Bodies in Motion

It’s easy to walk through Waikiki without looking a single person in the eye. We glide through the streets as people blur by in a metaphorical and literal sea of bodies, water and sand. When people think of photographs of Waikiki, they usually conjure photographic images of the beach itself, or of it's landmarks like the Royal HawaiianHotel and the ubiquitous Leahi (Diamond Head.) We don’t think of pictures of the actual tourists themselves. But, I believe that these wandering souls have been ignored long enough, and now is their time to shine. In search of these images, I went to Waikiki and did something many tourists do…I rented an umbrella and chaise lounge. I settled in with tourists, watching their activities. I was seeking an interesting glance and the beauty of the human gesture. I stalked the poetry of their bodies in motion. I wanted to change the the challenge the viewer to see beyond an image of an anonymous tourist to a person that could be that any one of us or every one of us. This series, Bodies in Motion, was shot on March 11, 2015, outside the Outrigger Reef Resort in Waikiki. I used the iPhone 5s with the incredibly powerful Telephoto lens made by Moment attached. This set-up allowed me to remain in the background, inconspicuous to those I sought to photograph. While I laid on my beach lounge and appeared to be doing what every else was – playing with my phone – I instead was unobtrusively able to get 'up close and personal' imagery of these tourists on the beach going about their normal vacation activities. While technically Street Photography, I purposely chose to work with this series differently than what we commonly think of as 'straight' street work. I have used a painterly style, unrealistic colors, distorted focus and textures on purpose. These speak to an aesthetic that is particularly prevalent in mobile art and some of the newer contemporary photography being done today. I’ve also utilized gestural positioning and cropping to reference recent works in the history of painting, most specifcally the 1987 body of work by Robert Longo called Men in Cities. I hope you enjoy this series as much as I enjoyed creating it.