So as I was making updates to my original Maui website and stumbling upon some of the first photos I even took back in ’06, I couldn’t help but stop and reflect on just how far my photography has come in these past few years.

Mind you, I don’t do this for a living or even anywhere near full-time yet, so the learning curve for me started out a little slow only because I wasn’t really shooting that often. But now that I’ve really stepped into my element, my life motto of “Never stop learning” has kicked into full gear and now I’m writing posts like this one you’re reading now.

Back Then

You hear professional photographers like Rick Sammon using catch phrases and giving advice like “don’t take pictures, make pictures” and “make great shots, not snapshots” all the time. Some may sound more cliche than others, but when I first started off back in ’06, I couldn’t even name any professional photographers or instructors, let alone recite their catch phrases. I was the blind being led by no one.

As green as I was back then, and knowing what I know now, it was obvious that I was merely taking snapshots.

To visualize, here’s a snapshot I took with a point-and-shoot camera of the Lahaina Banyan Tree in Maui back in ’06.

A true snapshot, by any definition of the term. And ignore the fact that a photo like this has 1,500+ views on Flickr (although it was uploaded 4 years ago) – that’s a topic for a later time.

I won’t even begin to go dive into the specifics as to what’s wrong with this shot. And that’s fitting, because there really wasn’t much being considered when I took it all those years ago. I just didn’t know any better (not an excuse, just a fact).

The Now

Skip ahead to the present day, after years of self-teaching, a few workshops, and lots of practice and experimenting. Skip ahead to when I’m now making images like this one from last month’s trip to Maui.

For the sake of comparison, it’s an image of the very same banyan tree I shot in the snapshot above from ’06. Only this time, quite a bit of thought went into the final image before I started shooting. All because of what I’ve learned.

For example, I scouted shots under this gigantic tree for about 10 minutes before I started shooting. For this particular image, I knew right away that I wanted a high dynamic range image, and being in the deep shade of the tree, I knew I had to bracket the shot with multiple exposures and combine in post.

Next, I started going through things like my ISO settings, white balance, depth of field, and shutter speeds. All these things I now not only knew about, but could quickly and easily adjust on my camera with no thought whatsoever.

The Perspective

Quite a big difference, eh?

I’m very proud of where I’ve been able to get to with my photography, even though I still realize I’m merely scratching the surface of where I want to go. But by looking back at where I started, I come to appreciate all that it’s taken to get me here, and a sense of accomplishment for sticking with the journey it has become.

Having this bit of perspective comes up more often than you might think. Take, for example, my first attempts at shooting portraits. It started off with quite a bit of frustration from the very beginning. Factor in the idea of using on-camera flash, then off-camera, and needing to learn an entirely new set of terms, settings, and best practices. It gets overwhelming rather quickly, and the first instinct becomes: “I just won’t shoot portraits”.

But then, I take a pause, remind myself that this is only the beginning and not something which will come overnight, and I take a deep breath. I stick with it, and then my ugly, throw away images early on in the learning cycle eventually start to become keepers. The more practice, the more trial, and the more error that comes with it. Just like another popular catch phrase I hear from time to time: “If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not trying hard enough.”

Coming to terms with knowing not every shot every time is going to be perfect, and that learning is a process that isn’t instant, some of that frustration and those overwhelming feelings begin to calm.

Having a Positive Attitude

That same perspective manifests itself in other situations, too.

Another example, for instance, is when I go look for inspiration and ideas on Flickr from other photographers. It usually starts out with…

I love this shot!

…and then it used to go straight to…

I’ll never be able to do that.

By seeing my progress over time, it now follows a different path. Starting with…

I want to learn that.

…which is quickly followed by…

I will do that

…and then finally,

I can do that.

And that’s where all this perspective begins to stimulate more accomplishments and build more confidence. Had I been as focused on learning and striving to improve back then as I am right now, it definitely wouldn’t have taken me as long to get to where I am today.

But like anything else, you can play the “what if” or “if only” games – they’re just a waste of time.

The Lesson

The takeaway from all of this, for me, is two-fold.

First, as I’ve spelled out above, it’s an internal motivator and keeps me grounded. It pushes me to step out of my comfort zone, push my boundaries further, and learn from (and to make) my mistakes.

Second, it’s become more of a teaching point for me to use, too. Whether I’m showing somebody something I did in a particular image, providing feedback to someone’s images or questions, or just talking with someone who’s currently going through the same angst and frustration that I remember having.

If I can try to teach someone the path that I have gone through to get here, then the quicker they can learn to work through the frustration, set proper expectations for themselves, and then get to that point faster where they’re reflecting on their early work with their latest accomplishments and seeing the ground they’ve covered themselves. Being able to help someone reach that level of confidence and overcome whatever adversity they may be facing, at the end of the day is pretty darn rewarding.

The End Game

And to that end, it ends up not being about whether my image is better than someone else’s image or has more views or “Likes” the another image. Instead, it grows into an introspective view of whether I’m happy with my own work, and where I want to improve, and then going out and working on those improvements.

The rewards then become internal to yourself and your personal accomplishments, and not the awards or flair that others send your way. And when you’re happy with the work you can consistently deliver, and you can apply that to the most special memories in your life or the lives of others, you smile and know it was all worth it.

Thoughts?

Thanks for following along on my little philosophical journey here today. If you had any thoughts, comments, or stories of your own to share, please feel free to leave them below.

– Kris

Haleakala Crater lit just after sunrise.

Back Story

This image was captured last month during the 3rd Annual Maui Photo Festival as part of their Haleakala Sunrise excursion. It is actually an HDR image created from 3 exposures and using Photomatix Pro. At first glance, it might not strike someone as the type of image people think of when they hear the term HDR. But here, I used multiple exposures to capture detail in the clouds as well as the crater below – which would have not been possible in a single exposure due to the range in highlights and shadows created by the intensity of the newly risen sun.

Here, I wanted to get as much detail as possible, so I shot at f/16. I could have framed the shot without the sun, but knowing that such a small aperture would give me a starburst effect (I was playing around with earlier in the trip) I waited to get enough separation between the clouds and the sun and placed it in the corner of the shot. Of course, it also gave me a bit of lens flare, but I didn’t mind.

Stick Around, It Ain’t Over

This was my 3rd Haleakala sunrise, and just like the previous two trips, right after sunrise, the summit and lookout points go from being shoulder-to-shoulder crowds right before the big moment, to a sparse group of folks right after. I don’t know what everyone’s hurry is, there’s still more to see (and shoot) than just the sunrise.

Better Next Time

I did want to fill in some of the foreground rocks, but my attempts with using a fill flash came up fairly lame. In hindsight, had I brought along my 32″ 5-in-1 reflector with me instead of leaving it in the hotel room that morning, it may have given me a better result than the flash. Something to try for next time.

One Last Note…

Hopefully this goes without saying, but never, ever stare at the sun through your camera’s viewfinder to get a shot like this, or any other sunrise or sunset image. You’re only asking for trouble.

For this and my other sunrise shots from the crater, I have a tripod setup and was using the Live View mode on my LCD to frame the image, switched back out of Live View (to activate autofocus again), and used the autofocus focal point selector to pick my focus point. Finally, I had a remote shutter release to fire off the brackted shots (remember, I was shooting for HDR).

Net result, I wasn’t staring at the sun through the viewfinder. Please don’t learn this the hard way.

The mountains along the western edge of Maui between Kihei and Lahaina.

Back Story

Although I have quite a few aerial shots from the doors-off helicopter tour from the Maui Photo Festival, this one was actually taken from the plane before we even landed on Maui in the first place.

Normally, I only have my smartphone camera or a point and shoot within reach while we’re sitting on the plane, but not this trip. No, thanks to my new camera backpack, I was able to stow my camera gear right at my feet and have my trusty Canon 5D Mark II right at my fingertips.

And although there’s still having to shoot through those dirty airplane windows, and the fact that there’s no room for a zoom lens (had my 24-105mm here, shot at about 58mm according to EXIF), I still it came out pretty well.

Oh, One More Thing…

For my helicopter shoots, I make sure to have a circular polarizer so that I account for the sun reflecting of the water below. That was my mindset here, too, but I was getting some bizarre color reflections from the plane window. It’s probably verifiable with a quick Google search, but my guess is that the window was already polarized or something like that, which meant I lost about 60 seconds of shooting while I had to take of the polarizer on my lens.

Live and learn, I guess.

Water streaks in the water off of Ka’anapali resembling a cartoon whale.

Back Story

This is another aerial shot taken during the Maui Photo Festival and Workshops in August.

We were just leaving the Ka’anapali resort area and I looked down and saw these jet skis and other watercraft making these lines in the water. I was focusing on getting in tight with the watercraft and keeping just a little bit of the shoreline in the frame, and at first I didn’t see anything special about the pattern they were making.

Later, when checking out the shots on the LCD during the drive back from the heliport, I noticed it looked like a cartoon whale, with the base station in the middle there as part of the eye. A whale spotting in August in Maui, who knew?

So what do you think, do you see a whale in this picture, or was the altitude and the wind from the doors being off getting to my head?

Two large trunks of the Lahaina Banyan Tree.

Back Story

First of all, this tree is huge. Check it out in Google Street View if you haven’t been there before. Believe it or not, that’s all one tree, as the branches of these banyan trees will actually bore their way back into the ground to form what looks like different trunks.

On our last free day in Maui before the Maui Photo Festival officially started, we spent some time in Lahaina for lunch and a little shopping. We took a break from the afternoon sun to enjoy the shade of this 150+ year old tree, and as we did, I took a stroll around looking for different shots to compose. Since this beauty of nature is typically too large to get in one frame (at least other than an aerial) I’ve seen a lot of people shoot underneath the tree itself.

That’s what I was going for here.

And because you’re in the shade, and there was various amounts of light peeking through the tree above, I went ahead and bracketed my shots at +/- 1EV stop and put this image together with HDR in Photomatix Pro.

Skimming the top of the water at Ka’anapali Beach.

Back Story

Another shot taken during the golden hour sessions at the ’11 Maui Photo Festival last week.

This was my first real attempt at capturing a motion blur shot, although I had read about the technique a few different times. It took about 10-15 minutes to get the hang of it, and the fact that it was first thing in the morning helped with the lighting and not completely blowing it out.

It was fun trying, and after about 30 minutes I was able to get this shot here. After I was getting the results I wanted, I called it a wrap and headed back for breakfast.

I think the next time I get to shoot a hockey game – either for the high school or one of the pro games – I might give this another try.

Strolling along the sand with the water washing ashore.

Back Story

This shot was taken during the day one golden hour shoot at the ’11 Maui Photo Festival.

Check out a few others from the shoot in my complete review of the festival last week.

This time last week, I was fighting exhaustion after waking up at 2am in the morning to make my way up the top of Haleakala for the sunrise as part of a Maui Photo Festival excursion. That exhaustion stuck with me for most of the four days of sessions and events. And I relished every minute of it!

The 2011 workshops was my return to Maui after attending the inaugural event back in ’09 (check out my ’09 review if you like). And after missing last year, it felt really great to be back at it again. But let’s get down to business with this review, shall we?

Here We Go

If you were following the blog here before the event last week, you may have already read my post on the sessions I was planning to take. If you’re new to the blog (Aloha, thanks for reading) or hadn’t seen the post yet, give it a quick look. For the most part, I was able to stick to those plans without my head exploding with knowledge.

As a returning MPF attendee, I already had a pretty good idea of what to expect and how to prepare myself ahead of time, which really paid off. There’s usually one or two tough choices you have to make about conflicting breakout sessions or whether you think you’ll need a break or not, so planning that all out in advance can help elevate some (not all) of that stress. And yes, breaks are key – I found out that the hard way the first year. Just like visiting the island of Maui, there’s not enough time to see everything the first time you visit, so don’t think you have to try. With these sessions, pick the ones that you’re interested in the most, and take a break to let it all absorb, to network with other photographers, and maybe go shoot a little on your own.

And lastly, don’t forget to shoot! Yeah, those early golden hour sessions are tough for us non-morning people, but that’s why you’re there. Shoot, shoot, and shoot!

Opening Reception

The first night was great for me – mostly because I met up with some of the photographers I met two years back and have been following along with on Facebook. I also got to shake a few hands of people I had only known online and was meeting for the first time face-to-face. That’s pretty neat.

The opening night presentation was mostly focused on some of the sealife and underwater photography of Jim Tierney & Michael Sweet. The whale shots are always my favorite, although my wife is also fond of the honu as well. It was interesting hearing about the underwater whale shots, since federal law prevents you from diving in the water with those magnificent creatures. The luck quotient of shooting blind like that sort of evens itself out when you’re able to spend weeks and months out on the water during whale season – a perk in itself that made me extremely jealous.

Day One Golden Hour

The first golden hour shoot was for Natural Light Portraits with Judy Host and Lou Freeman. And right away, I was enlightened by a few points:

• As a photographer, you’re not allowed to complain about waking up before sunrise to do a photo shoot – especially when you’re working with a model that has to get up even early than you and has to look gorgeous on top of it. Better suck it up.
• I may very well be the master of “model blinking” portraits. Better start using that continuous drive mode.

Kidding aside, other than staking out my spot in the sand along with 20 other photographers, it was a fun shoot. It was also the first time I was shooting a model and not one of my family members or friends, so that had a different feel to it for me. Our model, Danielle, was a real trooper, and while I’m still going through some of the photos from that shoot, here are a few I can share with you now.

To wrap up my thoughts on the morning shoot, I have to say it was fun working with natural light again since I’ve been teaching myself studio lighting for the last month or two now. So having one less thing to worry about was good.

Thursday Keynote

The first keynote of the workshops was island photographer and artist Randy Jay Braun sharing his thoughts on the Art of Landscape. His analogy of ping-pong balls bouncing around in his head was rather intriguing, and a different take on my own situation – which is usually the too many plates spinning scenario. Anyway, it really made me considering the fact that I haven’t been putting enough focus or thought when going out and shooting landscapes. His three classifications of photographs caught my attention as well:

• the “I was there” shot,
• the “Oh, what a glorious sight” shot,
• and the “OMG, I want to be right there, right now” shot.

That really put things in perspective for me, and has inspired me to retrospectively go back and look at some of the shots I feature at my Daily Maui Photo site, and review the correlation between the number of FB Likes and Comments, and retweets I get based on the classification I would give the photo.

The other part of his session that really opened my eyes was slides on emphasizing design over composition. He then proceeded to cover seven design principals and seven design elements, and then the ping pong ball analogy really started to make sense. But seeing how successful Randy has become and seeing photos of his gallery on Facebook – although I haven’t had the pleasure visiting it in person – you know he’s really on to something.

Well done, Randy.

Doors Off, Don’t Do Look Down

I had already posted on my Maui blog about how psyched I was about getting to fly doors off for the second time at this year’s event, so there wasn’t much sleep the night before. Flying with Stacy Pearsall and Andy Dunaway back in ’09 was a great experience, and prepping to go back up again was even better.

But I really don’t have to say much about how awesome an opportunity this excursion is, since a few photos will tell the story for me:

Sure, it’s a little pricey, but I’m hooked. If you do get the chance to shoot during this excursion in a future Maui Photo Festival, you won’t be disappointed. Just be sure to same me a seat, yah?

Day One Sunset Shoot

The official sunset golden hour session for the festival was a Maui Swimwear shoot on the beach. But if you’d like to hear and see more about that, you’ll have to find another review.

Instead, I was traveling with my own models – my wife and our 9 month old son – so I decided to do a sunset shoot of our own.

Remember what I said earlier about taking breaks, not trying to do every single session, and getting out to shoot, shoot, shoot. Well, I meant it.

These shots might not have been part of the festival curriculum, but don’t forget, you’re on the single most gorgeous island in the Pacific (in my opinion, anyway). Make sure you take a few minutes to stop and enjoy it!

Day Two Golden Hour – Rise and Shine

Friday was another early morning, and I this time it was really early. I was part of the brave crew that signed up to go to the Haleakala Summit as part of the true golden hour excursion. It was my third time making the early morning drive, so I was well prepared both mentally and physically. I think I came closest to guessing the temperature when we arrived at the summit, too. A chilly 42F. Altogether now…Brrrrr.

The first year I attended the workshop, there were about 10 or 11 of us and we were treated to a mini-bus and a local tour guide driving us up to the summit to shoot. This time around, we were split up into two vehicles – with Zane driving one group and Andy and Stacy leading the other. I was with the latter, and I have more to share on that in a moment. It had a different feel to it with not driving up with a tour company, but having someone like Zane and his 30 years on the island (I think that’s what he said) and a few other professional photographers joining us, I feel it was for the better.

Onto the photos. During the ’09 Haleakala sunrise shoot, I had my mind set on a self portrait that actually came out pretty well. If you were browsing the MPF website, seen some of the signs at the event, or even picked up an issue of Maui No Ka Oi magazine last summer, you might have even seen it already. Yup, that’s me up there.

How was I planning to top that?

Well, I had another great idea for a composite shot, but that required us to have made the drive all the way up to the top most summit lookout and arriving about 30 minutes earlier. Neither happened, so that visualization still only exists in my head. But despite that, being up that high for the sunrise and getting to capture such a great moment is always an event:

Again, if you get the chance to sign up for the Haleakala sunrise in a future festival – or if you go on your own on vacation – it’s a great experience. Even if you’ve seen it before, no two are ever alike.

The Drive Down the Volcano

Now, for that second part I alluded to about driving with Andy and Stacy during the sunrise excursion. The fourth passenger in our vehicle was Stacy’s sister, Meggen – a registered nurse. So what, you might be thinking. Well…

About 5 minutes after leaving the summit and heading back down, we got to drive through the clouds covering the road – something I hadn’t had to do in the previous two times on Haleakala. Very cool. About 2 turns after that, we ran into a minor traffic jam caused by a bicycle accident. Turns out there was a small group riding their bikes down from the summit when one of them took a spill and was pretty banged up. Lucky for him, he was (a) wearing a helmet, that saved his life, and (b) the fourth car behind him (ours) had a nurse in it.

It only took a few moments for one of the park rangers to drive down from the summit, address the scene, and get traffic flowing again. And while the other van that Zane was leading headed back, our group stayed behind with Meggen helping until the medical team could arrive. All told, the four of us were pulled over along the side of the road for about 45 minutes until help arrived.

Now, one could have understood getting a little frustrated and dwelling on what they were missing out on by being stuck on the mountain. But keep in mind, I was doing much better than the guy that cracked his helmet into two pieces, and (again) I was on Maui. Just being up that high on the volcano, looking down at the valley, breathing in the fresh, but chilly air, and not having to rush to another workshop session or race to my laptop to edit photos was a very welcome change of pace. At least for me, it was one of the put-things-in-perspective moments.

Shooting Photographing Children

Back at the workshops, it was time for me to attend another one of Judy Host’s sessions. This time, it was Photographing Children of All Ages.

Now, I don’t really see myself photographing children of all ages just yet, but seeing as our own little guy will eventually be all of the ages Judy covered in her workshop, I figured it was worth attending. The classroom portion of the session consisted of a slideshow of Judy’s favorite images and the thought process behind them, and the second half was going out and shooting a few volunteer children ourselves.

One of the things that Judy emphasized in her portraits was not having the children look like they were being posed. And in some cases, it was more of a matter of letting them do their own thing and just being there to capture the moment. That resonated with me because I have been trying to do a combination of both with our son, trying to get a few candid shots whenever I can.

The flipside, however, was when we had the chance to shoot the volunteer family as part of the workshop, they were posing for the most part. A few photographers that submitted photos managed to get images of the children between poses, but I imagine there’s not much you can do for 25 photographers trying to shoot “candids” of three young sisters.

Switching Roles

In addition to the three young sisters that were modeling as part of Judy’s session, there was also a mother and her newborn daughter there to pose as well. In fact, it was actually one of our friends that we met back in ’09 and was also a photographer as well. In fact (again), she actually shot vacation portraits for my wife and I pack in ’09.

We had kept in touch on Facebook over the last two years, and there was a brief period that her and my wife were both pregnant at the same time. Since her daughter was born, we’d been admiring her adorable baby photos on Facebook, but this time I had the chance to photograph mama and baby myself.

I enjoyed the irony that I was shooting portraits of the photographer that took our portraits two years ago. Seeing that we were friends with her and her husband, and that she certainly knows her way around the digital darkroom, I put the raw images I shot during that session on a thumb drive and passed them on so she could keep and edit any of the ones she liked. Yet another reason why it’s so cool to meet and network with other photographers on Maui during these workshops – you might actually get to watch their children grow up.

It’s Hula Time

Now, onto the signature event of the Maui Photo Festival and Workshops – the Quintessential Hawaiian Photo Shoot: Hula on the Beach at Sunset led by none other than Randy Jay Braun. It was this same event back in ’09 where I first started my hand at shooting portraits, and honestly surprised myself a little at the time. I was a little excited about getting to do this session again, now that I had a little more experience with portraiture.

I don’t recall all the details from the ’09 session, but the shoot started at 5pm, which felt a little too early. For starters, the light is still pretty harsh that early in the evening, so to compensate, Randy and team brought all the dancers in the shade at the nearby beach park. That worked great for the lighting, but it also meant that all the photographers were crammed in and bumping shoulders (and random speedlights) at the same time. After about 5 minutes, I started to get a little turned off by the crowd and spotted another photographer that had already retreated further down the beach and was shooting the unusually large waves that were crashing along the shore.

Again, that’s another great thing about these workshops – if something isn’t working out for you, you can make it your own!

I spent about 20 minutes shooting and dodging the waves with Diane – who was attending the workshops from neighboring Oahu. It was very enjoyable to talk story with other photographers and building those relationships. Not something you really see advertised for workshops like this, but if you take a moment to introduce yourself and make a few new friends, you’ll certainly be rewarded for it.

Later in the hula shoot as the sun started to set, the groups started to break up and I did manage to get a few shots of my own. Here was the one I liked the most:

I think for only taking a handful of shots during the session, coming away with an image like that is definitely a victory.

Yet Another Maui Sunset

While the other photographers were framing their sunset shots with hula dancers during Randy’s session, I was off on my own looking to capture the sunset from a different perspective.

Night Two Presentation – Maui No Ka Oi

Even though I had been up since 2am for the Haleakala excursion and hadn’t had the luxury of napping like my son had been doing, I still wanted to attend the Maui No Ka Oi magazine presentation to cap off the evening. After all, you can always sleep on the plane home, right?

It was pretty neat having the editor, art director, and one of the photographers from the magazine (of which we’ve been long time subscribers) there to talk to us. It was interesting to here some of the design aspects that the art director looks for when choosing images for covers and placement in articles and spreads. I was also extremely envious when the photographer in the presentation mentioned he had done over 100 helicopter shoots. Holy crap, I could only dream of having a job like that and the imagery that I could be collecting with even a fraction of those shoots.

All told, it was a nice end to the evening.

Day Three Golden Hour

If you’re still reading this by now, bless your heart. I really never imagined this post would get so long. Mahalo!

Anyway, one of the benefits of waking up to drive up the volcano is that no matter what time you wake up the following day, it still feels like sleeping in.

That was the case when we headed down to the beach on Saturday at around 6am to shoot some action shots of local skim boarders riding those particularly large waves I mentioned earlier. There was only about 15 of us or so, and a lot of beach to share – which was refreshing. Also, the air was so cool and still that early, which felt good after all the hours out at sunset this trip.

At first, I started cranking up the shutter speed to get one of those freeze action shots of the young guy about 2 feet from his board, and that took all about 10 minutes to capture. After that, I started going for something along the lines of a motion blur shot by slowing down the shutter and tracking him across the water as I made the exposure. That took a little bit longer to master, but it was a fun pursuit.

After about a half hour, I had a few shots like the one below – this one being the better of them – and decided to quit while I was ahead and make my way back to the hotel for a little breakfast with the Mrs.

Speaking of motion blur, it’s usually about this time where you start to feel like everything you’ve been attending so far has gone by way too fast and you can’t believe it all ends the next morning. There’s also that contest deadline looking at 8pm that day, and you notice the attendees break into two camps – the ones that start to frantically edit their shots and the ones that start to relax and take in the rest of the day’s session. Fortunately for me, I fell into that second category this year.

Portfolio Review, Classroom Style

Remember before when I said I was happy to be coming back and to know what to expect during these workshops? Well, the Portfolio Review session was no exception.

I found this session extremely helpful back in ’09, and certainly had it circled on my agenda for day 3. For me, it was not only helpful to have my images critiqued and receiving honest feedback from someone that does this for a living, but it was also extremely beneficial to see images from other photographers and hear those critiques as well. Classroom style, just like it sounds.

Another change this year was the photos I was submitting for the review. Back in ’09, it was a series of landscape shots I had taken over the years up to that point. This year, it was portraits of our young son over the last few months. I complete 180 from what I doing two years ago, and something I strongly wanted advice on.

I already posted the portfolio images I submitted in this post here, but reposting a few couldn’t hurt, right?

I wasn’t as nervous as I was in ’09, because I personally felt I had done a good job with the images I was sharing. There were a few things I knew I wanted to improve on, but hearing those tips re-enforced from a professional was great. Plus, I wanted to get an objective opinion on these shots, because the friends and family members I’ve shared these with are more concerned about how cute our son is rather than the shot itself. I guess I can’t blame them, he is pretty adorable.

Final Presentation – Personal Projects

Aside from those feelings of “I can’t believe this is the final presentation already,” I couldn’t have imagined a better final session than the Personal Projects presentation by Stacy Pearsall to close things out. Hearing her story behind the Veteran Portraits project not only put things into a different perspective, but also was eye opening on how doing something for yourself and others always has a chance of growing into something you couldn’t have imagined.

While I have had my own personal projects in the last year or so – none of which are well documented here at the site or of the magnitude of what Stacy is doing – it does have me thinking of different ways to keep me focused, keep me shooting, and looking for ways to help others all at the same time. Now, if you’re running a workshop like this one and at least one photographer is walking away from the final session with thoughts like that in their mind – you’re doing something right, for sure.

The Awards Ceremony

When all the sessions an workshops are all said and done, the final morning and the awards ceremony is always fairly laid back. Personally, I try not to dwell on the fact that it’s time to check out of the hotel in 2 hours and have to head back home, but more on seeing the great images from all the photographers shot this week, getting to see faces and new friends one last time, and reflecting on all the images I get to work with when I get home. Okay, that last one might seem daunting at times, but it helps you through those “I miss Maui” moments.

I certainly don’t envy the job of the judges for these types of contests when you have such talent all in one room and images from all sorts of a categories. I do like the fact they added an honorable mention award to the mix (don’t remember seeing that in ’09) for the different categories – no doubt a sign of how difficult their choices are to make. But at the end, they do come up with their favorites from the bunch, and they’ve already put them into a slideshow that I’m able to share below:

Final Thoughts

I imagine I don’t have to say much more than I have already, but it should be pretty clear that I’m a huge fan of these workshops. I admittedly haven’t attended too many other workshops to have a strong comparison to make, but I have visited Maui half a dozen times now, and when it comes to locations to shoot, I’m addicted to this lovely island. Getting to combine my passion for photography and my admiration of Maui is a perfect pair, and if you haven’t had the experience of seeing Maui for yourself, it’s well worth the trip.

There are so many people that put their heart and soul into this event all year round, and I’d love to name them all right here. But I’m going to save that for another post, since they really deserved to be called out separately and not at the end of a long review like this one.

As they say in Hawaii…
Mahalo Hui Loa, and A Hui Hou!

Which means…Thank you very much, and see you again soon!

And that’s really what sums up these workshops for me. I’m so grateful to be able to attend and I can’t ever wait for the next one to come around again.

And thank you for reading through this entire review, which I hope you have found helpful if you had not yet attended one of these workshops and are considering attending next year. If you were at this year’s event and wanted to share your own opinions, links, photos, you name it, please fire away at the comments below and on Facebook. The more feedback and suggestions, the better.

Aloha for now,
– Kris

The sun sets along Maui’s west coast as a dinner cruise ship approaches.

Back Story

Admittedly, it doesn’t take much to grab a great sunset like this on Maui, with only a little bit of help from the clouds and mother nature. It’s really more about spending the time to scout a good location and something to frame the shot with, and deciding whether you want to go warm or cool with the sky.

Still, I have a big thing for palm tree silhouettes (more on that in a second) and in the process of shooting that night, I found myself shooting next to an older gentleman from Arizona trying to capture his little digital memory of the golden moment. We started up a conversation, shared a few of our camera settings while the light was still just right, and then spent maybe another 20 minutes afterwards just talking story (as they say in Hawaii).

Although the Maui Photo Festival hadn’t officially started yet, and this person wasn’t an attendee, it was great to already be sharing stories and taking about camera gear and creative tastes with another photographer. Something I probably wouldn’t have done a few years back before first attending the workshops in ’09. That’s a pretty neat change, for me.

Those #MauiSunset Photos

The other reason I wanted to get a few good sunsets this trip was to help support the #MauiSunset Catalogue project that I began earlier in the year. The concept, unbeknownst to me at the time, started two years ago when I begin using the #MauiSunset hashtag on Twitter. I even wrote a post over at my Maui by Photo site trying to help spread it’s use at the time.

Fast forward to about this time last year when I formally re-branded my Maui photo day calendar to the Daily Maui Photo website that exists today, and the creative juices started flowing.

Not long after that, when trying to come up with ideas on how to expand to more than just one Maui photo a day, it occurred to me to have a Maui sunset photo every night. Well, short of relocating to Maui (a whole separate topic altogether) I had to rely on others to help source those special, magical moments every night. At that point, I decided to head over to Flickr and create the #MauiSunset group and start inviting photos that I found on the service.

From there, I put together a simple catalogue page that lets people browse different sunset photos by the night they were taken. There’s over 250+ photos so far, and even though it’s not as real-time as one could wish for, it’s been a neat little experiment to put together.

Now I just need to get sometime together to help promote it and get the word out. So if you happen to be still reading this, would you care to help?

Christian’s first steps into the ocean at Kam III in Kihei, Maui.

Back Story

Over the Fourth of July holiday, we tested the waters – so to speak – at my cousin’s pool to see how our son would take to the water outside of a bathtub setting. That didn’t go too well.

Two months later, it was time to see if the ocean was a friendlier setting for him, and although he appeared a little unsure about what was happening between the waves and the wet sand below his feet for the first time, it went much better.

Seeing that he’s only nine months old and will have no recollection of his first trip to Maui last week, this shot will be the ultimate keepsake of that experience for when he’s older and well versed in the beaches of the Valley Isle.