I had come to Hawaii for a commercial project shooting on the north shore of Oahu. My college age son along in a supporting role as digital tech. The opportunity to come to Hawaii a few days early to surf the gentle waves of the southern shores around Honolulu was too much to pass up – especially considering someone else was footing the lions share of the bill.
Arriving that night after our flight from LA we checked into a cheap room in a four-story building wedged between the skyscraper mega hotels that increasingly define the Waikiki strip. This old 1940’s motel fit the bill perfectly. Inexpensive, a well-stocked board rental shop on the first floor and a short city block from the beach and the easy riders in the shadow of Diamond Head.
We settled in for the night. The alarm set early for our version of a dawn patrol. A wall of Jalousie windows filling one whole side of our tiny room. As I lay in bed with my son sleeping next to me, the buzz of the city was just on the other side of the thin louvered glass. The commercial lights outside dancing and blinking in the frosted glass illuminating the room.
It all felt pretty much perfect at that moment.
That’s the power of a single image. A simple picture that sums up a host of wonderful feeling felt one night years ago. A placeholder memory of a brief adventure between father and son. Time spent in the water. A funky old mid-century motel nestled in a tropical island city and the abstract colored glass wall that started our journey.
