So it rains...

My cousin and her family decided to make a trip back to Hawaii during the Holiday Season. I thought it might be a good time to do another family portrait.

So my cousin got everybody to agree (even my camera shy Aunt) and we scheduled an outdoor session the day after Christmas.

As the time for the session approached, the weather started to get questionable. An hour before the session time, we had a major downpour. Well, scratch the outdoor session. Backup plan? Decided to do it at their home, the scene of the annual Christmas party the night before. Had to do some cleaning up but it worked out.

My uncle is the last one remaining of his generation so we felt it would be important to get this portrait done.

If you have relatives in town and the family is together, it's something that I think you should consider while everyone is available.

The holiday season is upon us and it's time for families to get together for a family portrait. This is especially important if you have family from out of town getting together. As my studio space is relatively small, I find it necessary to go on location for the larger families. Here are some of the images that were created this year before and after my back surgery.

This family was photographed in the morning at the Wahiawa Freshwater park. I've been photographing members of the family ever since the daughters were in high school many years ago.













This next family was photographed at the East West Center Gardens on the campus of the University of Hawaii at Manoa. It's always a challenge to coordinate that many people but it's always a lot of fun and the weather cooperated.













My dentist's family at the park in Wahiawa. He was a classmate back in intermediate school and I also photographed his wedding about 25 years ago. I watched as the boys grew up year after year. Now the youngest is graduating from high school.













Way out on the beach at Makapuu. I had never photographed there before (primarily due to distance) so new locations are always fun and challenging for me. Since the mountains blocked the direct sunlight, we had a nice soft light for the portrait.













Finally my special beach on the North Shore. I photograph this family every other year and it's getting easier as the youngest one is starting to listen to us as he is given directions on where to stand and how to pose. It was a small challenge this year but the next time should be easier as he will be older.



















There's still a lot of time to schedule your family portraits over the holidays so call or e-mail us to schedule a session.

We hope you have a Merry Christmas Holiday and a Happy and Prosperous New Year (we're all going to need it).

It's over...

My first full wedding since my surgery. I think it went ok considering how kaka the weather was. Raining the whole time, dark, windy, wet, forget about taking any photos in the garden. They moved the ceremony to a part of the hotel where I never shot before but that was no biggie, it was just a matter of adjusting.

My concern was how could I manage the photography. I was concerned enough to make sure I had two of my associates there instead of my usual one. After I started going, I realized that the only difference was that I had to be careful when I moved around otherwise, it was business as normal. I probably could have done the wedding with one associate but having the second one there made life a lot easier.

I'll have images posted once I process them...

Getting back into the swing of things

Some of you may or may not know but I underwent emergency back surgery on Sept 29 of this year. If I didn't do it, I may have been permanently paralyzed.

Thankfully, the surgery was successful and with ongoing physical therapy, I'll be back to normal in due time. I'm already back to doing studio and location portraits and will be photographing a wedding this weekend, 11/22 with the help of my two second shooters. For next month's weddings (two of them), I should be able to handle it with my usual single second shooter.

I still have to be careful as to how much weight I can lift so my poor assistants will be doing the trucking of the equipment.

Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm on the road to a complete recovery.

The "joys" of having older relatives.

Well, I just put my aunt in a nursing home. She hasn't been the same since she was mugged almost two years ago. Due to her osteoperosis, she fractured her hip in that incident. Since she's never been married (and no kids), I ended up with the duty of taking care of her.

She still has two sisters who are living (my mom and her oldest sister) but Mom has dementia and my older aunt is in a care home so that leaves them out. Her #2 sister passed away a couple of years ago. I have a cousin but he's been taking care of his Mom and works full time and my sister is in Dallas so she really can't help. Since I have my own business, my schedule is a bit more flexible.

She did go into a care home last year while she recovered from her initial mugging but had to go back in at the first of the year because she couldn't take care of herself. Being hard headed and not listening to instructions from her caregiver resulted in a fall which fractured her hip so bad that she had to go into surgery. After surgery, she was put into the Rehab hospital but that lasted about a week because she could not perform her therapy sessions.

Thus she's in a nursing home on a (hopefully) short term basis while they try and get her walking again (at least with a walker). They will continue to do therapy there but on a less rigorous regime.

I know her mind is still good because she is a motor mouth and won't stop talking even though you're trying not to listen. If she shut up without being asked to, I would then worry about her state of mind and her health.

As my Mom says... "Don't get old..."

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.