Don Quijote Blue Hour – Honolulu, Hawaii

I made a technical mistake when I snapped this photo. But I still like the picture. The shutter speed, for whatever reason, was set to 1/180 of a second. This boosted the ISO to 3200, which gets noisy when you lift shadows in post-processing. A standard 1/60, or even better, 1/45, would’ve dropped the ISO to a clean 800.

You know I’m a fan of blue hour for these urban photographs. In this case, the yellow Don Quijote sign contrasts exceptionally well against the blue. This is the front of the Japanese supermarket that I talked about yesterday. Demonstrating that a mundane outing to a supermarket can yield worthwhile images.

We were waiting outside until the Uber picked us up. The driver thought we were local Hawaiian tourists — shopping at Don Quijote and staying in Waikiki. I took that as a compliment. Nope. We are from Texas, I said. I suppose we’ve learned to optimize our stay over our numerous visits.

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