On Vacation

The plan was: one week in Japan, then one week in Maui on the way home.  This was very much a vacation of contrasts.  Our week in Japan was packed solid with schedules, landmarks, and express trains.  After that, our week in Maui was a blank slate; we rented one rental condo across the road from the beach, and only decided what we would do when we woke up in the morning and assessed our desire to do anything at all.

On our way out to Japan, we stopped for a night in Oahu to have a break from flying, which turned out to be quite nice.  We had come from a long, dreary New York winter that was still getting its last frigid swipes in as we got on the plane.  The blue skies and warm Pacific breeze were a welcome sight.  It set the stage for a very vacationy vacation.  Probably the vacationest vacation we've ever taken.

I had the Leica M3 with me.  I love it because it feels like there's "less camera" between you and the things that are happening around you.  There's an aperture ring, a shutter speed dial, and a shutter button.  There's not much in the viewfinder, either -- just framelines and a rangefinder patch.  You see a photo, you take a photo, and you put the camera back down and move on.  

There's only one problem with the Leica M3 -- using it is work, and I was on vacation.

You have to be in photographer mode to use the M3 -- constantly hunting, predicting, adjusting.  Normally this is great because you take everything in, asking questions and answering them yourself, learning about this new place you've gone.  Our trip to Iceland basically necessitated photographer mode.  It was a constant parade of details and hidden secrets to dig up and examine.

On this trip though, I wanted to cut loose.  The places we would go were places of relaxation and not-worrying.

Of course, that's not to say that there will be no photos of this vacation -- I did manage to shoot 9 rolls of film.  This was all just a disclaimer that what you'll see is far from a comprehensive list of all the things we did and saw on this trip, because switching in and out of photographer mode got really tiring and there were times I just stowed the camera in my backpack, only stopping to take it back out for when there was something really worth documenting.