I’d love to take credit for it. But really what can I say?
It happened all on it’s own and I was simply there with the know-how to capture it in it’s fullness.
It’s funny because I went through my motions and I was outwardly calm but I knew what was happening was special and I was a giddy little school boy inside.
I posted a preview a few weeks ago of the pictures. Many of the brides friends wondered where we got the backdrop.
I had to play with the WB a little because there comes a point where the camera is fooled… it must believe that nothing can normally be that color and wants to soothen it.
But i told that camera, this is real baby, bring out all the color you can.
You know it was something special when the toast at the reception 3 weeks later they make analogies to the sunset.
If your life is anything like that sunset on your wedding day… well it’s gonna be something special
You can see here during the ceremony the sun was setting and it took some time for the color to really expload a few minutes later.
So what’s our lesson as photographers: be prepared to take advantage of amazing things.
It was a wonderful moment for me… one of the best. But had I been ill prepared it could have been amongst the worst experiences of my photography.
So what’s the lesson for the Photograph-ees: You can’t just expect things to happen, you need to be willing and creative enough to put yourself in positions where things can happen, if fate smiles down on you as well.
And if possible pick a photographer that can help play with that fate just a bit more and improve those odds.
I know I did a post with a link to all the pictures from the trip in a recap… but I’ll continue with the 3 remaining days with a post for each
So this is post 12 of 15
Above – Sunrise
Below – Sunset
We did sunrise on the north end of the island and couldn’t really find a good spot so I focused mainly on the sun itself with the waves in commotion.
We found some of our best sunset (in this case twilight) at the south end of Oahu.
Small parks with no one at them that had a good view of stuff in the distance.
It was nice because they had some good palm trees and there were a couple surfers who came in right before dark.
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.
And we begin the post with a nice end of the day shot.
These types of trips you plan on picking a great spot for sunrise and sunset.
Well I think we got ourselves a nice sunset location.
There are a lot of rocky beaches, but this one was a nice sandy beach and I made it work.
Here’s some more stuff from the story of the second day.
This was only a few of the 1200+ pictures taken on day 2 (yesterday)
Cresting over the mountain, the unofficial west island sunrise.
Sunrise on the west side has some nice light but no color like I suppose you’d see if you were actually seeing the sunrise earlier in the morning.
Mid-morning holds some surprises on secluded beaches you get to with your 4wd vehicle
Mid-afternoon can be fun when clouds start participating a bit more.
Clouds block the sun but they’re just about to release their captive prisoner the sun, for that little gap between heaven and earth.
Can you spot where the sun is about to drop down below the cloud level?
Get your butt down in that water, get the camera low, not for the faint of heart, but it’ll make the great pictures.
Ahh the reflections!
Dang it people don’t even think of walking in the path of my picture…
…oh wait… now that I think about it… walk right in front of me.
That’s right, hold hands,… that’s cute!
Thanks for playing.
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!
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