I'm still working on my last wedding's batch but Halloween is tomorrow and I couldn't resist a quick foray into Monday's shoot with Miss Haley. It's her first Halloween. Liz brought over in this adorable outfit with striped stockings. She can crawl now so she's mobile and it makes it a little more challenging to keep up with her. Boy, I love the stage where they can sit but not crawl.
Next time: Photos of Haley in her costume.
I dragged myself to work tonight. I slept for about 2.5 hours and then drove to meet Russell's very hapai wife, Sarah, for my first ever attempt at maternity photographs. It was shaky in the beginning because there was a viscous blanket of vog (sorry, Joy) covering Kaneohe. But, I got just a few that I think I love already but will have to wait until next week to really look at. And did you know that I could not find those little wooden blocks that have the painted alphabet letters on them. I saw a lot of photogs use them as props so I ran to Ross before the shoot. Nope. Running late, I ran into windward mall to check out Kaybee Toy Store. Nope, they don't have. I even tried the small little specialty kids store in the mall. Nope. I was so surprised. I thought they were a classic.
Then Scott and I drove separately to Waikiki for Keiko and Derek's wedding rehearsal. I had to come back to Kaneohe early for the Hope Chapel Women's Worship Night for this Thursday's worhsip night on Kailua Beach. Stanton, Scott, and I are supposed to sing Keiko down the aisle...and we have never really practiced together and Stanton is on the mainland right now. I should have known better than to think that I could sing with Scott and get through the entire song. While we were just running through it for practice, I noticed that he plays the guitar great during his part...when it's my part, he gets bored and starts doing dramatic pauses before each strum. Then he even just stopped and mocked my singing and asked if I planned on "singing it with soul" on Saturday. I almost stormed off. Well, it ended too late to make it back to the worship practice so I went to the rehearsal dinner and had a fun dinner with Justin and Megan, Tracy(Scott's childhood friend) and Emily, and Kelly and Eric.
I showed up at work completely prepared to tell Johnny that I was useless for the night and not to expect too much from me...oh, we already had a case waiting for us. So we had to immediate jump in the cars and drive to...Kaneohe...a place I'm very familiar. In fact, it was a scary-a*% wooded area on the corner of Kahekili and Keahala (my church is off of Keaahala). Now, amongst my high school friends, it's the running joke that everyone from high school recognizes me everwhere we meet up. So, it's pitch black, we're carrying three flashlights between the six of us...and I'm reminded that even turning thirty...I still look the same. There were some bystander standing on the side of the road and one of them came up to talk to the officer..I recognized as her my old neighbor from Kailua. I figured she might not recognize me because I'm in a different setting, it's dark, I'm wearking work clothes. She said "Hi Keao" without hesitation. Then, we had to call the fire department out to come help us and here comes six firemen stomping through the woods. One guy starts beaming when he saw me (and I'm seriously standing in the woods in a dark corner behind the floodlights)...I thought it was just my good looks. He came over and excitedly asked how I was doing. I thought maybe he knew me from church. Back at the squad cars, he came over again to talk story and asked "You know who I am?" When I'm tired, I'm real honest. "No" So, he mentions that I graduated from Kamehameha in '96. I introduce myself (kind of stupid since he seems to know who I am)...and he still has not given out his name...there's some silence and then he finally gives me his first name, Josiah. Ah, I recognize the name...I never would have come up with that name on my own but I was able to pull his last name out because he was the only Josiah in my grade. Damn it, I suck at remembering people. Plus, he looks completely different. I, apparently still look like I did when I was fifteen, just chubbier, and will always be recognized.
I love going to church on Friday nights. I've been trying to pick up my one and half year old niece, Lauren, every Friday and take her to church too. But this past Friday, I was so exhausted from lack of sleep. I took some melatonin when I came home in the morning and slept from nine in the morning until Scott woke me up after he came home from church at 9:30 pm. He had a wicked, gleeful smile on his face and woke me up by saying "guess what, Keao, you've been ousted." Our friends' youngest daughter, Aliya, has always stolen our hearts. Not only is she adorable, but she is super loving and sweet. We've always gone crazy over her from when she was a baby and Pua has nicknamed me "Auntie Mama." Scott always tells me that if he goest to church without me, Aliya's first sentence is "Where's Auntie Mama?" I think he gets a tad jealous. SO, he seemed a little too excited as he pranced around the room and told me that I was ousted. He said Aliya has replaced me and now only asks "Where's Lauren?" Oh, she's Lauren's friend. So cute. I don't mind.
Trying to catch up...when you pray for rain...better be happy when it pours. Here I've been struggling to find work and practice for my photography and photoshop processing skills. And, the month of October has offered multiple weddings. As soon as I finished with one wedding, it's already time for the next one.
I had an assistant for this wedding, I corraled Joy Pishcura into accompanying me and second shooting. It was awesome because we could get different perspectives at the same time. i hope that one day we can go into business together, I've heard a lot of wedding photography businesses are married couples, but Scott is pretty happy in his pastoral job. I think Joy and I could come up with a business name like "Joyful Light Photography" or "Joy and Light Photography." (My name means light in case you were wondering). This couple was Shannon and Robert from Alaska. Hey, I've been to Alaska. I joked with them that I'm from Hawaii and went to Alaska for my honeymoon and they did the exact opposite. Shannon gave me these beautiful moments when she laughed and I caught her giving this look right at the camera. Looking at the pictures, it made you feel so included in their intimate ceremony.
Look who I caught being all profesionall photographer-ey.
The following photo is courtesy of Joy Pishcura
I don't know what she whispered to the bridesmaids but I'm still curious
The following photo is courtesy of Joy Pishcura.
A hawaiian lei ceremony.
What? Is it picnic time already? I think there might be something else in there.
They also released two butterflies that flittered around and landed nearby. So beautiful.
there's that over the shoulder glances that made me feel like she was sharing a secret with me.
The friends and family of Shannon and Robert, married October 20th 2008 at Ko Olina.
I smell like the ash at the bottom of a firepit at camp. Last night, I had to go to the scene of a fire at the preschool at Central Union Church on Punahou Street. It was overnight so no one was present at the time of the fire. Apparently it took about forty firemen and two oceans of water to put it out because there was a nice lake in the rooms when I got there. I wear crappy shoes to work and they are pretty absorbent so they sucked in all the ashy water and I was squishing around while I took photographs. We're supposed to be issued galoshes for this reason but the never issued 'em to me. My shoes dried out but they still smell like the remnants of a campfire. Not a horrible smell so I guess it will just fade away. When I got there, there was tons of firemen roaming around rolling up their hoses and cleaning up. The Det. joked "Hey, Keao, look at all these young strapping men here for you to look at." I replied "No way!!! I'm married. I can't look.......too slowly. Just a few quick looks and that's it." None of them can compare to Scottie!!!
Here are photos from my third wedding. This one was at Ko Olina...I had absolutely no clue that if you walk to the right when facing the lagoon, you would find these beaches that people use for weddings. Apparently, everyone else on Oahu knows because during this wedding, there was another wedding going on, two brides/grooms and their photog shadows were clambering on the rocks behind us as well as two more couples having their photographs taken for what I assume are their engagement sessions. Crazy. The sun was going down towards the end and created this eerie blue cast in the photos which I actually really dug.
the maid of honor
I should crop the following in more...I love these bouquet shots but I don't love the headless look
Oh, she started to tear up during her vows...so touching. It reminded me of Scott bawling his eyes out during our wedding....aaaahhh
the following is a merge of two photos, one underexposed to get the sunset merged with one exposed for the beaming couple
The following is probably my favorite shot...like ever.
This morning we took Charlie to the vet and discovered that he has to continue wearing the cone for an unspecified amount of time and now we have to change his foot bandaging every day. *SIGH* And then I went to "Pinky's restauraunt" in Kailua with Scott, Joy, and Abbey. Mikey, Stanton, and John came and met us after work. I think some of us were more there for the opportunity to eat appetizers. we had a fun round robin where tried to order a different appetizer every quarter (or more every Funaki interception). The restaurant was a little empty when we first got there...shocking for two on a Friday afternoon. But it filled up fast. We sat at a table surrounded by three tvs and there were some people at the bar watching a high definition tv. We figured out that there was a slight four second delay when we would start yelling at an unbelievable catch or tackle and the ten heads at the bar would whip around to look at us. Oh, sorry...i guess it's kind of like shouting out what's going to happen in a movie. So, we tried very hard to delay our yells and look over to the bar's tv to see when we could lay it out....I tried to just yell twice to throw them off and Scott was just yelling for no good reason.
Watching TV: there is on scary infomercial for a product called "Smooth Away" a crystal covered pad that "smooths away" unwanted hair. That looks scary.
I do want to buy that "peticure" thing though...that infomerical has me sold.
I mentioned in my earlier post that I had three weddings in two days. This was the second wedding on that Friday at Waialae Beach. I had charged up my canon batteries overnight but I forgot that Scott keeps the power strip off to conserve electricity...so my trusty canon died as we were gearing up for the second ceremony to start. Horrors. Fortunately, we just got new digital cameras at work, a very nice higher-end Nikon digital camera. It's going to take a while before we can actually use them at work, they have to come up with protocols for usage and photo submission, and then with training, so our boss told us we could take it home and practice with it. It just has a stock lens but man, it still takes great pictures. It saved my butt.
It was kind of a hurried day so I never even found out the second couples' names. So I walked up to the bride, held out my hand and said "Hi, I'm Keao...I'm your photographer for today." She shook my hand and said "Hi." Darn it, no name. I moved on and walked over to the groom and tried again...again, I was met with a "Hi, nice to meet you." Darn, no names again. So, I had to just hope I would overhear their names, and I called them Liz and Noah the whole time, only to find out his name was Noel. Ooooh, so close. Photography Tip #2: Always find out their names...their correct names. Hee hee. She had beautiful skin and this red hair that was gorgeous. I wonder if she ever dressed up as the Little Mermaid. They even had a dove release in their ceremony and I made sure to up my shutter speed super high to catch the birds. It caught them perfectly still...I almost wish I could play around with the shutter speed so that I could get a little blur on the wings to show movement. hmmm, maybe i can convince Scott to catch me some birds and then practice releasing them one at a time.
this is the the type of shot I see on a lot of photog's shots...the urban bride look
So, while trying to drum up business for Scottie, who is a licensed wedding officiant (it's hard times, got to work everything you have), I inadvertently got myself a part-time gig with a local wedding business who help with small destination weddings. It's a great opportunity for me to get more experience and build my portfolio. And I had to jump in this past weekend by doing three weddings in two days. The ceremonies are short so it isn't as outlandish as it sounds.
The first two weddings were at Waialae Beach which I've never been to. Apparently, I drove past it maybe twice in my life. I had no idea this place was such a hotbed of weddings. I got there a little early and as I was waiting on a picnic bench, I sneakily took some shots of the wedding party as they relaxed under the pavilion. Only to find out later, that wasn't our couple. There were at least three other bridal parties that walked by. Our couple was from Germany and they had such cool accents. The groom, Mario, had these amazing blue eyes and he had this beaming smile. Of course, I was mainly focused on the bride, Sabina, who was pretty radiant herself.
Pray for me, peoples. Well, my shift at work is naturally the smaller shift and we're even shorter this week so I'm working by myself tonight and tomorrow. So, far it's not that bad, I get to blast the music as loud as I want. But, I have three small quick weddings to do in the next two days. Um, I bought a camera which is coming but now I have to work hard to get money together for it. So, I have two small ones tomorrow afternoon and then one Saturday. I'm going to sleep so good on Saturday, and then Sunday is my birthday!!!
My dad (on the Big Island) has no phone so he is now forced to try to learn to use the email I set up for him a year ago. And he has sent a whopping three emails to me that consisted of about 4 sentences each. It's a work in progress. In gmail, you have the ability to chat with your contacts who have gmail also and are logged into their gmail. So, Joy Pishcura came over this afternoon and I was talking to her, I looked down and saw that my dad had logged onto gmail. I know email is foreign so this whole IM/chatting thing is going to be hard for him to grasp so I try to ease him into it...here are some clips from our brief conversation:
me: hi dad
click in the little box and type to talk to me
the little box here down in the right corner
or click on my name and chat away
Sent at 4:28 PM on Thursday
James: Hi ,_____ are you there
me: yes, hi dad
Sent at 4:33 PM on Thursday
James: How come I can't hear you me
(I don't know quite what he means...let's jump ahead...and let me explain, that like all instant messengers, you can set your gmail status to availabe or away or busy or a custom message...)
James: You should be working? How come it says in the chat box on the left that your sleeping.
me: i was sleeping
James: How does my computer know that?
Oh, so adorable. He thinks his computer is a real example of artificial intelligence.
Scott already beat me to the punch by blogging about it. But I had to take Charlie to the vet this morning. He had what the vet thought might be a tumor on his toe and the vet removed it on Friday. He had stitches and has to wear a cone for at least 2 weeks. He's really depressed about it. We try to take the cone off when we can watch him and but the cone goes back on for the rest of the day. Yesterday, Charlie figured out how to still reach his bandaged foot and he chewed through his bandage and on his foot a little...so gross. The vet was closed yesterday so she said to rebandage it for the time being until we could bring him in and to extend his cone to prevent him from doing any more damage. So, the only thing we could find in our house was the folders that you buy photo paper in. We made sure that we really EXTENDED THAT CONE OUT.
Oh, boy, I am dying. Friday night (or morning), I got a call for a case exactly one hour before I was ready to leave for my weekend. So I had to work overtime and there weren't my idea of getting a nap to get ready for my busy day. Scott and I helped Ronnie and Robyn move from their Kaneohe home to a place in town. So, by the time I got home and showered, it was four in the afternoon and I couldn't stay awake. I slept until eleven pm Saturday night and I've been up every since (3:18 pm and counting). So, my sleep is all jacked up. Actually, it's fine if I was working tonight but I'm not. So I stay up all night doing laundrey and roaming ebay, not a good idea to do at four in the morning. Well, I bought a camera...one I wasn't planning on buying for another year. Things seem like a real good idea when it's four in the morning and no one else is up to talk to but the dog (who has a plastic cone around his head and only three functioning feet at the moment). There's more the the ebay story but I'm not saying and neither is Scott (warning eye).
So, I'm falling asleep but I'm trying to stay up as much as possible. I had to cancel on a birthday dinner for Kelehua...i'm going to miss out on all the fun. Hey, my birthday is next week Sunday and you're invited to my party. Uh, huh. Jasen guys are out camping and I didn't even get to go. I didn't think i could drive out there in the middle of the night.
Last weekend, the kids I work with in the Hope Chapel AllStars Worship Team performed on stage for all five main services. It was a doozy. I'm tempted to post pictures and videos but I'm technically not supposed to. They have really strict policies in the children's church. so, instead, these are some storyboards we created with toys in the children's church off. We have actual video clips but I also took still pictures.
My two favorite girls posted another youtube worship video...they seem to just hunker down in their dorm stairwell and spell out beautiful harmonies. You have to watch the videos in succession:
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