the adventures of Hula Man

Hello Hula Man!


Here is my Hula Man. I've had him for eight (8!) years! That is a while people, let me tell you. Hula Man even wobbles when you touch him. Under his skirt, right above his naked bottom, (yes, he has a bottom), he has a spring. So he wobbles and hula-s and does his little dance. And his one eye is kinda creepy. I don't know if it is a lazy eye or what.... Well, anyways...

I'm taking another photography class, Intermediate Digital Camera. Our first assignment is on white balance, and we are to take an object that is brightly colored and take various pictures of it in different lighting. I own only things that are black, white, grey, and brown because I refuse to allow color into my life (only a bit true). Enter Hula Man. I pulled him off the shelf, gave him a nice dusting off, and now, here he is, in all his hunky hula glory, running around my house getting his picture taken.

Here he is napping on my pillow:

Here he is shakin' it in the kitchen:

Hula Man gets around people, he even hopped up on the new end-tables, and checked out the spring time sun:

Hula Man even took a tragic fall, which left him in multiple pieces. He was rushed to emergency surgery and the liquid nails saved him from a life of no-hula-ing and having no feet. I did shed a few tears. Hula Man has really been there for me, and I let him down. I let him just fall to the ground. Shattered. Well, Hula Man, I put you back together, so that has to count for something.


So, this isn't just a story about Hula Man. Although I probably could write a good one (and creepily enough, i'm feeling very attached to Hula Man and feel like I should carry him with me everywhere. He's peeking over my lap top as I write this now, and he might even come outside when I get to building my flower beds in a bit. Just kidding, or kind of kidding.

The whole deal is about white balance, and how digital cameras aren't so smart afterall. They are not smart. ok? not. smart.

Light travels in wavelengths, which are various colors, right? We all know this, Roy.G.Biv, and the visible spectrum and all, right? All right. So, your digital camera has this sensor, that is a total idiot, well, not a total idiot, only when it comes to white balance. The sensor measures the color based on temperature. Alright? so flourescent lights come out green in your pictures because that is the wavelength that flourescent light lives on, ok? So, see, your soft white light bulbs, they come out all yellow-y because thats where the live. Cloudly light is blue, and blah blah blah. So, your camera has this really hard time finding what white is in various lighting, due to all these various sources of light emitting various wavelengths of light that your camera reads. So, you have to tell it. And the settings on your camera say, oh, ok, well, here, they say this is what white should be, so let us make it white! The pre-sets are hard. Aren't they? Because dude, seriously, I can't decide if I'm in the clouds or in the shade. And what about halogen lights? or this energy saver lights, what kind of light is that? So I'm using the pre-set white balance option, and I'm telling my camera what white is. I take this picture of a blank sheet of paper in whatever light i'm in, and say, here camera, base your scale on this being White! and ta-da!!! My pictures are coming out pretty accurate. If I were to say, oh in photo shop, drag the mouse over a single pixel that I think is white, the red, blue, and yellow levels would all be about equal.

So, this is why Hula Man is running around shakin' it all over the place. Because I'm not so obsessed with white balance, I've taken two hundred pictures just because dude, my camera is an idiot. and I bet yours is too.

Give it a stern talking to, would you?