Good things happen when the sun goes down… twilight is often more exciting… and then there’s a clear evening with the stars coming out and some nice palm trees.
In this post I’d love to drive home the point:
Make wherever you happen to be work for you.
And get good at seeking out spots and SEEing the spots you’re at.
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
(Above) As you see these pictures you might wonder why they call it Sunset Beach… haha
This day was proof-example, after example, of why going out with a set purpose (set picture) in mind is in many (not all) ways is retarded.
But having a “way point” can be smart.
Yes have plans… but be open to all the amazing things that surround you.
In this case we penciled in Sunset beach for sunset.
When you’re on a road trip with me you realize I’m using a pencil and that pencil has an eraser.
But beyond that when you are wherever you are… be ready to shoot them when they happen. (know how)
And be ready to SEE them.
It makes me wonder how/why those photographers who set out with one specific shot in mind do it.
That would drive me batty… and doesn’t seem like a good idea. (Open for discussion, as long as we’re trying to understand eachother)
(Though perhaps having fewer pictures would sure cut down on processing and make picking easier)
Going back to the car to grab the tripod… low and behold, I saw the light.
I was saying to myself… how do these things like this keep happening to me?
I really couldn’t have planned the mist, the sunlight angle because of clouds, the color of the sunlight is beyond our control as we know.
Yes I put myself in a situation where i could get back lit pictures of surfers when they came out… but I certainly wasn’t expecting this.
I can’t move this dude I’m not in charge of the posing.
I just frame it up to tell the story and wait for the elements to be in a good spot.
This is a big example of just wandering around searching and being in the right place at the right time.
We didn’t write Hawaii 2009 in the sand but we came by literally seconds before the wave washed it away forever.
I barely had time to aim and spray fire shoot it as it got washed away.
The lighting was hardly what people aim for, but I knew that it would make it unique and that I could add back some of the contrast from shooting towards a setting sun.
This was not planned it was a result of waiting around for other people to be ready to go and getting bored and saying… hey why not take pictures of the palm trees.
If only I had my cable release to take longer than 30 second exposures. But that’s what I could do…
and I set the White balance to 2500 kelvin to bring out the blue because the street lights were throwing off the colors.
On this trip I discovered the joy of setting my white balance to Shady A2 to really bring out warm colors
I think any white balance could have worked for this evening and the camera itself would have been stumped with the colors of the sunset at sunset beach.
Don’t just take good pictures and call it good… add spice.
OK obviously the above picture was taken a while before sunset colors hit… but I wanted to show the kind of waves they were looking at.
You’ll see some better pictures of waves coming up… but I take pictures to document what was going around a whole lot.
Now planning your shots ahead of time is not a bad thing… don’t misunderstand.
I planned on being at sunset beach at sunset.
And when I got there an hour before sunset I said I wanted to be on such and such side of the water/beach.
But the point is: Up until that time (your way-point time) and after and maybe even instead be willing to let your hunches, ideas and the light take you where they will…
Kinda like the waves of see, they go here and there and wherever the wind and tide takes them.
Yes there could have been other paths… but make the path you decided on, or were thrust into work for you
You’ll find some amazing things start to happen.
And you’ll learn to deal with (photographically) what you’re given… and not just search for what you want and always see the green green grass just beyond reach.
I’m saying both things can be good when done correctly.
But don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
A lot of my pictures are a testament to my laziness… i was shooting sunset here and just didn’t feel like moving.
I was hoping more surfers would just walk past me. (They’ve done it in the past)
So i just sat around, not being pulled in any other way.
So I made where I was Work.
Instead of perhaps finding another better location. (Which might have been good too)
People almost seem to refuse to take pictures when the light is not perfect for them.
I say learn how to deal with the light no matter what it’s giving you.
Use it to your advantage… take the pictures the present light situation is giving you.
Don’t wait for the perfect opportunity… make it the perfect opportunity.
Even better if what’s been given is pretty darn nice!
This day seemed like several days all rolled up into one!
I guess that happens when you get up at 4am to go shoot sunrise a ways away and then shoot all the way until sunset.
When you are taking pictures and think back to that previous day when you were shooting near the lighthouse… oh wait that was earlier today.
Or when at the end of the day you can barely remember the beginning of the day because it seems like you’ve done sooo much since then.
That’s when you know you were pretty effective with the scheduling of your day.
The First “day”
Sunrise on the north point.
It included quite few miles of driving along along the coast line on fun dirt roads.
This was the longest day and we were in a bunch of different towns all along the northern coast.
“Day” 2
This day came in two distinct parts, but felt like they should be combined.
We went snorkeling in a bay and then met up with the wedding family and friends for some lunch and fun on the beach.
Using my little G11 to take some fun underwater shots.
The final “day”
We scouted out the location for the wedding and did sunset shots.
I don’t usually go visit the location before hand to figure things out, but we usually look for a place to do sunset and this was a phenomenal location.
I enjoyed being able to spot the possible locations and possible routes for the sunset since it comes and goes quite suddenly.
Turns out that info came in very handy for the wedding day and being overly prepared helped move things along smoothly.
I was also glad the element of spontaneity was still very much there and the pre-visit didn’t spoil it at all.
Sunset at this beach is pretty crazy awesome, but I thought i’d highlight some late twilight pictures taken a while after sunset.
Tripod required for this long exposure.
Look at the bunch of other “Day 3″ sunset pictures later in this post.
(Above) Documenting the second half of thanksgiving day here are some Thanksgiving sunset pictures
As a sidenote this picture was a 10 second picture and to get low enough I took it off the tripod and propped it on the ground resting on my foot. 2.8 aperture. 250ISO
TIP: Wait about 15 minutes after sunset for the real lights show of twilight.
This thanksgiving I can be specially greatful to have the oportunity to spend 2 full weeks in Hawaii.
I’m also thankful to be able to have the ability to travel all around 2 islands with expensive camera equipment.
I’m thankful to have a Jeep… I would suggest to anyone coming to Kona (the big island) to rent a 4wd vehicle, unless you just plan on going to beaches.
If you plan on exploring at all… consider it a Must.
I’m thankful for sunsets, because they make everything look so much better.
I’m thankful for good company. It really has been very helpful, imagine getting up at 4am to go out to a sunset, one could be very tempted to keep sleeping but knowing I can’t let someone else down and knowing that I get to watch someone else suffer makes it so much easier.
I’m thankful for a great family that took us in for thanksgiving and fed us as much as we could fit.
Above – Guava Cheesecake
I’m thankful for the wonderful bride that decided it was better to have me fly from Utah to do the wedding pictures. I charged less for my travel fee than some Hawaiin photographers from her Island (oahu)
I’m thankful that even though I fell in the Ocean my camera did not go in with about 2-3 inches to spare.
I’m thankful that even though the GPS went in it worked again.
I’m thankful I have a nice computer to do these blog posts even with the very little time that I’m back at the condo and awake.
(More pictures after the jump – or see all the recap pictures on SmugMug)
I titled this recap post “Just across the street”
Because that’s where these pictures were taken.
By the time I flew in, rented the car, went to the condo, went and got some late lunch/dinner and bought some groceries It was now to late to travel somewhere to do sunset pictures… so I went accross the street!
What I’m trying to say is for less than the cost of a hotel room there are nice condos for rent in super nice locations.
The search for a good place paid off.
But I thought about calling it “Be ready and Wait for it” because that’s what happened.
I had a great moment when with about 30 seconds notice I noticed something that was going to happen.
I quickly got ready and waited for it. When it happened it happened fast and there were no do-overs.
In those 5 seconds you had to hope all those years of learning how your camera functions best pays off.
The thing is you fire off a dozen or more pictures and then you can’t really decide which one is the best, because the subtle differences offer something good for each.
But when this moment is happening in a flash (pardon the pun) it’s this weird rush of excitement.
Subdued and peaceful, you feel like you want to shout out Yes! but no one is around, and well you don’t want to jinx the pictures anyway.
So it’s a quite victory. Plus you know you didn’t make the event happen, you just happened to be there.
Yes indeed Thanksgiving Day is already upon us in Hawaii!
Note that most of the bridal pictures that day were taken at Soka University.
But the title of the post is beach bridals so I just added those (just the horizontal ones)
Where was I last summer?
Last year I went to Europe for 3 months.
I drove over 13,000 miles
Visited about 12 countries
Took over 50,000 pictures (over 500GB)
A couple hundred hours later…
It’s been about a year and I’ve just barely gone through all the pictures a couple of times
I’ve selected an average of 35 pictures a day.
I will be uploading a gallery for each day: some will have more than others and some none.
Some of them will be a real treat and others just OK
… there are many more that I took but I had to draw the line somewhere or I would be editing pictures from now until the end of time.
I’ve spent probably hundreds of hours working on going through all these and now editing I would appreciate to hear what you think.
I did a wedding about a month ago in Boston and a reception in Connecticut.
I stayed before and after and took pictures of the area.
Trip 1 – Circle around Connecticut Gallery
I drove around the state of connecticut starting in the southwest corner going up to the northwest corner and all the way to the east corner. By that time it was dark so I made my way back. I started a bit later in the day followed the directions on my GPS device and made frequent stops but often for time’s sake took pictures from the car.
Trip 2 – Connecticut Coast Gallery
I picked 4-5 parks or wildlife reserves to stop at and went along the coast of connecticut until I reached a lighthouse in Rhode Island where I watched sunset and then drove back.
Trip 3 – New York Gallery
I walked around Manhattan for hours including central park and then when I was too tired to walk anymore I made my way back to where I was staying in Connecticut.
Trip 4 – Boston Gallery
After doing the wedding at the Boston LDS Temple I went to downtown Boston and took some pictures for a few hours until it got dark.
Where to start with all the pictures?
While I still haven’t posted pictures from last year’s trip to Europe I did decide to work on a smaller event. I went to DC for two weeks… actually I was also in Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
I took 4500 pictures while there and was able to limit these galleries down to 317. I’m pretty proud of myself.
I will also eventually be using over 1600 of these pictures for use in The Envision the World Project.
Many of the other pictures were of friends and family. You can see more information about these pictures on a post on my personal blog.
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