November 9, 2025April 14, 2026 photobyjohnbo

Cellpic Sunday—The Kaua‘i ʻukulele Festival

April 2025.
Līhu‘e, Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i.

We first heard about the Kaua‘i ʻukulele Festival on April 12. We were fortunate: The annual event took place on Sunday, April 13. It was scheduled from 11 AM to 4 PM at the Kukui Grove Center in Līhu‘e, Kauaʻi. Best of all, according to the description we found, it was a free event that celebrated “the cultural significance of the ʻukulele as Hawaiʻi’s ambassador of Aloha.”

We’d planned to shop in Līhu‘e, so it made sense for us to stop by and see what was happening. We’d never been to the Kukui Grove Center, but we found it was conveniently close to Target and Costco, two of our regular grocery stops.

The festival stage was conveniently located in the food court, and we thought it would be a good opportunity to have lunch while listening to ʻukulele music. When we arrived, the bands were between sets, so we picked one of the several food vendors to order lunch and took our place in two of the very few empty seats in the court.

The festival lineup included a mix of well-known musicians and emerging artists, celebrating the cultural significance of the ʻukulele in Hawaiian music. Soon, it was time to introduce the next group in the lineup, Nā Kani Leʻa, also known as The B3 Band. They were featured performers, and their set was scheduled for 1:10 p.m. to 1:25 p.m. A news article here noted that Nā Kani Leʻa features Joanne Parongao, and most of its members play ʻukuleles they created themselves with the help of Pololu ʻukulele and Dr. Paul Arrington, a local physician and ʻukulele aficionado. The group also performs regularly in front of the Storybook Theatre during Friday Night Art in Hanapēpē.

After the B3 Band, the Kapaʻa Middle School ʻukulele Band performed. After their performance, our original goal of shopping beckoned, so we had to cut our festival experience short. You can find information here if you’d like to read more about the performers who were scheduled to appear.

About the photo: I captured several cell phone photos of Na Kani Leʻa with my S23 Ultra. After cropping in Adobe Lightroom Classic, I sent it off to Luminar Neo to use the Auto Adjust button in the Develop module, and lightly tweaked the Accent AI slider in the Enhance AI module. The Accent AI slider is nothing new for those who regularly read these “About” sections. If a photo doesn’t need noise reduction or sharpening, it’s often the only slider I tweak in Luminar Neo. I could dispense with Adobe Lightroom Classic altogether if I only did cell phone photos. Still, Lightroom keeps my catalogs of finished and unprocessed images, and it provides a ready link to Photoshop. I’ve also come to appreciate the masking features of Lightroom Classic for my day-to-night photos, as they are more sophisticated than those in Neo in many respects. For a closer look at the image in 2K HD or to view the photo’s metadata on my Flickr site, click on the image.

I invite fellow bloggers to join in by creating their own Cellpic Sunday posts. There’s no set theme. The first rule is that your photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or other mobile device. The second rule is simple: link your challenge response to this post or drop a comment here with your link so others can find it. And remember, despite the name, there’s no penalty for sharing on a day other than Sunday.

John Steiner