Nº3

{hawaii}

Destination. Culture.

I saw Adam and Eve last week, bathing in a Garden

of Eden called the Queen’s Bath, on the Big Island of Hawaii.

You would drive straight past the Queen’s Bath if you were not

looking for the bent metal sign on the rusty pole beside a dirt road.

A few feet down that road the huge black lava rocks form natural steps

down to the green glade where the Queen’s Bath makes a 15 by 60

foot slash of clear water in a volcanic rift between stacked black rocks.

This once was the royal bath of Hawaiian queens, but on this day

a young girl with her body growing roundly out of her bikini sat on

the near edge with her feet in the water. Another girl swam under

the Ohia trees etched against a blue and white Hawaiian sky.

On the other side of the pool, where the layered rock ledge rises higher, a

bearded young man in a flowered bathing suit picked fruit from the trees.

He threw the fruit across the water to the girls and dived in after it. The

water was so clear and deep that he could follow the fruit to where the

rock rift narrows to almost make a bottom to the pool 20 feet below.

It was only a passing moment, there in a treed hollow of shining water

and silence, but the mystique of Hawaii gets to you after a while.

I wasn’t the only one who noticed it. A fellow photographer was

so intent on taking a picture of Adam and Eve that he fell off the

black lava rock into a clump of bushes and nearly broke his leg.

Iris Sanderson Jones

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Chicken Crosses Road

There was a hurricane. It blew down all the chicken coops.

Chickens took over the island and the roosters make sure your

pool boy doesn’t sleep late. Kauai’s chicken population is out of

control because there are no natural predators.

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Autograph tree near Hilo

Petroglyphs in Kona

Coral messages on the Queen Kaahumanu Highway

PhysicalGraffiti

Photos by Cheyne Gallarde

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I can see my mother. She’s in her twenties standing in our kitchen in Oakville, Ontario, mixing yellow food coloring into white margarine in a Pyrex bowl. She’s telling me that some day she’ll go back to university to get the degree she gave up when she got married. I was four.

Cheyne Gallarde is too young to know that housewives used to hand-tint their margarine, but it’s the kind of detail that he would probably get right. This young Honolulu photographer has an art director’s right-brain and a cinematographer’s left.

Great photography says something about the subject and something about the photographer. Growing up engulfed in a continuum of iconic and pulpy images, one looks for cultural alignment. Am I part of that continuum? Am I too a stereotype?

Cheyne is fixated on a style that waxes nostalgic for an era when photographers made images rather than “capturing” them. Practiced lighting, wardrobe and settings researched and rehearsed, with improvisation only as a minor note.

My own Dad carried a Speed Graphic 4x5 camera as he chased down Lena Horne, back when the word Paparazzi was still Italian. He carried seven sheets of 4x5 film, flash-bulbs the size of eggs, and had an assistant who just carried the battery. No motor-drive, no wasted shots. The art was all in the premeditation and anticipation.

Although his equipment is modern, it’s not particularly sophisticated. Chayne demonstrates that the eye and brain make the shot, not the lens and sensor. Trawling vintage boutiques, scouting locations, sketching compositions, the man knows what he wants. Throw in a guerrilla mentality of shooting without a studio, using city parks and industrial sites as backdrops, and you have an integrity that belies the camp.

Cheyne Gallarde’sGood Manners

by Eric Jones

What’s your background, did you go to art school ?I grew up in public schools on the plantation side of Oahu, Hawaii. I could n’t afford to go to the big-ger art school at University of Hawaii, so I went to Honolulu Community College. I slacked off and wasted my scholarship on video games, which ren-dered me broke when it came time to shop for art

supplies. During my academic hiatus, I got a low-paying graphic design job at a local gay publica-tion. The $20/week wasn’t enough to pay my student loans back, but that was my foot-in-the-door of designing for bigger publications, eventu-ally landing a design gig at the Star Ad-vertiser & Midweek. Throughout my life, I’ve always chosen the path of real-world experience over the classroom experi-ence associated with academia. As far as I could remember, I’ve always been this way, rejecting the

traditional route in favor of practical hardship and growth. That being said: I’m a completely self-taught photographer. I’ve never taken a photography course in my life, but I don’t regret any second of my tumultuous journey.

How is your work contemporary?Culinary Fusion is such a trendy and contemporary thing - my photography works the same way. I com-bine east and west, old and new, traditional and bizarre to create new forms of art. If that isn’t con-temporary, then I don’t know what is!

Is your imagery a deep seated idealization of your parents, or are you just having fun?I grew up in a single-parent household where my mom worked hard to provide for me and my siblings, so I can see where that might have influenced my work, my mind transforming my past into a picture-perfect version. That’s not the case, though. I think looking back at everything, it was the photo albums that my mom kept that influenced me the most. The way the photos were tinted and degraded over the years combined with the fashions documented in them were what led me to start creating my own legacy.

What makes you reject a shot?If it isn’t true to my vision and voice, I don’t share it with anyone. I do a similar filter technique when shopping for my personal wardrobe: If something won’t match my existing closet, I don’t buy it. Rare exceptions have been when I recognize a need for a new style/direction, I break out of my box and try something different.

Are you one of those guys that spots all the art direc-tion mistakes in the movies?Yes and it bothers me! Not only does the mistake bother me, but the fact that I can’t watch a movie without noticing it bothers me even more. Since stepping behind the lens, I can’t watch a movie the same way ever again. I notice lighting patterns and even anachronistic errors, which can get annoying.

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You work outside a lot. Have you ever worked with large format in a studio?No and I almost want to keep it that way. Al-most. My work is inspired by more accessible film formats like Holgas and Lomos whereas Large-Format cameras are for commercial photogra-phy. I love the precise control that large formats offer, but adore the imperfections (light leaks, motion blur, scratches, etc.) often found in toy cameras and consumer-grade cameras.

Is play-acting part of your lifestyle, or do you save it for your images?I act in local community theatre, so dressing up and playing a different character is definitely nothing new for me. Sometimes even I ques-tion the ensembles I put my outfits in. They are indeed brave souls for standing around in un-comfortable polyester shirts, tight-fitting bellbot-toms or thick wool blazers in this warm Hawaii weather.

Have a secret ambition to make movies?I would love to take Hollywood by storm, add-ing the additional texture of music and motion to my palette of tools. I’ve dabbled in filmmak-ing prior to doing photography. It was nothing like the work I produce now, but you could definitely see my fingerprints on it. It’s definitely more challenging to tell a story with a still photo, so that challenge keeps me motivated. The way I see it: If I can kickstart someone’s imagination with my photos, allowing them to form their own storylines, then in a sense I’m a cinematogra-pher of sorts.

Kodachrome was discontinued last year, Po-laroid is gone, and film in general won’t be around much longer. Since film characteristics nail the era, what will the future past look like?With the planet and people’s wallets being taxed to the extreme nowadays, I predict more digital and eco-friendly technology to take the forefront. I think film’s value will only increase in the future, making it either be more expensive or more inexpensive to acquire. There will al-ways be a place for film in our hearts, like 8-bit video games in a 3D Digital world, there will always be a home for it.

What other characteristics of the present day that future photographers will find nostalgic?If the future looks anything like Tron or other Uto-pian versions, I think architecture will become a form of nostalgia. We’re already seeing it: fire escapes are replaced by glass elevators, tele-phone booths removed indefinitely and mar-quees with hand-lettered signs replaced with LED scrolling equivalents.

Is nostalgia a dirty word?It can be, depending on who you ask. Wax-ing nostalgic is definitely a subjective act, but I don’t think it is. However our memories manifest themselves is all acceptable. Personally, I find the term “vintage” to be a much more dirty word because it’s being thrown around without much thought. A photoshopped sepia photo is no more vintage than the deflated balloon from your last birthday party.

Contact Cheyne Gallarde at FirebirdPhoto.com

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View this image of Waimea Canyon / Kauai in deep full stereoscopic 3D without wearing special glasses

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I stared at this blue gate and pondered my fate

At the southermost point in the United States

What manner of beast to anticipate?

Perhaps a blur of eyes teeth and fur

Or dripping dogzilla from out of azure

An ass-kick Jurassic canine for sure

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The Hills Are Alive by Iris Sanderson Jones

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I am sitting on a balcony watching the sun rise over Hilo Bay, its light touching a cruise ship, the palms on Coconut Island and flowers in the seaside gardens. A tropical island is always a sensory experience like this: the smell of flowered lei, the strum of a ukulele, the rhythmic swing

of a grass skirt, the odor of roasting pig. They are memorable images, but the morning news reminds me that other forces are also at work here on the island of Hawaii. The Big Island.

Volcanic activities are reported on the local news as regularly as the weather report and significant volcanic activity occurred in nearby Hawaii Volcanoes National Park last night. Park rangers will talk about the geological forces at work on the Big Island, but Hawaiians will tell you that Pele, Goddess of Fire, rules the volcanoes. You won’t see Pele when you fly into this 4000-square-mile island, youngest and largest of the Hawaiian chain, but she is always busy around you.

Pele built this island, eruption by eruption, from a ‘hot spot’ at the bottom of the sea over thousands of years. She is in the cold lava fields, where high school students and lovers mark their names on the soft lava rock. She is with you when you walk the rim of the caldera around Kilauea, said to be the world’s most active volcano. We saw her work everywhere when we circled the south end of the of the 266-mile island circumference from Kailua-Kona on the dry sunset side to Hilo, here on the wet sunrise side. We will see more signs of her today when we complete the circle around the north end of Hawaii back to Kona.

Kamehameha the Great, first ruler of all the islands, ruled from Kona in the 18th and 19th centuries. He ruled by the laws of

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men and gods, especially the gods Kane, Lono and Ku, gods of life, harvest and war, and the Fire Goddess Pele.

Tourists greet a costumed version of Kamehameha when he steps out of his royal canoe every night onto the Kona dock, ready to attend a luau in one local hotel or another.

We should never be too sophisticated to enjoy a luau put on for tourists, but the Hawaiian experience is richer and deeper when we know that many of those exotic pleasures are based upon ancient ritual. The traditional religious laws of Kapu, for example, which once preserved the hula as a sacred dance performed only for kings. The ancient rules of gods and men which once meant an automatic death sentence if your shadow fell over a king.

There are no human sacrifices today, but the gods still rule the island. It was only a 22-mile drive south from Kona to our first stop at the City of Refuge but we saw the work of the gods on every side. Ku, God of War, directed the spears that killed Captain Cook on the spot where today’s tourist’s scuba dive around the Captain Cook Monument. Lono, who rules the harvest, would be pleased to see the rich coffee plantations that lure us so often from the highway.

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This is the sunrise view from the

front porch of my hale. There

were no locks on the doors, at

first a bit unsettling to an east

coaster with expensive cameras. But

pondering a day of carrying everything

with me I decided to relax just a bit and

enjoy the all inclusive resort.

I saw Philip Seymour Hoffman at break-

fast, and a few other notables. Kona

is a direct flight from Los Angeles, and

Kona Village is exclusive enough that

celebrities can feel comfortable. Tom

Waits was sitting inside the restaurant,

backed into a corner where he could

scrutinize anyone that approached. No

fedora and Stacys here, this was Waits

in full florals.

It was a thrill seeing one of my musical

heros in such a casual setting. After

breakfast a woman from the resort

tracked me down to apologetically tell

me that we would have to move to a

different hale. Seems a VIP from the

mainland had arrived without notice

and he always got his favorite hale.

Mine.

No problem, my wife and I moved our

few belongings to an identical one a

few doors away with a slightly less spec-

tacular view. That evening we couldn’t

resist taking a stroll through the old

neighborhood to see who took our digs.

Casey Waits, the drummer for his dad’s

band, was playing badminton with his

sister in a meadow near our original

hale. On the porch was the old billy-

goat himself, enjoying the sunset view.

33Waits to ex-hale >>

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“Why use a 4x4 to hold something up when I could use a V8 engine in-stead? Especially if that engine is coming out of a landfill somewhere.” Artist Tom Teitge (rhymes with Tai Chi) built his house in Kauai from sal-vage. There was a garage here once, until Tom stood a forty foot pole up through the roof, then hung his unique beam structure off that cen-tral pole.

The ground floor is studio space, the second floor the living quarters, and the third floor is an open air loft. The roof is suspended by cables. “I love metalwork” says Tom, “I love everything about it, the heat, the sparks…”. His welded sculptures adorn the footings, staircases and oth-er parts of the structure. “I just want them to look beautiful.”

I C O U L D H A V E U S E D A V 8 by Eric Jones

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This is stream-of-conscious architecture which can’t be described in typical terms, but makes perfect sense. It is a physical manifestation of the way the artist’s mind works. How many people do you know that have an airplane en-gine sticking out of their bathroom?

Shortly after completing the Kauai house, Teitge moved to Idaho to be-gin work on another, his sixth, salvage house. This time his muse was a burned log cabin in the town of Hailey. Adja-cent to the house he is realizing a long term ambition called the Model of the Universe Gazebo.

“This is an astronomical device that I have been working on for a couple of years, that is finally reaching the home stretch. The central table, representing the plane of our solar system is nearly completed. Jason Georgedeis has done all the machining, including the gearing which keeps the earth sphere oriented such that the axis of the plan-et always points towards Polaris as it is moved to its different positions on the table. The elevation sketch gives an idea of the overall completed look. The dome on the utility trailer will be preci-sion drilled with up to 500 different sized holes which will represent the northern star field. The center spire also points to Polaris.”

In other words there are a bunch of holes drilled in the canopy that form a representation of star fields as seen from earth. In the center of the structure is a steel table with moving rings that sup-port the planets of our solar system as they move around the sun, which sits in the center of the 800 lb. table.

The table has a separate circular track for each planet’s orbit, and is engraved with dates and degrees such that all the planets can be positioned just as they are in the solar plane on any given day. When sitting next to the model earth when it is properly positioned on the table, a visitor to the Gazebo, can look upward to the roof and see the sunlight shining through the holes that represent the exact stars that will be visible that night in the sky.

The spire also serves as the gnomon of a sundial casting its shadow in the sur-rounding plaza of the Gazebo, which will feature a bronze analemma set in stonework, and readable throughout the year.

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hawaii

C Diamond Head

3 Adam and Eve

4 Surfboards wait their turn

6 Kona coast

8 Chicken crosses road

10 Physical Graffiti

12 Cheyne Gallarde’s Good Manners

18 3D Waimea Canyon

20 Lava Lava

22 Rorschach Palms

24 A really, really big dog

26 The Hills are Alive

30 Windows to the soul

32 Waits to ex-hale

34 Roger and Charley

36 Landseascape

38 I could’ve used a V8

44 Roadside shrine

46 Smokin’

BC Fetish

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