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The Grand Entry - by Yasuko

Yasuko and I had a great time at the Shinnecock Powwow yesterday! It was such a beautiful, blue sky day, perfect temperature and just enough breeze to make things perfect. All around the stage there was a large number of small stores selling beautiful jewelry, arts and crafts and all sorts of delicious food, including our favorite, the Navajo Fry Bread. Awesome drumming and the culture of all the Native American regalia – in other words, an amazing opportunity to take a ton of beautiful pictures!

A pow-wow is a gathering of North America’s Native people. The word derives from the Narragansett word powwaw, meaning “spiritual leader”.
A modern pow-wow is a specific type of event where both Native American and non-Native American people meet to dance, sing, socialize, and honor American Indian culture. There is generally a dancing competition, often with significant prize money awarded. Pow-wows vary in length from one day session of 5 to 6 hours to three days.

A pow-wow session begins with the Grand Entry and, in most cases, a prayer. The Eagle Staff leads the Grand Entry, followed by flags, then the dancers, while one of the host drums sings an opening song. This event is sacred in nature, some pow-wows do not allow filming or photography during this time, though others allow it.

It has been a really amazing experience that has brought has back to our cross country trip and to our latest trip to New Mexico when, on Christmas Day, we witnessed the spectacular dance at Taos village. While the costumes were very different and the atmosphere was much less religious here, it was certainly the best Labor Day activity we have ever had, here in Long Island.

Several months ago, when Haiti was struck by a major earthquake, a quite large group of photographers on Flickr decided to open a charity auction. The project was quite successful and we were able in a few days to send thousands of dollars of donations to Unicef and the Red Cross. On that auction I won these two amazing prints by Clément Guillaume titled “Les Bains des Docks. Le Havre” originally commissioned by the architect who designed these amazing public baths.

Here are the two pictures:

Finally I got around having them framed professionally with two nice brushed metal frames and museum quality glass – which minimizes reflections. We both LOVE the final result!

A quick dinner this saturday, light and flavorful at the same time. Fresh figs from Whole Foods and some Citterio Prosciutto we recently got at Fairway. Simply delicious!

After reading a few articles about the history of Levittown, tonight I decided to drive there to take a look at how different the town looks now, 60 years after its creation. I brought my GF1 with me just in case I wanted to grab a quick shot. It turned out that the part of Levittown I drove through had some roads closed for a community BBQ. Which meant there were too many people and too little light to even try taking pictures there. In the end I decided to go back to the area at dawn, when most people are still asleep and the light is usually interesting, with potential for morning fogs when the humidity is high.
On my way back I shot a couple of pictures on the road.

First time in 10 years that I heard an emergency alert for a tornado warning on the radio today, while driving home.
There was no tornado luckily but the clouds were simply amazing!

Yasuko prepared a Japanese delicacy tonight: roasted Japanese eggplants peeled and served with freshly ground ginger and soy sauce. The main dish was daikon with enoki mushrooms. Midnight snack: fresh organic blueberries from Whole Foods.

Went to Mitsuwa this weekend and bought just a couple of things… LOL

Finally we decided to add to our TV two channels: RAI Italia & TV Japan! Since then we haven’t stopped watching them