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:
The rest of last week's vow renewal. I know they're no real facing front poses...I have those....but these are my favorite.
I had another wedding on Wednesday but it has been postponed until Wednesday. Oh, boo. Well, maybe more sleep for me. I'm back at work tonight after a lovely weekend (more to tell you later). I'm feeling pretty good. I slept in and watched little Haley for a little while. And when she took a nap, I took a nap. Lovely. Scott is more than a little jealous that I got to sleep so much He's making up for it as we speak. Haley was adorable...she has the cutest toothless smile with all gums. That's my day in a nutshell. We also bought a new mini-fridge...the old one makes a constant thrumming noise that bores into my skull. I think it was giving my fish a complex.
I think I mentioned it already, but Scott had a request to do a surprise vow renewal. Never heard of a surprise vow renewal? Well, neither have we. Ross, married for 6 years with 2 kids and one on the way, was taking his wife on a long-anticipated vacation to Hawaii. He emailed me asking if we could help him organize a surprise vow renewal for his wife. He wanted to give her the beautiful wedding in paradise that she never had. It was completely sweet. Scott was in Japan most of the time we were corresponding and only came back the day before. Ross and his pregnant wife, Jeannine, were actually vacationing on the Big Island but were coming to Oahu for one day and one day only. So I forwarded my phone to Scott's phone the day of the event because I would be sleeping during the day. When I woke up, Scott told me that Ross had called. I had been wondering when he was going to tell his wife about the vow renewal. I figured he would when they arrived in Hawaii or even just that morning. You know, give her some time to process and prepare for it. Turns out his plan was to take her to the beach and propose to her all over again right before we arrived. Hmmm, I told Scott "She's either going to love it or she's not going to take the surprise very well."
It had been raining all morning so I prayed for the weather and it was perfect afternoon with a soft sunlight falling on Waimanalo beach. We saw Ross walking on the beach and we introduced himself. I told him I thought I saw a woman in a convertible that I suspected was his wife. His response "oh, the crying woman? yes, that's her." Oh.
She did not take the "hey, surprise, you may've been sightseeing all day, you're hungry, you have raging pregnancy hormones, you're tired, probably feeling like you need to take a shower...but we're going to have a surprise ceremony and take pictures that will last forever." So, initially, Ross told us that she really didn't want to do the ceremony or pictures and was having a tough time. Scott and I felt so bad. We told him it was totally okay to cancel but we would stick around in case they wanted to just take a few pictures to capture their trip to Oahu. We were more concerned that he cheer her up so we told him that we would just cruise on the beach and they should go for a walk along the shore together. This husband had such good intentions, I mean, his emails raved about his wife and how he wanted to pull out all the stops and give her the best day ever. We womenfolk can be complicated. Scott didn't quite get it but I understood and I hoped she would start to feel better. So, Scott and I sat in the sand and talked story and twenty minutes late they came over together. She was such a trooper. We offered to just shoot a few pictures but she actually wanted to have the ceremony after all. She was so sweet. And, he was obviously still head over heels for her after all these years. He was constantly gazing at her and kissing her forehead. I love kisses on the forehead... I wonder why. So, there was a happy ending. Thank goodness.
Yesterday, I prepared for the switch to midnight I stayed up til four in the morning and slept until noon. I wished I slept longer because it would be 27 hours before I would get to go back to bed. I worked midnight shift last night and had some laughs at some drunk car thiefs in the cellblock. I have to take pictures to help use as identification photos and that includes taking pictures of identifying marks like scars or tattoos. One slightly intoxicated kid turned and pulled his shirt off his shoulder to let me take a picture of the tattoo...when I had to lean in and inspect it closely before putting my camera down and informing him "Sir, that's not a tattoo, that's just a drawing with pen." *sigh* There's this show on Tuesday nights on channel 5 called "Jail." You should watch it, you might have a lot more sympathy for officers.
Besides that, I was dragging the whole night. I was fighting to stay up on my way home from work and I still had 8 hours to go. At nine, I was up at Hope Chapel finishing up the staff photos with the staff that just returned from a trip around Europe. Actually, it was awesome because the adrenaline woke me up. It's such a rush. I'm checking the display, the light, trying to find different angles. Plus, they're such a fun group, I just had to get them talking to loosen them up and then they were making each other laugh with jokes and stories. This is a sample of the shoot, sweet Auntie Colleen. I actually had to work hard to get her to stop talking to Uncle Al over my shoulder and to look at me. Apparently, according to her husband and Pastor Ralph, she broke a few hearts in Italy. Of course, I am a believer.
Kind of reminds me of those "got milk" commercials.
We just booked a small destination wedding on Thursday, actually, a vow renewal. We don't have too many vow renewals. Scott had his first vow renewal about two months ago and he came home beaming, he loved the couple. He was re-inspired by their love and their dedication to each other after years of being together. So, I was really fired up when I received an email from Ross. He's been married for four years and he's taking his wife on a well-deserved vacation to Hawaii. He came up with the idea of giving her the wedding in paradise that she never had as a surprise. Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever heard. They are actually vacationing on the Big Island but are visiting Oahu for the day. For selfish reasons, I'm also getting so excited to take pictures. Wedding season slows down after summer's ends and I miss the thrill of photo sessions. I wish it was Thursday already.
The past two days, my mantra was "If I can just make it to sunday afternoon...If I can just make it to Sunday afternoon...If I can just make it...." You get the picture. Well, it's sunday afternoon and now my mind is confused and rambling "...now what?....now what?...."
I'm so mad I couldn't find my video camera....I have no idea where it is. This is when I need Scott because he always seems to know where my stuff is. We had our rehearsal for our children's worship team and I wish I could show you a video. I keep calling them the "choir" but they're actually called the AllStars Worship Team. Can I first give props to my angels, Kevin and Joy!!! I mean, Joy's a little more obvious as an angel but you might as well stick a halo on Kevin's head and glue some wings to his back because he was an angel today. Kevin ran the sound which means he set up and broke down all the sound equipment (even helped me carry Scott's amp from the car). Joy was my kid-herder and gave me constant feedback. Scott wasn't here so I had to play the guitar which put me on the stage behind the kids so I kept having to yell "What does that sound like, Joy?"
It was a loooonnnggg rehearsal. I think they're a lot better with the mics than they were at the Mother's Day Rehearsal. And Joy gave me a lot of ideas because my whole vision went out the door, it was just too complicated. So we tried four different ways and then we just made a line. A line. All my plans (I even drew a formation diagram) and we're just making a line. *sigh* But the simple way is so much easier. And Kevin, what would we do without Kevin? He's always so willing to help and always with a smile.
Come to church next weekend to see their performance: Try come on Sunday, Friday might be a rough one since it will be their first real time.
Be careful, if you open the door and say "hey keao, what do you want to do?" I'm most likely going to jump on that opportunity and involuntarily sign you up for a beautiful hike through a hot and muggy forest. With Scott being 55% complete with his trip away in Japan, Abbey has been offering to keep me company while he's gone. Hah, little did she know what she was signing up for. I think she partly expected leisurely hours spent window-shopping or friendly girl talk over coffee (I hate coffee)...nope, she asked...and I said " all right, let's ZUMBA!!!"
So Monday we went to the latin music inspired exercise class "ZUMBA" (you have to shout it everytime you say it) at hope chapel. We managed to survive and Abbey even attended on Wednesday....hey, hey I see a future ZUMBA instructor. Today, I took Abbey and Joy(see her blog for more pictures and her side of the story) to the other side of the island to my favorite hike on the whole island, the Manoa Falls Hike. When I went to UH, I used to go up and do this hike on just a whim any time I wanted to see some beautiful natural wonders. I convinced them it was an easy hike...which wasn't a total lie, it is considered a beginner level hike. It starts with a beautiful open field in the beginning, then it leads you through the forest, you wind through a bamboo grove, before you finally end up near a tall waterfall emptying into a placid pool of water. See, *sigh* doesn't it sound dreamy.
I agreed to drive because the only downfall is that it is not the most safest of places to drive your car. I was willing to risk my ride. It was definitely a muggy day, it was hot and humid. I remember I used to run this trail in college for exercise...I am definitely not in that kind of shape. Luckily, we took a lot of photo and "oooh" and "aaah"-breaks.
(just the beginning of a bit of stairs and climbing)
(the real waterfall is much taller but this one is just as cool)
(this one is not focused well but the light is so pretty)
(my favorite picture of the day...a bamboo heaven!!!)
(They were such good troopers...they even sat on wet mossy rocks for me. Thanks girlies!)
I met Abbey in my couples minichurch. We've met so many cool new couples. Kelli started a tradition of preparing a dinner for us so we can fellowship before minichurch and now we've all started to chip in as we jump in on the trend. My friend, Leilani, and her minichurch have wonderful traditions as well. But, besides just hanging out, they have moved into doing something with more purpose. Inspired by the amazing acts of kindness we saw in this movie called "Lord, Save Us From Your People," their minichurch was moved to mend the problems we walk by sometimes in our daily lives. They are creating and organizing a benefit dinner with a silent auction, and ALL of the proceeds are going to the River of Life Mission. They've created a website with more info (www.hopechapel.com/livingthroughfaith). Please check out information on how to purchase tickets and donate services/gifts for the silent auction. And send the link to friends and family!!! I'm so amazed at their passion and determination to create change.
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