, we were able to take a day off to attend a large procession & ceremony called Nyenuk... the final cermonies involved in the rededication of Pura Gunung Lebah, a spectacularly beautiful temple lying just below the Tjampuan Bridge. This temple had been undergoing expansion & rennovations during my last visit a year ago. Now complete, the temple was brought back to life, spiritually, thru a series of elaborate rituals, the processions of Nyenuk being the final events.

A large procession, complete with giant ogoh-ogoh, paper mache sculptures depicting gods, demons and various players in the great Hindi epics, orchestras of drums and gamelan and the Balinese community en-masse and dressed in their best ritual finery paraded down the main street in Ubud... bringing all traffic to a standstill. The parade began at the temple and carried on for a couple of miles to the village of Peliatan... all during the intense heat of mid-day before returning back to the temple just after nightfall.

More to come... stay tuned.

Took a break from sorting out the mystery that is all things SEO to enjoy a farewell luncheon with bff, BF... just a few weeks away from relocating into the heart of the media world beast, NYC. She will be missed and I cop to no small amount of envy. The confines of this rock are, for the first time in 32 years, beginning to get to me. I long for the ability to be able to, again, jump in a car and drive for days, experience cutting-edge art, music and culture involving no skirts made of grass.

Over the years we have snarled, gnashed teeth & collaborated on some excellent projects for some equally excellent clients. I'm hoping her new urban digs will include a couch for my weary head when I visit the city. Aloha Oe, B!

All jealousy aside, preparations are finalized for my own escape from one paradise to another. In three weeks time I will again wing my way to SE Asia... a month of assignments, marathon antique hunting and, with any luck at all, more assignments. On the current itinerary are Taipei, Bali, Jogyakarta, Surabaya, Madura,Myanmar and the good lord only knows where else I will end up.

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Summer's Gone... Blogging Is Dead?

Summer has come & gone with barely an opportunity to acknowledge, much less enjoy it. Things around this island seem to be settling down now that the summer visitors have returned home to jobs, school and normalcy. I've been fortunate enough to have been given the opportunity to travel around the state on behalf of a handful of mainland publications and racked up a few good projects for major companies doing business here in Hawaii... Hawaiian Host Chocolates, Kiwanis International and Tommy Bahama to name just a few... and of course, there's been plenty to keep me busy with my unpaid passion of relaunching and operating, along with a fantastic crew of dedicated, talented and passionate individuals, our little island community FM radio station with a global reach.

Over the past month or so, I've noticed that many of my favorite photography bloggers have all but disappeared. The best of the aggregate sites for good photography blogging, The Photography Post, has disappeared altogether. Others seem to have moved the bulk of their online activities to alternative social media sites like Instagram, Facebook and others. Having resisted it for years, even I have thrown my hat into the Instagram pool. I find Instagram far less intrusive and far less creepy than what I perceive Facebook to have become. Feel free to follow me there by clicking on the icon below:

Preparations are well underway for another project in S.E. Asia which will occupy an entire month. Bali, Java, Taipei & Taiwan are on the agenda and hopes are high that there will also be time to spend a few days exploring Myanmar (formerly Burma). Departure date is planned for October 9th. If anyone is in need of images or assignments from that part of the world, be sure to hit me up...

Casual Observation

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Ceremonies of Remembrance

Late saturday evening, the missus & I packed up and headed for Lahaina's Obon Festival at The Jodo Buddhist Mission. It is here that Maui's only floating lantern ceremony is held, a favorite activity for a warm, tropical summer's eve.

Mid-Summer's Catch-Up

It's been a while since we've last met here...

Since late spring, I took some time away from the camera to indulge another passion... non-commercial, community radio. Having volunteered for the past 12 years as a music programmer at our little, local low-power FM station, when news came from above that they were throwing in the towel, there were only two options.

 Option #1: Let it die a graceful death

Option #2: Convince the powers-that-be that the thing was worthy of saving, gather a small group of like-minded comrades and save the thing.

Save we did... returning to the airwaves in exactly one month & three weeks from the night the station shut down in April. And back with a vengeance, if I may say so... from 120 watts to 1200 watts and a live internet stream every bit as solid as our air signal going live around the world. You can check out the new Mana'o Hana Hou Radio by dialing your tuner to 91.7 FM if on the island of Maui. If not, go here:

http://manaoradio.com

But I didn't completely retire the camera during the frantic past 2 months. Did some traveling again for a story to soon appear in SF-based Via Magazine, taught an all day workshop on portraiture last weekend at the University of Hawaii's Pacific New Media Center in H'lulu and caught up with old camera-buddy David Ulrich who runs the photography arm of the programming. Covered a weekend-long summer food & wine festival at an upper west-side resort and spent 6 days on the east coast searching for historic old homes to remodel while I visited with family and old friends. While there, I even discovered a billboard prominently sitting alongside Route 50 & prominently featuring a photograph I had taken last summer while working on a project for a shoe-manufacturer.

Here's a quick view of the recent goings-on in photographs...

Artist & occasional elementary school carpool-mate Susan L. Russel

We almost bought this beauty and now I wish we had...