Fashion on the rocks
February 5th, 2010By Nadine Kam

Nadine Kam photos
Tourists explore the rocky ledges.
Just a few days ago we were talking in the office about the Waianae teacher who had gone hiking and fallen to his death, and I started thinking of all the tourists who come to Hawaii — some saving and looking forward to it all their lives — only to drown or fall in hiking accidents because they don’t know the ocean and terrain. Locals know better, right?
So where did I find myself yesterday but hiking down a cliff for a photo shoot, in a dress and rubber slippers because of a last-minute change from flat, easy Kailua Beach! While lugging clothes, spilling the contents of my open purse at one point, I imagined my obituary headline reading, “She died for fashion.” Journalists tend to think morbid thoughts anyway, starting in journ school when instructors warned our first jobs would likely involve obit writing and one of my classmates would often imagine undistinguished headlines about his own untimely demise as a young, anonymous, “Man, 20, dies.”
It turns out we weren’t the only ones there that day and an hour after starting, we spotted another crew for a Canada publication coming down the slope. It’s not every day you see a makeup artist scrambling down rocks in 2-1/2 to 3-inch heeled boots!
It turns out they were photographing Justine Miguel and the girl deserves a lot of credit for climbing, mostly bare skinned, up some precarious slopes full of sharp rock for the shots the photographer wanted. She often looks so soft and fragile but she’s very athletic, which I cannot claim.
The experience cured me of wanting to be on “The Amazing Race.” I imagined what it would have been like if there were a video camera focused on my butt scaling the rocks. I picture the fire pole scene in “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” Not a good thing. The things we do to get the perfect fashion shot.
Justine Miguel gets warmed up in front of the camera.
I tossed some granola crumbs toward ants milling around their hole in the sand, and this other visitor came out of the rocks. The beach was pristine, so I don’t know what this guy survives on.
Looking up at the big sun.












































