The O.C.

It's been a crazy, busy month. My wife Denni and I flew the red-eye to LAX and drove into the OC to spend Thanksgiving with my sisters and their husbands. I have four sisters and I am the second oldest. It's been a while since we were all in the same room together and it was great to spend time with all of them. My sis Patty above is facing a health challenge right now and I know she would welcome your prayers.

The handsome older gentleman below is her husband Joe, he lives for golf and of course, Patty.



















This young couple are Steve and Alex, Steve and I were buds and neighbors from Junior High. We spent a morning with them at the Starbucks on the circle in the city of Orange. This is a wonderful place with a great little downtown area. It is so great to get together with friends you haven't seen in a long time and just get caught up on life. Wish I could talk some of them into moving to Maui, you'd think that would be an easy sell.


I took a lot of photos while I was there and I had all the best intentions of getting a shot of me and my four sisters and one of the four of them together. Seems with all the goings on I never got those shots, guess I could have used an assistant with a shoot list.


My sisters have all the old family photographs going way back. You'll never guess who this good looking cowboy is. Some traveling photographer had a good day with this setup, there are photos of all of us on this pony

As great as it was to see friends and family it's good to be home on Maui; L.A. and the O.C. are just a little too intense for me after four years here. Looking forward to the Christmas holiday and a chance to spend time with Ohana here. I miss a white Christmas but I'm getting used to Christmas lights on palm trees, I'll post some of those as soon a I can get to the south side.

Mele Kalikimaka from Maui.

Haiku Weekend

When the weather is this beautiful it's hard not to just pull over to the beach and stay for a while. That's just what Denni and I did after a leisurely breakfast at Charley's in Pa'ia town. We made it as far as Ho'okipa where we stopped to enjoy the sights and people. I spent some time capturing the comings and goings of the beach goers and Denni sat at the picnic tables chatting up Ray while he made a fishing net.

Denni can talk to anyone and
doesn't often pass up a chance
to practice her art.











There was a good crowd sharing the great weather, wind surfers, surfers, swimmers and sun bathers. Not a bad way to spend a Sunday.

Halloween

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What a great Halloween night,
saw so many great costumes all
over the Island. These are
my favorites next to my grandsons,
I'll post some of them as soon as
miss Nikki comes through.






These are my ho'o mo'opuna, Mai and Leilei, grandchildren of my friend Holly, thanks to their Mom Jasmine for sharing them on Halloween.

Makena Cove Maternity Shoot

Had the opportunity (barely) to do my first official maternity shoot this weekend. The lovely Mother to be is Andrea and she is due on Halloween. We have been trying to schedule this shoot for a while and finally came to the realization that if we waited another week it would be a newborn session. We were scheduled to meet up at Starbucks in Kihei at 08:00 so we could shoot at the beautiful Makena Cove at early light when there are usually few people around.

Andrea came with her birth coach Wendy and mom Sherry and we had coffee (Andrea had a Jamba Juice) and set off for Makena cove. There was a large cane burn that morning and while the wind would have usually carried the smoke right to our location we were blessed with Kona winds that carried it to the other side of the island. The morning was beautiful and clear with a slight overcast to diffuse the morning light.


We had the place to ourselves until a small wedding party arrived and they set up on the other side of the cove to give us room and clear background. The wedding professionals on Maui are a thoughtful and considerate group and I've seen as many as five sunset weddings sharing this little cove. The morning light was really good and Andrea's skin was almost flawless which I really appreciated at editing time; do all pregnant women have skin like this? I really appreciate the help they gave me on this first shoot and the ideas I got from a few maternity photog sites I visited.
A big mahalo nui loa to Andrea, Wendy and Sherry.

Makena Cove Wedding

Shot a wedding at Makena Cove, one of Maui's favorite beach wedding spots. The cove is small and secluded with great views and spectacular sunsets. The wedding was for a local couple, the bride Joana is from Lithuania and the groom Sayeed is Nigerian/ Pakistani. With all the weddings I have done on Maui this is only my third for a local couple and they have been some of my favorite weddings.
















The bride had a beautiful gown with great satin accents that really added to the B&W photos.

Hana Hou!

Monday nights you can find us hanging out at Haiku's own Hana Hou Cafe at Haiku Marketplace. Great local cafe with music most nights and wonderful food; Monday highlights one of my favorite local duets, The Hula Honeys. The Honeys are Ginger Johnson and Robyn Kneubuhl and they are accompanied on bass by Jonathan Drechsler.

You never know who might drop in to add to the nights music. Robyn's mom, the beautiful Emma Veary and uncle Henry Allan were recent guests. Robyn always adds a great hula to the nights performance. If you want a little local flavor make a visit to Hana Hou some evening, you won't be disappointed.

The Long Weekend

Spent most of the weekend shooting for the Maui Kidney Foundation fundraisers. Friday night was a great Flashback Fantasy party, I'll let you guess the theme, at the beautiful King Kamehameha Golf Club. The clubhouse is a wonderful Frank Lloyd Wright creation with spectacular views of Maui. Maui's own Jimmy Mac and the Kool Kats provided the music, the food was great and a good time was had by all.
Saturday was The Maui Cadillac Invitational golf tournament. It was a beautiful day temperature wise but the trades had disappeared and the Vog (from the Big Island volcano) set in really thick. Had fun shooting the golfers and being chaffuered around the golf course by two lovely young ladies. They finished off the day with a banquet at the Maui Prince. A great weekend of fun and a lot of money was raised that stays here for the Maui chapter.

UP AND RUNNING!!

My web host Blu Domain gave me a nice surprise by getting my new website live tonight. It was 2:30 in the A.M. in Colorado, I hope their not running some kind of website sweatshop. My web address is the same so check it out and let me know what you think. Mahalo to Blu Domain for the great template and support in getting me live.

WEBSITE READY !!!!!!!!!!!

After a long night and day I finally finished up my new website but I'll have to wait until Monday to get it published. I still have some music and color tweaking to do but I can do that a page at a time as the site evolves.
Just received my granddaughter Meghan's Senior picture today, not too bad for a school portrait Studio but hope I get a chance to do some for her, I'm ready for a trip to California. I can't believe she's a Senior this year.The photo above is one I took of her two years ago.

New Website

Hope everyone is having a great week! Working hard to get my new website up, received the wrong template on the first go round and spent most of Labor Day weekend working on it only to have to re-do everything. I'm really liking the flexibility of the new admin site and all the great things I can do so simply. My new site has lots of options for music, client viewing, galleries, shopping cart and of course links to my blog. I can't believe I have a blog, it will take me a while to get up to speed with posting slideshows and music but I will get there. I have already received permission to use some great music (yes, I try to get permission for music and photos). L.A.'s Molly Marlette is my current favorite, check her out, a very talented young lady.

Maui Music

When I'm not shooting anything else my favorite thing to capture is musicians in pursuit of their passion. One of the best things about this little rock in the middle of the Pacific is the great variety and availability of music. Here are a few of my favs from recent shoots. Check out Anastasia's music, I love it. Photos are of Anastasia at Barryfest and Joi at Cafe Marc Aurel.