Mai Kai

The Mai Kai is a fabulous Polynesian restaurant in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. They opened in 1956 and despite changes of ownership and several hurricanes, they're still around.

In the 50's, Polynesian restaurants were all the rage. Places like Trader Vic's, Don the Beachcomber and the Kon Tiki chain were some of the biggest. Most of the old Trader Vic's and all of the Kon Tiki's are now gone, but the Mai Kai remains as a stunning example of Polynesian pop culture from the 50's.

In an age where getting a good drink is as hard as winning the lottery, the Mai Kai bar staff make drinks that pay a lot of attention to detail. They use mostly top shelf liquor, AND they don't skimp on the presentation. A good cocktail should always have a good presentation. Their drink recipes have changed little in the past 53 years.

Then there's the Polynesian floor shows, complete with hula dancers, fire jugglers and a full Hawaiian band. Where else can you find a dinner show like that? The decor is like tiki heaven..carvings from notable tiki carvers like Barney West, not to mention original velvet paintings by Edward Leeteg. Sit anywhere in the Mai Kai and look up...any direction you look is a photo waiting to be taken.

I go to the Mai Kai once per year when I attend The Hukilau. This past year I decided to try to get some really good pictures. The problem was the Mai Kai was beyond packed and I had a little mini-tripod that could barely hold my D80. To get a good picture at the Mai Kai requires a fairly long shutter speed because the restaurant is dimly lit. The gardens behind the restaurant are a great place to see some vinatge tiki carvings, but again the lighting is the main issue. I did mange to get a few really good shots. The one above was taken at 1.3 sec at f5.6, 18mm and the ISO was up to 500. You cant tell from this picture, but theres a lot of grain in the photo. Even at ISO 500, the D80 can't handle these low light situations and this is the biggest reason why I hate this camera (more about that another time). This would have been an absolutely beautiful picture had it not been for the grain. I might have even sold a few of these.

This one was taken inside where its even darker:




6 sec. exposure at F8, ISO at 500 again, same lens set at 31mm. This is what I mean by any direction you look is a photo. This was taken from my table looking up to my left.

Here's another view from my table looking up straight ahead. 6 sec. exposure at F8, ISO 500.



Another outdoor shot, 1.3 sec at f5.6, 55mm focal length this time, ISO 500:



The Hukilau is taking place again this June. I'm considering not bringing my camera this time because it was such a pain to carry around. On the other hand, I would love to get more pics at the Mai Kai. They came very close to closing last year so who knows how much longer they're going to be around.

Limbs, part 2

Okay, maybe this wasn't such a great idea...or maybe I'm just not good enough at it yet. I'm a portrait photographer, not a landscape photographer.

Two of these were from today and one from last week. Again, the sky is the issue and I'm losing too much detail in the branches. It's still interesting to look at, but it's just not what I'm picturing in my head. I want to try again with a blue sky and then try a few Photoshop tricks. Tomorrow I have to stay home all day and wait for the washer repair guy so this will probably have to wait until next week.

Bur Oak

It was overcast this morning so I decided to go down to the Heard Museum and try some more limbs pictures. Lots of interesting branch formations but I just couldn't get a shot I was happy with. Then the sun came out and ruined everything. I was walking back when I passed this 250 year old Bur Oak tree. I tried a couple of shots in full sun just to see what I could get. I kind of like this one.

I wanted the sky to be deep blue so I used a polarizer, but then decided I liked it better in black and white anyway. Shot at 18mm 1/20 sec f22. When I imported the image into Lightroom I applied the Antique Grayscale effect, then adjusted the lights and darks a little.

Limbs, part 1

So I had this idea of taking pictures of bare tree limbs against a light sky and displaying 3 of them together (click on the pic above to see a bigger and more detailed version).

I think they're some sort of oak trees. The missing leaves expose branches that twist and turn into all kinds of shapes. When you stare at them long enough you start to make out shapes of objects. I thought it would be fun to shoot straight up the trunk of the tree so you're looking straight up into these twisted branches.

The first problem I had was trying to see through the viewfinder. Because I wanted to get right on the trunk, I couldn't get underneath it to look through the viewfinder. So I simply placed the camera up against the tree and shot each picture without trying to compose it first. I went completely around each tree trying to catch every angle I could. The results were mixed...some very interesting shots and some didn't show anything of interest.

The second problem was exposure. I was shooting at 1/10 sec and f22...I wanted the pictures to be as sharp as possible. Shooting dark branches against a light, overcast sky is hard to do without losing detail. I did do some shooting on a clear day with a blue sky but I didn't like the shadows.

Landscape photography is not really my expertise and don't have much experience doing it. This will be a fun experiment. I'm waiting for another overcast day so I can go out and try again.

The above picture is 3 I put together that I thought were interesting. There's more from the same session I haven't played with yet.

Who sat here?

"A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know." - Diane Arbus.

A chair is just a piece of furniture, right? But what if you spot a chair sitting in an old abandoned storage shed out in the woods? The material has all but rotted away right down to the cushioning which has turned orange from exposure to the elements. Some remnants of the original material remain, but it's so discolored it's hard to tell what the color actually was.

One can't help but wonder what the story is here? Who owned this chair and when was it used? It appears to be a recliner, so it more than likely sat in front of someones TV. Somebody used it, so one has to wonder who and for how long? The questions that come to mind are endless, and all that's really here is a rotting old chair. But what do we see?

Photography should have a story, even if you are forced to wonder what the story actually is. People look at a photograph and see different things, but it should make them think. With portrait photography it's no different but it is more challenging. It's easy to have someone strike a pose, but the challenge is to bring out feeling. That's always been my biggest challenge when photographing people.

But this is just a chair, and I have to say it's a bit of a departure from what I usually do. I have no portrait shoots lined up for a few weeks so I went out looking for things that interested me. I used my 18-55mm lens set at 18mm, 1/40 sec. at f11, ISO 100. I really liked the way this one looked in color so I didn't convert it to b&w.

Here's another...

A kid with a tattoo on his face and another kid behind him counting play-money. I know what was really going on when I took this picture last week, but someone else would have to wonder what the story is. It could be a million different things. This was done with my 50mm lens, 1/60 sec f1.8 ISO 200.

Multiple Streams Lack Intensity

Choosing a style is one of the hardest things a photographer has to do...and that's probably why so few photographers actually do it.

I took a course in the business side of photography once and the first thing we were taught was "multiple streams lack intensity." In photographer terms, you make less of an impact on the viewer if you have several different styles of photography in your portfolio than you do if you only have one. For example, if someone's portfolio includes people, food and architecture, it will make less of an impact than if it were just architecture. And those pictures should really look like they were all taken by the same photographer. Any professional photographer who has been in the business for several years will tell you that in order to be successful you must find a style.

My goal is not only to have one style, but a style I know I can do in a unique way. People ask me all the time why I have no color photographs in my portfolio. I just keep repeating my mantra, multiple streams lack intensity. My style is black and white, with a lot of emphasis on detail in the darks and lights. Not too contrasty, but it has to be real black and white. My current portfolio isn't quite there, but the pictures I've been working on for my updated portfolio are definitely a step closer.

The picture above is a pretty good example. This is Kayla again, obviously taken outdoors. The refection of the sky in the pond is in a sort of backwards S shape and leads the eye down to where she's sitting. The color of the black and white is what I'm going for...nothing too dark or bright where detail is lost. Compressing it down to a jpeg to post here definitely strips away some of the detail, but you get the idea.

This was shot pretty wide at 18mm, 1/60 sec, f3.5 for the shallow depth of field.

Mystery of the Voodoo Grog

I collect tiki mugs. It's one of my passions.

Primarily, I collect vintage mugs and glassware from restaurants whose heyday has long passed. As with anything vintage, the rarer it is, the more valuable. So, I have my list of "holy grails" that I would practically kill for. Some are so rare that they go for $500-$1000 on Ebay.

One mug in particular is actually a glass known as the Voodoo Grog" tumbler. The name comes from the drink of the same name that used to be a staple on the Trader Vic's drink menu. It's an absolutely be-yoo-tee-ful piece of artwork if you ask me. Average price on Ebay $125-$175 depending on it's condition.

Long story short, I found 12 of these beauties in an antique store for $108.00! The find of a lifetime, I'm sure. I'll probably never do this good again in my mug quest.


That happened about 18 months ago, and I was in desperate need of some photography equipment, so I sold 6 of them. All went within the price range mentioned above.

Then I got to thinking, was the Voodoo Grog drink any good? I asked my friend Lars who was the bar manager at my local Trader Vic's. He wasn't sure what was in it, but he said he'd look it up and make it for me next time I came in. The next week I show up, Voodoo Grog glass in hand, and Lars made me the drink. WOW! This was one of the best and most unusual drinks I've ever had. A strong but complex rum drink. AND to top it off I'm drinking it out of an ACTUAL Voodoo Grog glass. I made sure to order one or two of these every time I visited Trader Vic's. Even some of my tiki aficionado friends who have had the "best of the best" remarked that this drink was exceptional. Below is the Voodoo Grog drink in the Voodoo Grog glass made by my good friend Lars Hildebrant:


One of the key ingredients is St. James Martinique rum. Unfortunately, Lars had a difficult time keeping it in stock. Seems the supplier quit stocking it. I drank my Voodoo Grogs every time I was in Trader Vic's until the St. James was cleaned out. Flash forward about a year. Lars has returned to his homeland (Germany) and I never got the recipe from him. Then I heard from a friend who was going to visit the Chicago Trader Vic's for the first time. He asks, "What was the name of that drink Lars made us?" The good folks in Chicago were able to finagle the drink for him, but apparently was not exactly the one Lars made for us. I start digging through old emails trying to find Lars' email address. I locate one but have no idea if it's even good anymore. I send an email and within hours hear back from Mr. Lars. And he remembers the recipe for the Voodoo Grog:

1 - egg white
1 oz. passion fruit syrup (orig. recipe calls for 1/2 oz.)
2 tsp. honey
2 oz. St James Martinique Royal Amber rum
dash of bitters
juice of one fresh lime
mix well!

Lars was able to froth the egg whites up to cappuccino status. I haven't mastered that with my cheap blender.

One night at Trader Vic's while Lars was admiring my Voodoo Grog glass, he mentioned that Trader Vic's really should reproduce these as it's such a beautiful glass. I agreed wholeheartedly, and that was the end of it. Well, Tiki Farm did just that, except they're porcelain, not glass. I also noticed they don't have nearly the detail of the original. Still not bad though. I'm going to bring these to Trader Vic's this weekend and see if the bartender will make me a Voodoo Grog...we'll have to figure out a substitute for the St. James though.



BTW product photography is NOT one of my strengths.

Getting high

No, not that kind of high.

I had an interesting shoot a couple of months ago. One of the local elementary schools asked me to do their grade level pictures again for their yearbook. They stencil out the grade number with tape (K thru 5) and then have the kids stand on the tape in the shape of their grade level. The key is to get high enough so that the number looks like a number. In order to get the shot, I had to go up on a lift (or a “cherry picker) and look straight down at the kids and shoot with a wide angle lens. I have no idea how high I was, but I could see over the rooftops of the nearby two story homes.

Last year when we did this it was really cold and it took 3 hours. I had to remain up on the lift the whole time because it takes so long to get into position. This year it wasn’t quite as cold but the blacktop was wet so the tape wouldn’t stick. So they simply measured with a tape measure and placed the kids where they wanted them to be. I felt the results weren’t as good as last year but probably good enough.

For the 4^th Grade picture above, I used my 18-55mm lens set at 19mm, f5.6 1/125 sec. I had to shoot extra wide because the school wanted these cropped to 8X10 and I wanted to leave myself plenty of cropping room.

So this got me thinking about the different perspective one gets from shooting up high. Obviously, I can't go two stories high in the studio (my garage) but I can stand on a stool.. I haven’t done a lot of shooting this way, but I’ve started incorporating this for at least some shots in every session

This one is one of my favorites. This is my sister–in-law shot from up high. This was shot with my 18-55mm lens set at 24mm at f16, 1/160sec ISO 125. I usually shoot in the studio at around f10 IS0 100 1/125 sec and for the life of me can’t remember why I changed it, though the results aren’t bad. The reason why I usually shoot wide in the garage is there’s just not enough room to get further away. I prefer my 50mm for portraits, but you work with what you have.

This is Kayla, my neighbor and sometimes model. Same lens set at 26mm, f10, 1/125 sec ISO 100. Again, I’m up on a stool. I wanted to get the look of a very shallow depth of field so I used Photoshop to throw part of the picture out of focus. I’m not positive I like the results and am still fine tuning this one.

Whether you’re a pro or not, try getting up high to change the look of your photos. If you’re photographing people just be sure your getting their faces and not the tops of their heads.

Shooting kids (with a camera)

I’ve found that the trick to getting good photos of kids is to just take zillions of pictures of them. Maybe not a zillion, but at least 100 per shoot. Kids won’t do what you ask them 90% of the time, so 90% of your pictures will be unusable. If you take 100 pictures, that’ll give you 10 good ones, and out of those 10 maybe 2 really good ones.

My 18 month old nephew Chase was the perfect example. I chased Chase (ha ha) around the house for a good long time just snapping away. He was not at all interested in having his picture taken or even sitting still for a minute. I took just about 100 pictures and ended up with 5 that I thought were really good. My favorite is the one pictured above. I was using my Nikon D80 with 50mm f1.8 lens and shot wide open with natural light the whole time. This one was done at 1/800 shutter speed and ISO 100.

And that’s another trick…a fast shutter speed to catch the expression. Kids won’t do any one thing for too long and their expressions change every ½ second. You have to keep shooting until you catch the right expression. After I hear the shutter click I immediately refocus and recompose, holding the shutter button down half way, and just wait for the right moment. Of course, once he moves, I have to refocus and recompose.

Some friends asked me to take a picture of their two boys (ages 6 and 4) sitting on the back of their ’63 Thunderbird during the holidays. These two were no different than my nephew, especially the 4 year old. Although they knew and understood why I was there, they still goofed off a lot. This is what kids do and I was expecting it. So I got in position and just started firing away. I took a total of 92 pictures and got two good ones.

The car was parked in their garage and I wanted to eliminate some of the clutter so I used the patch tool and the clone tool in Photoshop to clean it up, added the vignette and then fine tuned it in Lightroom. Below are the before and after results. I again used my 50mm f1.8 at 1/30 sec.





It’s also important to point out that digital photography makes this kind of shooting possible. I could never do this with a film camera (unless I had an endless supply of free film) and of course the touch ups are done digitally also.

Taking the plunge

While I was sitting at the local Firestone this morning waiting for my car to finish getting inspected, I decided to catch up on some podcasts put out by Chase Jarvis. He's an incredible high end photographer who mostly does sports related work. On this particular podcast, he and two other photographers were discussing the importance of having a web log to supplement their web sites. So I started thinking about why I don't have one, why I would need one, and if I did have one what would be on it?

I decided to take the plunge, give it a spin and see where it goes. My primary goal is not really to increase traffic to my own web site, but to motivate myself to take more pictures (of course I'll welcome any increase in traffic). Lately I've felt like I've been in a rut...my photo jobs seem to come in spurts and in between I'm not taking many pictures. My last big"spurt" was during the holidays and since then I haven't been doing much. Actually I haven't taken a single picture yet this year! Hopefully, trying to maintain a blog will change that somewhat.

My intentions are not to be entirely about my photography, but really about anything and everything and incorporating my work into that. I'm thinking I'll do some posts regarding a recent shoot I just had, or do a post about some of my favorite tiki locations and include some of my photos. Sounds boring? Time will tell.

To start with, the photo above is my daughter Julia taken in 2007. This is the first pic currently on my web site and in my portfolio.

I specialize in black and white photography and that's all you'll find in my portfolio. I do plenty of color photography, but black and white is really my passion. As one of my photography instructors once said, "A color photograph will show you how something looks. A black and white photograph will show you what something is." That sums up my passion for b&w.

Currently I'm redoing my portfolio and I'm not sure if this one will make the cut. It's almost the style I'm going for, but not quite. More about that later.

and I'm off...