Assignment/Goal
Global Synchronous Shoot Two based on 9 p.m. 3/20/98 Hawaii Standard Time.

Robert "Rabbett" Abbett
Abbett VR Services/Hot Spots Hawai`i

808-263-6420

 http://hotspots.hawaii.com/abbettvrgreet.html

rabbett@irh.com

Kailua Beach, Kailua Beach Park - 9 p.m. Hawai'i Standard Time!

My daughter and I are standing on the beach just prior to this shoot. It is kind of cold and windy. There is no moon. It is pitch black. We're about twelve minutes away from doing something.

We can see some low fast moving clouds and the lights of Mokapu Peninsula and the Kaneohe Marine Base to our left. To our right a flashlight moves along the beach. A fisherman has several poles set up on the shoreline. As I pan around I can see a couple of street lights from the parking lot.

I am frustrated and I have doubts and a bad attitude. I have a DC 50 with me and about ten minutes til shoot and we have spent over an hour in the car.

Originally I had planned to merge a job with Wrinkle 2 for the night shot. I figured I'd take advantage of the loophole I gave all the Wrinklers when I set this up.

I quote from the Producer's Info page I had put online prior to this event:

"Theme for shoot - The Wonders of Mother Earth.

This theme is sufficiently vague so as to allow you to be as thoughtful and creative as you'd like. We'd really like to show off Mother Earth and her beauty and power this time around.

If you'd like to show a harmonious relationship between man and Mother Earth ie: man made structures, buildings and the like, and how they sit with nature, you may feel free to do so. With this in mind, Panoramas probably should be taken outside. Inclusion of yourself or other people of the Earth is encouraged. Night Panos will most likely be taken in areas of man made structures and light but every effort should be made to shoot these outdoors."

During the couple days prior to the Wrinkle and during the morning of the 20th, I had pretty much figured that I would shoot the outside of Hawai`i's new Convention Center all lit up down in Waikiki. Then during the day, several people on our Wrinkle In Time 2 email list had been discussing ways to remain more true blue to the theme.

Inside my head I himmed and hawwed all day. I was experiencing an ethical dilemna. I wanted to do what was right. I owed it to my other participants. I was suffering from "High Anxiety".

Kathy Wheeler of Australia got on the list as I moaned in confusion to myself and suggested to someone that she was contemplating a garden shot with flash.

As I read her post, the knot in my stomach relaxed and the idea lightbulb began to blink inside my previously empty head.

I remembered a little flower filled park in Waikiki and as my day job took me back into Waikiki later that afternoon to go look at a building for a customer, I detoured to the end of Monserrat Avenue and drove by a small park. I saw lots of different plants and some flowers and I thought to myself, "This will be perfect!"

So, it was settled then. My 9 p.m. shot would be in Waikiki. I felt better, I relaxed, and I went about my day.

At about 7:30 p.m. that evening my daughter and I got in the car and we drove up and over the Ko`olau mountains and down into Waikiki, down and around Kapiolani Park. I parked on the side of Leahi Avenue, picked up a flashlight and we walked across the street into the park.

The garden is set up with a little multipath sortof pattern. It looked pretty cool in the shadows.

Then I saw the problem.

Automatic sprinklers were beginning to come on and slowly one part of the park after another was beginning to hiss and become blocked off by torrents of spraying water.

We retreated.. I panicked.. I looked at my watch again. I began trying to think of Hotels that might have cool gardens, then I thought about parking trouble at night in Waikiki and I announced we'd do old standby....Kailua Beach.

My daughter looked at me a bit weird and we got in the car and drove back down Kapahulu Avenue towards the H1 freeway.

Up and over the Pali highway we went. Traffic was amazingly light and I tried to remain calm. We listened to my daughter's current favorite radio station and I watched the clock and my driving.

Up the Pali and down the Pali we went.The lights of Kailua Town became visible as we coiled back down the windward side of the Ko`olau mountains and it appeared we still had about twenty three minutes to go before 9 p.m.

We drove down Kailua road and stopped at the stop sign near the Kalapawai Store. briefly I contemplated shooting the store and the triangle park and banyan tree but decided no, the beach was just ahead.

We pulled into the beach park with about 16 minutes to spare. I got gear and flashlight out and we set the camera up as close to the water as we could. I watched a fisherman check poles. I watched his dancing flashlight and my eyes adjusted to the night. Occassional drops of water hit my face. I test fired a couple flash shots to see how far it would penetrate the murky blackness of this night. I worried about rain and put a plastic bag over the camera and stood in front of the tripod, shielding it from the gusty winds. I bent over and fiddled with my stereo mini cassette recorder and turned it on..."What the hell," I thought to myself?

What we have ended up with is like a remote landing on a distant planet. We have fourteen to fifteen feet of Kailua Beach sand and water to reflect upon. We have the eerie blips of a few street lights within our circle. Directly behind us as we pan around we can faintly make out the trunks of some trees and we have solitude.

We have some beach sounds and as I reflect upon this wacky day, I may have ended up with a good thing after all.

I was true to my theme. I have a very small slice of mother ocean at play in her nocturnal state and I have the ability to share it with you, as it really happened on the first day of Spring in Hawai`i on March 20th, 1998.

I think I need to learn to relax more ;)

Mahalo (thank you) for coming to visit our second Wrinkle In Time Global Panorama shoot! We may do another one sometime in the future!

warmest regards,
and Aloha No,

Rabbett
Wrinklemeister ;)

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Last ironed by Rabbett on: Friday, April 24, 1998.