A couple months ago, I ’sold’ my Canon G9 to my dad, and upgraded to the Canon G11, mostly because I was interested in the better ISO performance as well as the swivel-screen, something I haven’t been able to play with since I borrowed my mom’s old point-and-shoot five years ago.  I’d already hiked the 5DMKII up Diamond Head twice in the last few weeks, so this time I just took the G11 to see what I could do with it.  Accompanied by Kaeo and Gabe, here’s what we came up with. (And yes, all shots have been post-processed.)

Overall, I feel the G11 is a great alternative for taking photos when you don’t want to haul your DSLR around!  It might not have the tonal-range or sensor size of my 5DMKII, but it’s definitely capable of taking nice, fun photographs.

Got it off an app on Facebook, but it is one of the most accurate I’ve ever taken:

Dear Dallas Nagata, below are your Personality Tests result:

Who is your true self: You are full of energy and confidence. You are unpredictable, with moods changing as quickly as an ocean. You might occasionally be calm and still, but never for long.
Your view on yourself:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are down-to-earth
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : People like you because you are so straightforward
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are an efficient problem solver because you will listen to both sides of an argument before making a decision that usually appeals to both parties
The type of girlfriend/boyfriend you are looking:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are not looking merely for a girl/boyfriend – you are looking for your life partner
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Perhaps you should be more open-minded about who you spend time with
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : The person you are looking for might hide their charm under their exterior
Your readiness to commit to a relationship:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are ready to commit as soon as you meet the right person
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : And you believe you will pretty much know as soon as you might that person
The seriousness of your love:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are very serious about relationships
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Aren’t interested in wasting time with people you don’t really like
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : If you meet the right person
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You will fall deeply
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Beautifully in love
Your views on education:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Education is very important in life
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You want to study hard
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Learn as much as you can
The right job for you:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You have plenty of dream jobs but have little chance of doing any of them if you don’t focus on something in particular
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You need to choose something
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Go for it to be happy
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Achieve success
How do you view success:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are confident that you will be successful in your chosen career
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Nothing will stop you from trying
What are you most afraid of:
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : You are afraid of things that you cannot control
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ : Sometimes you show your anger to cover up how you feel

I haven’t posted anything very personal on this blog yet, so here’s a taste of what’s been happening in my life. This past December, at the TBQ Anniversary Party/Tweetup, I met a certain Edward White, soldier for the U.S. Army by day, photographer and social media darling by night.  It was the closest to love at first sight that I will ever realistically be, and, much to my happiness, he felt the same.

Fast-forward to two months later, specifically Valentine’s Day.  On this day, he left for his year-long deployment to Afghanistan.  I never thought I would be a military girlfriend dealing with deployment, but when you know, you know, and he is completely worth the wait.  To help document my experiences over the next year on being the significant other of a deployed soldier, I’ve started a 365 Photo blog over on Posterous.  I’m already 3 days down, with at least 362 days left to go, but it has already helped me get through these first few days.

Ed himself is also blogging his deployment via Posterous, so please check it out.  I have contributor permissions for his blog, so I may post something once in a while from the POV of the ‘girlfriend back home’.  His father, Mark White, is also blogging there from a fatherly perspective, so you, dear reader, will get the full deployment experience!

I’ll leave you now with a preview shot from our portrait shoot together with the fantastic Lisa Hoang of Windwardskies Photography!

In short:

Ed’s Twitter

Ed’s Deployment Blog

My 365 Photo Blog

There are a few more announcements of projects and such on the horizon, and I will hopefully be blogging a lot more now, so stay tuned.

I worked with Michael Carino to cover Jessica and Tim’s wedding at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel on December 30th, 2009. Here are some of my shots from the wedding:

Chelsea and Nick have been together for five years, and are still very much in love. I spent an afternoon with them to test my ‘new’ vintage TLR camera and rangefinder cameras, but took a few digital images too, just in case the film didn’t work out.

Met up with my old friend Bryan Bangerter while we were both back on Maui for the holidays, and with Kaeo on audio-recording duty we filmed a one-shot, impromptu music video of his song “Happens To Us All”.  Head over to Vimeo for the HD version, or check it out below:

Happens To Us All from Guerilla Film Society on Vimeo.

Filmed with my 5DMKII and the 50mm f.1.8.  Please forgive my unpracticed rack focusing!

A Christmas morning wave with a rainbow at Maui’s North Shore.

Wanted to share a photo that I cleaned up (removing stains, dust, and creases) of my grandfather when he was 20 years old and in the Army Air Corps for World War II.  Mom’s getting a new print done for our house. Wish I had the original negative though!

I recently did a test shoot with new model Jordyn, who wants to get started on Model Mayhem!  Already she’s show a lot of dedication to modeling, also doing an awesome shoot with Nineteen Owls! (Photographer Christen is an old photo classmate of mine!)

For this shoot, we went down to Waikiki and took some dreamy images at sunset.  Enjoy!