Memorial Day Lantern Floating Ceremony - Honolulu, HI

[Hailwood]

My wife and I were recently in Hawaii on vacation and came across this event that sounded really interesting.

It's an annual festival where people pay respects to loved ones that have passed away by writing them messages on little paper lanterns and then floating them out to sea.

This was a much bigger deal than I had thought it would be. There were several thousand (maybe tens of thousands) people at the park, and it took quite awhile to work our way down to the water so that I could get some decent shots, but it was ultimately worth it.

More than a couple of them were done in Live View with the camera held over my head to get the crowd out of the shot - a use that I wouldn't have thought of previously, but that was pretty effective.

All of these were shot with a 40D 28-135mm combo and had some mild PP in Elements.

1.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3450a.jpg

2.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3490a.jpg

3.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3501a.jpg

4.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3513a.jpg

5.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3517a.jpg

6.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3523a.jpg

7.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3536a.jpg

8.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3542a.jpg

Any comments or recommendations for technical or artistic improvement are very much welcome!

[Oddjob82]

http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b102/Hailwood/IMG_3536a.jpg

I really like the 7th one and would look great with a good crop maybe? What iso were you shooting at on these shots the noise is noticeable on a few of them, although I guess that is to be expected in low lighting conditions.

Maybe a crop like this?

http://img14.imageshack.us/img14/3673/attemptf.jpg

or

http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/1184/attempt2q.jpg

Maybe someone else can comment since he asked for recommendations and that is my only one and I can't even judge how good it is :P

[mobilezen]

Very nice!

[Hailwood]

Thanks for the comments!

Now that you mention it, when I view these on my work computer at lower resolution, I can see the noise a little better. I may try and do some additional processing to help improve this.