........and I couldn't make it up north because of school. Laaaaaaaame. At least we got to watch the final heats in my Regional Analysis class.

Congrats to Greg Long!

Late Sunday night, I ventured up to Waimea bay to camp on the cliffs and hopefully watch the 25th anniversary of the Eddie Aikau Invitational. We scored an epic spot, right on the side of the road, and threw the sleeping bags in the back of the truck.
Unfortunately 4:30 am brought with it a pretty steady stream of precipitation, and all three of us scrambled into the tiny of the cab for the rest of the morning.



When dawn broke, the massive surf was already here. Hundreds of people were already lining the cliffs and roaming the beach, waiting for the 7am announcement if the event was to go or not. Annnnnd.........not today. Not clean enough apparently. Still, plenty of huge surf rolling through. Hopefully Eddie goes tomorrow!

Looking back at the calendar, it's hard to believe that I've been done with my classes for almost a month now. Whoa. Never the less I've been keeping busy over on Maui, away from the hustle and bustle of Honolulu, and academic life of the last 9 months.

Even though it's summer time here, we were lucky enough to get some late season north west swell energy on our shores during the last week of May. I decided to load the housing up and go for a swim out at Ho'okipa while a couple of my friends were out sailing.

After surfing all morning, and windsurfing all afternoon, I had the energy left in my to swim and shoot for all of about 20 minutes. Not only was I busy ducking waves, but Jace Panebianco and Kai Lenny seemed hell bent on running me over on their tandem board as well. Ah well, not much to show here but some water shots and some tandem sailing carnage.

So I'm finally getting around to updating again. I'm not going to say I've been super busy on Maui, as that would imply that all I do is work...let's just say I'm trying to balance out all my time spent studying this last semester with time spent surfing and windsurfing now.

The last wedding I shot over on Oahu, at a private residence in Kailua specifically, was so personal I felt like I was part of the family being there. The ceremony was on the beach, performed by someone who obviously cared about their practice, infront of a small group of family members. After, the reception and partying was done at a private house just walking distance from where the couple said their vows. All under gorgeous blue skies

Lots of fun, lots of smiles, lots of dancing, and a great evening. Congratulations.

I have a friend attending Art school in Florence, Italy, organizing an art show for the middle of June. Somehow, she seemed to think that some of my images were actually more than just a bunch of bright colors and cheesy compositions, and wanted to display a few. Cool with me. Here's a glimpse of some of the shots that may or may not appear in the show. Hopefully we will see how the whole thing plays out in the next couple weeks.

peace!

April 23rd was the wedding of Jackie and Siggy, an Australian couple that decided that the North Shore of Oahu was the perfect location for their ceremony. I came along again as a second shooter, covering the groomsmen, other details, and unfortunately on this day, holding umbrellas when it was raining. The location, catering, and design were all amazing, but the weather was a bit, "misty." Funny I never thought my gear would get wetter at a wedding than when I take it out in the surf.

We made the most of it though, and things turned out great, not to mention that everybody in attendance was amazingly photgenic so that made my job easy.

And.... I'm pretty sure I was witness to one of the greatest first dances in disco history.

Stoked for you guys, congratulations!

Believe it or not I was spending another afternoon chained to my desk and text books when I happened to look outside. "Wow, this is looking like it's going to be quite the sunset," I thought to myself.

Photographers tend to refer to the hour before and after sunset as the "golden hour," where the lighting is more or less pretty stellar. For landscape photographers this is where 90% of money is made.

Anyways, I snagged the trusty tripod, camera, my favorite 12-24mm lens, a set of GND filters and took off to the beach. Most of these are at 12mm, f/8 and some where around 10 - 30 seconds. Even had a couple frames where I had to snatch the whole setup off the ground before it was washed away by a rogue wave. Fantastic.

Worked again recently as a second shooter for Julia Sieber @ Sieber Studios. She immediately relates to people and seems to have an innate ability to bring out the photogenic side in people. Check out her work, amazing stuff.

Liz and Kevin had a beautiful wedding up on the North Shore, right on the sand at Ke Iki beach. You could not have asked for a more picture perfect afternoon and evening. The priest was about and hour and half late, but nobody seemed to mind too much (Hawaiian time, 'as why). Congratulations guys!

I'm getting ahead of myself here I know. I still have windsurfing and wedding stuff to post, but...whatevers.

Woke up super early the other day, (don't ask what got into me) and drove out to Sandys. Weird pulling up to an empty parking lot when it's usually bumper to bumper, door to door jam packed.

Sat around and watched the (crappy) surf for about half an hour, 5:45 to 6:15, and almost didn't bother to get in. Sun came up at 6:30 and the lighting started to look a little bit better so I figured what the hell, might as well go for a swim since I'm here. Loaded the camera in the housing, double check everything, and in we go.

Swam for about 45 minutes and managed to get one, half way decent image.

Oh water shooting. So frustrating, and yet so fun at the same time.

While spending the week on Maui, I met up with a friend of mine who was on vacation from the Netherlands. He'd been bugging me for a headshot for his personal website, and being completely worn out from an epic day of windsurfing at Kuau, I cruised down to the place he had been staying.

Real simple stuff here, natural lighting on the first one (right). Used a reflector and a bit of tweaking in Lightroom for the second one (left). Didn't even have to bounce light from the sun here, just used his shiny head. Thanks dude!

Oh ya, can't forget to thank the best assistant in the world, my dog Rocko.

School has kept me busy. Real busy. Living on Oahu has put me into sort of a weird state this last 9 months. I went from living a lifestyle where I was on the beach, and in the water, almost every day, to living in the city, windsurfing or surfing maybe once a week at best.
Don't get me wrong, academics are important, but it's still been a challenge to adjust to. Midterm week was stressful, but the thought of spending my spring break with friends and my crazy dog Rocko, gave me some much needed light at the end of the tunnel.

Midterms finshed on Friday morning, went straight to the beach for a quick surf, shot another wedding with Julia Sieber on the North Shore of Oahu on Saturday (more on that to come), then hopped a plane EARLY Sunday morning to Maui.

Monday I met up with the Hot Sails Maui crew and did a flatwater/freestyle photoshoot with them and some of their new equipment. Owner Jeff Henderson had the awesome idea to have me shoot from a 10' inflatable innertube/trampoline, anchored just offshore. Naish Sails was doing their flatwater shoot just down the beach, and watching world famous photographer Darrell Wong swim around all morning made me feel guilty about how little effort I really had to put into it.

After lunch, we decided to head out a little further, so team rider Omri dragged me out half way to the reef for better wind, where we shot for another hour. Shooting from the trampoline in the morning was great, but being down in the water swimming next to the sailors gives quite a different perspective. Although it's tougher to keep your lens port free from stray water drops, the angle makes small chop hops appear as if they were 15 feet off the water. Fun fun fun.

I had the pleasure to shoot with Kim Long and Robin Lamarca recently. By recently I mean almost three weeks ago now. Just goes to show how far behind I am with editing and posting, but I've had a busy week on Maui of windsurfing, and shooting windsurfing, almost everyday.

Anyways, real simple portraits here, one light up high and off to the side, one light on the background sometimes.

And my favorite shot? The side view of Kim, shot by Robin. Always inspiring to hand somebody else the camera. Get's your head out of the box.

Wish I had more room to shoot full length....oh well. Thanks girls!

Crazy busy here.... Did a shoot with a couple beautiful girls on Friday night, followed by an island wide surf expedition on Saturday, shooting everything from lower east side to Waimea. Wrapped it up with a good friends 21st birthday day that night, and that left Sunday for....sleeping, editing, homework, and coffee. Lots of coffee.

Still digging through all the shots, but I have midterms and labs and tests and... ya. Lots this upcoming week. Here's a one of my fav's so far, more to come later this week!

My good friend Luke came out to visit for a couple days recently. Saturday we decided to drive up around the Windward coast, something I hadn't done yet, and wow, what a beautiful stretch of coast. It gave me a chance to shoot some landscape shots which I haven't done in quite a while.

After cruising up and around we stopped for a rainy, uncrowded surf session at a spot called Freddies. (The picture is just down the beach a bit at Backyards) Super fun and uncrowded. When is this winter weather going to pass? I haven't seen the sun here in forever!