Ben Ho's Photoblog

Puerto Rico - Jan 2009

2009-05-14T15:21:00.001-07:00

A weekend getaway to San Juan Puerto Rico. Explored the charming European-style castle and streets of Old San Juan, happened upon their biggest festival of the year, inaugurated our new underwater camera housing on a brief scuba trip, hiked the rain forests to the top of El Yunque, kayaked in a bioluminscent bay, and followed Anthony Bourdain's footsteps to Puerto Rico's best Lechon (whole roast pig) in the middle of nowhere, which tested the limits of the GPS in our rental car.

Top Puerto Rico Photos on Flickr

Rest of Puerto Rico Photos on Flickr

Diving in San Juan, Puerto Rico

2009-05-01T22:07:00.000-07:00

The rest of the photos from our Puerto Rico trip should be up shortly, but here's a quick video.

Cambodia - Spring 2007

2009-02-14T22:10:00.001-08:00

Somehow my Cambodia photos never got posted to my blog. So here they are now, from our trip way back in March 2007. Still good times. Amazing ancient temples, contemplating the economics of their massive construction, miles of miles and millions of man hours of resources on seemingly pointless though remarkable and amazing construction. Though of course, Civilization II taught me the true purpose of Temples, it keeps your citizens content, which is a necessary pre-condition to keep large groups of people amassed in one place from killing each other, thus reaping the benefits of Adam Smith style specialization that comes from civilization. The economist, Iannancone formalizes this more academically.

It was amazing being in such an economy where professionally cute children could earn an adult's daily wage (a few US dollars) from a sympathetic tourist. Where we could hire a personal car and driver for less than the price of a rental car anywhere else.

We got to play Indiana Jones, exploring the ruins of Angkor Wat. Especially when we got our driver to take us off the beaten path, to Beng Melea, which unlike the main temples has been unrestored. This was where they filmed Tomb Raider, and we had the entire complex, whose proud walls were being digested by the forest, mostly to ourselves. The ruins with the collapsed walkways and mountains of rubble and giant roots were difficult to navigate, but the abundant and friendly local guides were eager to show us the way, though R- and I enjoyed the process of getting lost amidst the ruins as well.

Big Island, Hawaii - Honeymoon Photos Part II

2008-12-28T17:33:00.001-08:00

The Koi Pond was at the beautiful Mauna Lani hotel, the kind of splurge hotel that you only justify the splurge on your honeymoon. We explored the pitch black lava tube cave that goes for miles underneath the rainforest in the Volcano National Park. It felt like being in dungeons and dragons. The green sand beach, (a beach where the sand was green as it is ground from a green volcanic [aka igneous] mineral found there), was made all the more spectacular, given the long dirt roads, windmills, and 4 miles (round trip) of spectacular ocean front trekking to get there.

Not pictured here, but the Waipi'o Valley, home of a black sand beach, and a spectacular waterfall is said to be a source of great Mana, or spiritual energy. You can certainly feel it when you are there. I can see why video game designers think that such Mana can be used to power magical spells, though I'm not sure if eating the dead is the best way to obtain it. Similar Mana can be found at the Pu`uhonua o Honaunau Place of Refuge where neat statues watch over the holy place where hawaiians could escape the dealt penalty for breaking oft-times capricious kapu laws, like in Highlander. Oh, and of course great food (even at the obligatory lu'au)!

Good times!

Kauai, Hawaii - Honeymoon Photos Part I

2008-10-30T11:11:00.001-07:00

Opaeka'a Falls

Tunnels Beach

Kipu Falls

First half of our Honeymoon to Hawaii. Ah, tropical paradise. Never knew what the big deal was before. Beautiful place. Scuba diving. Helicopter tours. Ziplining. A 12 hour Na Pali Coast Kayaking expedition.

Fuerzabruta: populist modern dance and girls in skimpy frocks frolicking in water

2008-08-29T12:06:00.000-07:00

No deep commentary here. R- and I wandered over to Tkts last week, given that her schedule this month at the hospital is relatively easy (no 36 hour shifts for a change). On my brother's rec, we picked up half priced tickets to Fuerzabruta, an off-broadway show that incorporates dance with a giant overhead swimming pool.

Instead of sitting passively in the audience, the audience stood on stage with the performers, in a space that was made to look and feel like a club complete with flashing lights and DJ.

(The water motif reminded me of this production of the metamorphoses I saw off broadway long ago, which reenacted Greek myths with modern dance in a theater of the round where the stage was a swimming pool).

Fuerzabruta was an even more extreme beast, that put the awe inspiring aerial gymnastics from the Olympic opening ceremony to shame. With dancers running and twisting and turning in mid air, conveyor belts subverting our notions of video reality into actual reality, and girls in skimpy frocks frolicking in a transparent pool of water suspending above our heads.

Shamelessly proletarian, there was very little high concept here, but just impressive ways to subvert our notions of dance and gravity, and to bring the energy of the dance floor (or a Matrix style planet rave) into a theater experience.

And despite the awful light conditions, the iPhone camera did admirably well.

Underwater Photos from my Canon in a Ziplock Baggie

2008-07-18T21:26:00.000-07:00

Who would have guessed that putting my canon point and shoot in a glorified ziplock bagwould actually take good underwater photos. Good thing the camera was old, and I'm ready to upgrade, because one of my waterproof camera baggies did start to leak by the end of the trip, but they worked well enough to get some great shots. Though the tropical fish and coral lost their luster without a strong flash. But otherwise, I'm quite happy.
More Hawaii photos coming soon!

Manta Ray Dive!

2008-07-15T13:25:00.000-07:00

So R- and I learned to dive for our Hawaii trip. Many more photos to come, but here are screenshots from the DVD from our night dive with the manta rays off the Kona coast of the Big Island of Hawaii.

From Manta Dive

The images courtesy of the dive operator (for the exorbitant fee of $70, but totally worth it). Will post some video clips online if I ever figure out how. (Any suggestions on what to use to pull clips from a DVD for upload, do let me know!)

Mini-honeymoon Photos: Moab, UT - May 2008

2008-07-06T22:46:00.000-07:00

Photos from our "mini-honeymoon" that fit in between the wedding and Romina's graduation, and before our main trip to Hawaii. A visit to Moab, UT, home of Arches National Park and Canyonlands, often overshadowed by nearby Bryce and Zion Canyons, not to mention Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon.

We were impressed by spectacular sights, spectacular skies, and a surprisingly dazzling array of dessert flowers. Also, our first shot at "adventure travel" with rappelling down 10 story canyons and rafting, a prelude to even more at Hawaii.

La Sal Mountains from Arches National Park - May 2008

Park Avenue, Arches, Utah - May 2008

Hawaii Photos, coming soon!

My photo of Bobby Flay at BRGR

2008-07-02T00:40:00.001-07:00

Was at BRGR the other day. Great burgers incidentally. Had my brush with a (foodie) superstar (though my one visit to Mesa Grill, albeit many many years ago [2000] wasn't so memorable), waiting to buy a burger for his daughter. Nice to know BRGR gets Bobby Flay's stamp of approval. Checked my iphone to make sure it really was flay, and then used it to snap this photo.

Wedding Photos

2008-06-18T10:00:00.000-07:00

Many of you have been asking about photos. Here are the photos from our awesome photographer Shai Eynav. You can order any of the regular pictage prints directly from the website. If you want prints of the panoramas (the 2nd link), let me know and I will coordinate with the photographer.

Plus, we'd love to see any pictures you might have of the wedding. Let me know, and we'll put links up on a new site at http://www.rominaAndben.com Also, in case you're interested, thoughts from the Memory Box will be there as well.

Vietnam photos - Spring 2007

2008-01-01T18:36:00.001-08:00

Trip to Vietnam was short, most of our time was spent in Saigon. Most salient memory is I first experienced air pollution so thick that walking outdoors left a slimy film on skin. Crossing streets through the ever present heavy motor scooter traffic who considered traffic lights as suggestions was only possible by confidently stepping into the street, walking at constant speed, so that the scooters can then avoid you. And said traffic made navigating in a car no fun, so that after being stuck in grid lock for almost an hour, we only escaped when our tour guide got outside to direct traffic.

Photos from Ithaca - September 2007

2007-09-24T12:38:00.001-07:00

DSC_4869
Originally uploaded by benho.

Just a few photos from the past month.

Whee... I'm a published photographer!

2007-09-24T07:44:00.000-07:00

So I now have 3 things on my resume as professional photographer (in case I ever decide to switch careers), the couple hundred dollars I was paid by my department to photograph my grad school graduation ceremony, as official photographer for Stanford Wushu, and as of today, as published photographer on Schmap.

Well sorta anyway. Schmap is a web-based travel guide that uses Flickr to get free photographs, and probably used my photo for the Westward Look resort (a beautiful place incidentally) near Tucson, probably because it's the only one on Flickr.

R- actually beat me getting on Schmap with her photo of Davies Hall in SF.

Anyway, good deal. Schmap gets free photos and free word of mouth, and flickr users get their 15 nanoseconds of fame.

Geneva - Hyper-Educated city

2007-01-18T19:17:00.001-08:00

Despite the disastrous start of our Geneva trip, our 4 day family trip to Geneva has proved to be one of our favorites. With only a small city to explore and no snow for skiing to occupy our time, we took a relaxed pace, but managed to amply fill our days. Geneva is perhaps the city in the world with the highest education level, (due to all the international organizations that headquarter there), and it shows. We attended 7 varied and eclectic museums, and despite my hesitation at traditional French food, ate well indeed. From ale relais d'entrecote, a traditional steak house that had only one thing on the menu, to Cafe Raphael, modern international fusion cuisine, to At my Cousin's house, we eat Chicken, a hip homey place with also just one thing on the menu, to of course Fondue, in l'Hotel de Ville, a homey, nordic-decorated (think Ikea) restaurant in the medieval town of Gruyere where hard cheese was invented.

But the museums demonstrated well the character of the place. From a museum on ethnography (basically a museum that highlights cultural anthropology), to a museum of archeology (beneath St Peter's cathedral, where 2000 years of architecture have been unearthed, and the art and excitement of the archaeologist's craft is conveyed), to the red cross museum (with a display on genocide in Cambodia), to a museum of food (in nearby Vevey , where they had a children's book that had a post-modern Derrida inspired deconstruction of a soup bowl for kids). As for art, the old stuff was not especially impressive, and the new stuff tried too hard. Though a ballet we saw there struck the right balance. Housed in a beautifully restored warehouse right on the river (which led to trouble because we first went to the Grand Theater, the normal home of the ballet company), they performed a 19th century ballet, Coppelia, but using modern avant garde setting, including a reality tv show, and a video backdrop that highlighted the surreal vaguely-amateurish cinematography common to contemporary art.

Oh, and for the boy in me, the nearby Castle Chaillon is the coolest medieval castle I've visited.

Memories of the kids in George RR Martin books, growing up in castles, sword fighting...

Shenandoah - A riot of color

2006-11-02T20:09:00.000-08:00

- See the lake?

Ah, the money shot. The most perfect rainbow ever. Could see the whole thing, arcing over the sky carrying Iris into a field of multi-hued foliage, from easy greens, to candy oranges, to fiery reds.

Went to Shenandoah with R- last weekend for a quick day trip. Saw the foliage, did a couple hikes, explored the caverns, did a maze, tried to get to a winery, and had fabulous Vietnamese food at Huong Que. Quite different from the last time I visited.

Funny, grew up in the Northeast amidst the changing fall colors every year, never noticed their stunning beauty until after going away for a few years and coming back. Plus the influence of R- of course.

Though maybe it started at MIT, lying on a park bench on the T of Killian Court, admiring the way the light shined through the leaves, colors intersecting, like a collage of tissue paper, a mondrian painting or a pollack (To borrow a very appropose metaphor from R-).

Happy trails in Tucson

2006-10-04T20:47:00.000-07:00

Originally uploaded by benho.

Happy trails in Tucson (which I always always spell wrong). Conference was fun, exhilerating, exciting, reminded me again why I love my job, came in 4th in the poker tournament. My talk (as expected) was sparsely attended and my lack of practice showed, overly fast, and not polished, no great crowd response but lots of good individual positive feedback after, but went well. I discussed well too I think.

But the hike is the subject of this post. So I skipped out early from the last session, grabbed my camera and set off alone into the desert. Under the beating sun, the imposing alien cactus, weird half naked backpackers but mostly alone, and once I got into it, surrounded at every step with a myriad of life which I'm normally way too obtuse to notice (I bet it's the jigsaw puzzles, elevated my powers of observation; or R-'s influence), but lots of butterflies of different colors, beatles, funcitoning crazy koyanisqatsi style ant colonies, birds, lizards, various metallic crickets/grasshoppers, a frog maybe. Cacti that would embed their hidden prickers into my skin (that was less fun). Beautiful vistas. Reminders of Dark Sun. Getting lost and moments of adrenaline filled panic. Capturing the perfect shot. Envelopped and alone in nature.

Road Trip 2006

2006-08-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

For once, I will let someone else speak for me. For my return to the east coast, my cousin Esther accompanied back on the open road. She described my thoughts well, read about our trip in the
Rockefeller newsletter that she designs. (Click photos for more...)

Fun with Photoshop

2006-03-27T00:58:00.000-08:00

walkin3

A series of photos from Cappadocia, Turkey that led to a nice unplanned photo montage. The most amazing part of this image, is that less than 30% is real (see the original photo to compare), the rest was fabricated in photoshop, by completely untrained me, from the grass to most of the rocks to the snowy background. The first time I ever created reality in a photo. Nifty and a bit scary how easy it was.

Photos from the American Southwest

2006-03-20T23:15:00.000-08:00

I have started to use flickr.com to share and store my photos and have been re-uploading my photo collection in a more easily accessible format. I will post photos here as I upload them (click on photos for more)

Food photos 8: Perfect meals

2005-11-27T23:53:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite meals:
lamb shoulder on the bone, dry marinated with s+p, parsley, rosemary, garlic powder, broiled to medium rare with roast vegetables (eggplant, zucchni, onions with red peppers, kosher salt, olive oil) and stuffing, rock hard 3 day old french baguette, baked lightly with olive oil, added to onions sauteed in olive oil and garlic cloves, s+p, with fresh chopped cilantro. and chicken stock. stuffing absorbed lamb juices, and then baked to crusty finish.

Fresh beefsteak hothouse tomato, with fresh parsley, seasoned rice vinegar, sesame oil, kosher salt.

Close up of the stuffing.

Another nice meal:
Fried chicken thigh with kosher salt, paprika, cumin, corn starch, egg white, panko bread crumbs, bit of lemon, fried in olive oil. Turmeric rice (raisins, garlic powder, salt, pepper, turmeric, beef stock). Wilted spinach and mushrooms.

Pan roasted cashews, dusted with kosher salt, black pepper, chili
powder, topped with a squeeze of lime juice.

Thanksgiving (amazing meal!) pictures soon to come!

Food photos 7: Fancier fare

2005-11-21T01:11:00.000-08:00

tuna fritters with wilted spinach in olive oil and garlic: canned tuna, with yogurt, mayo, worchestshire, tobasco, celery, green onion, salt and pepper, and panko breadcrumbs pan fried in olive oil.

beef stew, with papaya (for its papain), assorted baby radishes, cauliflower, celery, red pepper, chicken stock, red wine, salt, pepper, vinegar, mint; beef pre-marinated in lemon juice, basil, soy sauce, salt, pepper, wine. Served over medium shells.

(Stew 2.0: beef stew. with potatos, eggplant, anaheim peppers, onions, cumin, chili, kosher salt, budweiser, shiraz, beef stock, parsley, tomatos, celery, corn, simmered in dutch oven for > 6 hours)

fresh shark steak, marinated in sesame oil, soy sauce, salt, pepper, garlic, lemon juice, broiled to 140 degrees (via meat thermometer), with sauteed/steamed broccoli, flavored with reserved marinade, salt, chicken stock and red wine, and then a pretty rice, yellow color from tumeric, with raisins and salt and chicken stock. and a glass of white wine

turmeric/raisin/salt/garlic/cumin rice (once again) with lamb and cauliflower curry: ground lamb, cauliflower, zuchinni, anaheim pepper, thai chili, onion, tofu, with cumin, chili, papprika, kosher salt, red pepper flakes, curry powder, turmeric, white wine, finished with parsley and yogurt. and a sprig of parsley

Food photos 6: Salades

2005-11-18T01:56:00.000-08:00

Spinach salad, crushed peanuts, white mushrooms, baby spinach with sesame oil, and sweetened rice vinegar, topped with fresh papaya, fresh ground black pepper.

Mushroom omlette, with mint, green onions, accompanied with a spinach, mushroom, jack cheese salad with sesame oil, soy sauce and rice vinegar. (Glass of Chardonnay not shown)

Standard baby spinach, mushroom and peanut salad with "asian" vinegrette (soy sauce, sesame oil, sweetened rice vinegar)

Food photos 5: Misc

2005-11-15T01:11:00.000-08:00

Fu zhu, cooked with chicken stock, shitake mushroom, soy sauce, sesame oil, crushed red peppers, with a surprisingly good napa cabbage (garlic powder, olive oil, bit of soy sauce, sweetened rice vinegar, kosher salt) with white rice.

Kale steamed in chicken stock, stir fried with ginger.

Persian inspired (redux), ground lamb, eggplant, peas, cashews, dried basil, s+p, held together with yogurt.

Food photos 4: Fried Chicken

2005-11-12T02:26:00.000-08:00

Chicken tenders fried in olive oil, breaded with panko breadcrumbs, with yogurt base, s+p spices, mint, garnished with mint and accompanied with battered and fried broccoli, and turmeric dusted rice

Chicken tenders using egg whites, panko bread crumbs, s+p, basil, with zuchinni medalions lightly sauteed with remaining eggs, breadcrumbs and peanuts; accompanied with white rice.

Chicken breast, sliced thin, in half, breaded, with egg white, s+p,
crushed red ppeper, paprika, fried in olive oil, with lightly breaded broccoli,
and white rice.

Some of my favorite photos coming up in the next few batches, and some really exciting dishes.