Michele & Solomon's Engagement Session

With my full coverage packages, I offer a bonus engagement portrait session on location. There are several reasons why I do this. First, it lets the couple get a feel to how I do my photography, my posing, how I direct the posing or let them do their own thing.

It lets me see how they photograph. Is there a better side to their face, how at ease are they at creating the poses. I realize there are photographers who let the couple do their own poses which is fine but I prefer to direct the posing so that the pose looks comfortable and has a feel of elegance and flow(even though one may not feel that way when executing the actual pose). There will be times when I will let the couple or the group do their thing while I capture the images but I feel that in most cases, a tweak her and a tweak there will result in better images.

It gives the bride an opportunity to do a trial makeup and hair session with their makeup artist to see if she may or may not want some adjustments for the makeup on the wedding day.

These are images from Michele & Solomon's engagement session. The location is Downtown Honolulu on the weekend (nobody around) for an urban look and on the North Shore of Oahu for a more casual look.

It must be the shorts...

Ok, so I have this pair of shorts that I wear whenever I do a beach shoot and I might be walking in the water. Every time I've worn those shorts, it's gotten soaked by a rogue wave. This session was no exception.

This model is a contestant in the upcoming Miss Hawaii Scholarship Pageant. We were doing a shoot for content to be used in an upcoming advertisement in the Miss Hawaii Program book. She was at the edge of the water and I was up the bank at the edge of the high wave mark. You would think I was safe... WRONG!!!

You can see the sequence as she's posing and the wave is sneaking up behind her. She then gets nailed by the wave. What you don't see and I wish there was someone there to capture the moment in video for America's Funniest Home Videos was that the wave also got me. I'm sitting on the dry sand. After she got nailed by the wave, I felt a lot of water around me. Yup, the wave was stronger than I thought it was and I was soaked up to my hips. Luckily none of my cameras or gear got wet. A couple of things on my belt and my wallet was a little damp but other than that, no problems other than a clammy set of underwear and sand up my pants.

ok, the kid's really getting tall!!!

So I go outside to take a photo and she insists on posing this way. What can I say? Talk about coconut head.



She's already way taller than her grandmother and will probably shoot beyond me this year. She's 11 going on 12 next month. I can still remember when she was sooooo cute!!! Now she's a spoiled brat. But who spoils her? Uncle of course...

Favorite Texas Model

I've been photographing Yesenia (aka Jessie) since early 2000. At that time she lived in Abilene, Tx (3 hours from Dallas) and she drove from there to Dallas to do the shoot. I've also driven to Abilene twice to photograph her. We've also met up in LV as well as shot in the miserable rain. Every time I've photographed her, the hair has been different. She got married after my second Abilene shoot and moved to the DC area. We kept in touch and hooked up again when they moved back to the DFW area. She's a great model and I enjoy getting together with her whenever I'm in Tx visiting my growing niece (photos to come).

Workshop, workshop, workshop

I was involved with a scrapbooking website a while back and disappeared on them even though I still lurk on their message board. I noticed they were trying to do a Get together about the time when I would be visiting my niece (11 going on 22 but turning 12 in June) so offered to do a workshop when I was there.





We decided to meet at the Ft. Worth Stockyards and do things there. I arranged for a couple of models knowning full well that chances are one may flake (that's the average). One showed (even though she got lost and was late) and the other flaked. The one that showed up (Elle Frazier from Model Mayhem) was a trouper and did whatever was asked of her (including sitting on freshly laid caulk that no one knew was there until she stood up and there was a straight gray line on her black shorts on her butt). The group was challenged into shooting in the mid day sun with no clouds. By learning to look for the right light, I think they got something out of the workshop.