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.
Dustin wanted some pictures while we were traveling around in Hawaii.
One evening after sunset (twilight) I decided I could take a break and do some.
I laid the flash on a few rocks pointed it in a direction and told him to stand in front of it.
I walked around him shooting pictures and doing some different poses.
After a while I realized I didn’t have move at all… he stood in the same spot the whole time and I just moved around and adjusted my settings.
In fact the flash stayed in the same spot on the same settings the whole time.
I did have him jump in that spot so at the end he did move a little.
Just goes to show what you can do.
Here are some examples
To change it up I shot through things.
Shooting away from the sunset/twilight made things much darker background obviously.
There were many many pictures taken that day, but I was able to skim through them and pick out some of my favorites so I could do a recap here.
It’s gonna be a long post because I have lots of pictures to share.
And also a few words about how to make every wedding this great.
Perfectly planned
I really had a great time doing this wedding.
Being in Hawaii certainly didn’t hurt.
They were also a great looking couple, had a great family, picked a wonderful place for the wedding and reception.
They had everything planned out very well and that makes my job so much easier and makes for better pictures.
So if a future bride is reading this.
Please note that it just doesn’t naturally happen with no effort.
What to do?
This bride seemed to almost plan the day around wonderful picture opportunities.
From the fans and the parisols the brides mades used to flying her stylist over from her island.
She seemed to pick the location based on her own estimation and advice from the hotels as to which one had the best photography spots.
And she picked well.
So therefore… pick a great place to get married or time to travel to a spot on that day.
She even organized the banquet/reception to end in time to have her be able to do photography at sunset.
Most people seem unwilling to do that sometimes planning a reception during sunset.
Perhaps it helped since she had a captive audience since 70 people flew from another island.
I can’t and won’t just pull you away from whatever you’re doing to get sunset pictures.
But I will be willing to do them if that desire comes from you.
I’ll do my best to take amazing pictures. But if you aren’t willing to go the extra mile with a smile… well… you understand.
She got tons of pictures during the reception that she will be using for several projects that would have not been possible unless she had 2 people helping organize those shots. I could have done them but not effeciently in the time that it needed to, because we had the help of others to cut down drastically on the time and have me simply doing the shots, what I do best.
Besides she planned a banquet/formal reception which allow for better pictures than a “lined” reception.
The program allowed for great pictures as well as the nice decorations.
Finally they were troopers.
I pride myself in making the shoots fun and creative.
But they were more than willing to make the pictures happen.
Those who are more interested in and excited about pictures will more often get the better pictures.
We photographers feed off of that energy.
They didn’t just wait for instructions (slowing the process down) but they put emotion into their pictures.
And they acted quickly to help utilize effectively the short time we had.
I’m not saying they were the best actors or characters I’ve photographed. In fact I did most of the ideas, but it just happened that I was on a roll. but I think their attitude played a big part and the way we interacted.
Never once did I hear… “But I’m not photogenic”, or “I don’t look good in pictures”
It’s our job to make good pictures and I’d like to think I do a good job and everyone is always pleased, so if you just trust us and just relax and have fun.
Remember we thrive with the emotion of the moment.
Having tons of time to shoot isn’t the key, it’s a team effort to act effectively with the time given.
(Above) Two poses they made happen entirely on their own. The prep dancing they didn’t even know about.
The photographer and those being photographed should both be creative together working to make things happen.
The emotion and feeling of the picture needs to flow from them.
I tend to put them in the poses that match the mood coming from them and from the light of the day.
Even though I scouted out the location in advance to see what could work, we still were open to any possibility that night.
We had to roll with the time and situation given to us.
Just exactly how the light would be hitting at the moment we passed by the location we were walking around.
And it all went down perfectly. And part of that perfection comes from moving fast and taking advantage of every picture we had time for. But not limiting ourselves to expectations of pictures and then not having time to make them happen.
Having wants and desires is great but we need to be able to roll with the flow and settle for the best pictures possible.
If she had wanted a picture that took 20 minutes to travel to or create then we would have missed out on soo much.
There was trust that I would do my job but it wasn’t a blind relience that it only depended on me and that the subject didn’t have to do anything nor did they even have to care.
Hawaii sure didn’t hurt, nor did their good looks of the bride and groom, nor Dustin assisting me that evening with lighting and bags.
And creating and inviting to more opportunities is very helpful.
But the moral of the story is… It’s partnership of creativity, we all work together to make great pictures.
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)
Props to the bride for not only being willing but more than happy to go out to the stinky gnat infested waters of the Great Salt Lake.
And to her Mom and two sisters and niece that came to help.
And to my wonderful Intern Heidi who braved the swarms of mosquitoes that came out about 5 minutes prior to this shot
Annika (the bride) had no problem going out into this little area in her beautiful wedding dress and in between being sucked dry by mosquitoes she even posed and smiled.
Now for the exciting part…
Usually I spend a good 10-20 seconds editing pictures… but I was happy to see with the great lighting and flash assistance from Two directions
There was NO Editing on this picture.
(It makes me happy to be able to say that)
I didn’t have time to really even review pictures because we had overstayed our welcome with the blood suckers. So I was just hoping things would be in focus.
And to top it all off it was pretty much the very last picture of the night. Huzzah
I kinda wonder what we could do to it if i do decide to edit it…
what a beautiful sunset and what a beautiful bride.
I will post the rest when i get to them i suppose… but for now back to the weddings from a few weeks ago.
It was amazing because it was my first ATV / 4-wheeling adventure.
It was Alaska.
It was 10hrs long and I saw sunrise and sunset and only a couple hours of dark.
I came back so dirty from dust and stuff… I thought that was pretty cool.
I went straight from the ATV ride to airport… no shower or nothing. That was funny.
And besides all that the pictures were kick butt!
I have gone a lot of places this year and I don’t think I’ve edited very many if any of the landscapes, being so busy with Job shoots.
But i took a break from all those shoots to sit down and have fun with these edits.
It took a lot longer than wedding pictures take, but pulling an all-nighter helped.
I did a lot of work on these so I want to show them all off… but I can’t here on the blog so you’ll have to see them on SmugMug
This was early morning on the way back.
Sun was finally dipping behind the mountains. I shoved my camera down on the ground in front of these plants and hoped for the best. haha
Sun was barely coming back early early in the morning.
We were in a rush that morning to get me back to my plane… but I had to make a few stops on the trail to get these.
Kind of bummed the ATV acceleration is done with my camera hand, makes shooting while driving much harder than in a car. haha
This actually wasn’t the ATV trip, it was right after when we went to return the ATV
Taken with me half way out of a moving truck shooting opposite direction over the fields.
FYI: Camera was set to cloudy White Balance for the warm feel and the shutter speed way up since it was a moving vehicle.
This is what they were talking about when they wrote of Purple Mountain Majesty!
New places and new faces.
So while i might continue to be willing to do weddings for a long time… but I’ll be putting in more time with the traveling as the years roll by.
And for me I’m not the stay in one place and get the perfect picture type.
First of all because I’m not trying to make a living selling prints.
But secondly because I’m more of a Documenter at heart.
I just want to take pictures of everything
I am more interested in documenting, above wanting the best picture possible.
And I respect the person that will stay in one place for hours searching for the best shot.
It’s just not me… I document. And hopefully I bring out the art and beauty while i do it.
So perhaps let that be a lesson… it might not be the perfect light or perfect situation.
Sometimes it’s a matter of sticking around until it is… other times it’s a matter of dealing with it and getting the best you can in the situation.
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