WHEN a woman is suffering from morning sickness, there are many things a bystander should do. Taking out a camera and capturing the moment for all posterity is not one of them. This could lead to violence, in fact.Photographer Linda Ching didn't know of Sherry Scanlin's nausea -- or her pregnancy -- while shooting stills of her for the 1987 bestseller "Hawaiian Goddesses," a collection of ancient stories lovingly illustrated by Ching's pictures. Then again, if Ching had known, she may well have canceled the photo shoot, thereby missing a once-in-a-lifetime exposure.
"I swear that this had never happened before and has never happened since," she explained, still incredulous after all these years. Ching was shooting pictures for a chapter on La'ieikawai, the goddess of rainbows, when Scanlin asked to take a break.
"She wasn't feeling very well and I asked her to sit and rest. While she was sitting, I looked in the lens and this magical reflection occurred." Ching immediately snapped the shot, which appears on page 87 of "Hawaiian Goddesses." In the photo Scanlin stares downward, her expression pensive. And there, on the edge of the picture, just above her forehead, is a rainbow.
"It was just the way the light was hitting my lens," said Ching, who talked about the eerie coincidence and the baby Scanlin was carrying -- now 15 years old -- during a reunion of "Hawaiian Goddesses" models held recently at the Outrigger Waikiki. Many of Ching's subjects were mere children when the photos were taken in the early and mid-'80s. Now several have children of their own.
"I'm surprised. (Linda) still remembers a lot of details from way-back-when," said Jennifer Lopes, who played young Pele in "Hawaiian Goddesses" when she was 13. "When I was taking pictures, I cut my hair and I wasn't supposed to, and she still remembers that. It's weird." Lopes attended the reunion with her four children, ages 4 to 11, at least one of whom bears a striking resemblance to the quite-composed young girl on page 16 of Ching's book, her golden hair bathed in sunlight.Time -- and motherhood, one imagines -- have changed Lopes, but a funny thing happened when she flipped through Ching's book at the Outrigger. Even as she gazed at the child she used to be, the rueful half-smile of young Pele appeared on her lips. It was all unexpected and gone in an instant, supplanted by the arrival of the bird guardian to La'ieikawai.
Or, to be more precise, Kaleo Kauahi-Daniels, who played the rainbow goddess's avian accompaniment in "Hawaiian Goddesses." Like Lopes, her first-cousin, Kauahi-Daniels was discovered by Ching at a keiki hula competition. She is an outgoing bon vivant these days, a far cry from the serious 13-year-old who, on the evidence of the book, appears to have taken her bird guardian duties quite seriously.
"No, I don't," she laughed, in response to the question of whether she still recognized the girl in the photos.
Mitchell Kanehailua recognized himself, all right ("Basically, I'm still the same guy, just older"). Flipping through the book, however, he got nostalgic for a locale that apparently no longer exists: the Kalapana site of his "Hawaiian Goddesses" photo shoot.
"A lot of places are not there anymore," he said. "There were all these coconut trees and black sand. All that is gone now. It's covered in lava."
Kanehailua, who attended the reunion with his wife and young daughter, was fresh out of Kamehameha Schools when he was tapped by Ching to be Lohi'au, the master of the drum whose music so entrances the goddess Pele. The photos show a strikingly handsome Kanehailua entwined in the arms of Hi'iaka, the sister whom Pele sent to entice Lohi'au. Kanehailua couldn't help but smile at the obvious sensuality of the photos, even as he kept an eye out for his two-year-old, Alya, nearby.Also watching the little girl, perhaps, was Linda Ching, for there was another purpose to the models' reunion. This month, the photographer begins shooting a new book, "Hawaiian Goddesses, 'Alua -- Second Generation'," and she is determined to include pictures of her models' children.
"Not only was I excited to see (the models again) but these stories are important to the Hawaiian culture, and it was important to bring these stories forward. So I thought I would really like to include as much of the second generation in this book as I can."
The new edition, which should reach bookstores by the end of the year, will contain new chapters, a Maui story and, hopefully, photos of a whole new generation of keiki goddesses. And as the first edition has been out-of-print for a while, a new "Hawaiian Goddesses" would seem to be long overdue. Yet it took an experience Ching had while traveling with the exhibition in China last year -- yet another magical moment -- to persuade her that the time was right for revisiting the material.
"I don't normally get to see (the photos) hanging together but a half-hour before the show started, I looked at every one. Suddenly, I thought, my God, after all these years, they still inspire. Their beauty to me is just awesome."
With any luck, the gods will once again smile on Ching's work, bringing her a fresh round of eerie coincidences and an ample dose of magic.
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