Poster – Must See Maui.

The image is one of the posters featured in the new eBook, Maui by Poster, which I launched earlier this month.

The photo itself was taken from my doors-off helicopter tour over Maui during the ’09 Maui Photo Festival and may very well be my favorite image in the eBook. I’m featuring this and a few other posters from the book over at my original Maui blog, Ka’anapali Dreamin’, so I thought I’d drop a few here, too.

If you’d like to see all 24 posters that I created using an iPad, visit the download page over at Daily Maui Photo and grab a copy for yourself. And if you know someone that might enjoy these images, too, please help spread the Aloha and send the link their way, too.

Put Some Aloha on Your Wall

In addition to the free eBook download, a good number of these images are also available as prints over at ImageKind. I was very happy with test prints I ordered, and have heard good things from others that have seen them as well. If you’d like to take a look for yourself, head over to the Maui eBook Posters gallery and check out the options there.

Mahalo, and I hope you enjoy these as much as I did creating them.

– Kris

Photo: Up close and personal with a body check less than 15 feet from our seats.

Sure, fighting gets a lot of attention in hockey, especially in the AHL, but as a former defenseman, I’d have to say the real action is along the boards when you’re defending your own zone.

Call it chance or just an unspoken rivalry, we experienced quite a few more crashing body checks right in front of us in the 2nd row than the previous games. One woman in front of us even received a little snow shower as a stick blade made it higher than the glass and sprinkled the wet snow down on her. Just a little, though.

The Shot

I’ve been working on a shot like this for a few games now, but this is only as close as I’ve come so far. Having the ability to shoot f/2.8 with my rental lens was a big help, but a minimal focal length on the heavy Canon 70-200mm was a little hard to position with. Plus, I was shooting in Full Manual mode, so my shutter speed was one notch too fast to get enough light here.

Timing is pretty key here, too, since these plays develop rather quickly. I think it will be a matter of time and some more luck to get where I want this to be.

And unlike my playing days, this type of practice I sure don’t mind.

– Kris

More Bonus Links

Well, yesterday I shared the Flickr Group links for both these two teams, so today I thought I’d pass on their respective Facebook pages.  Checkout the Chicago Wolves and the San Antonio Rampage on Facebook for fun and fans of the American Hockey League. And while you’re there, don’t forgot to visit my Facebook Page, too.

Photo: A Rampage defender has a wolf in his sights.

Enough with the cute stuff, let’s get to the action!

With our seats so close to the ice and to the net, I was working on a few shots in the near corner as the puck made its way from behind the cage towards us.

Part of me wishes I had the depth of field wide enough to get both players in focus together, but the other half likes the focus on the “hunter” which slightly de-emphasizes the “prey”. Definitely more intensity in the look of the defender.

Let me know what you think.

– Kris

Bonus Links

If you’re a fan of Flickr and want to see more hockey action, check out the groups for both the Chicago Wolves and the San Antonio Rampage.

Photo: A rather odd illustration made on the side of Drew MacIntyre’s goalie mask.

Okay, just this one last almost hockey photo from Sunday’s game before I get into the action shots.  Something about that potato head guy/girl on Drew’s goalie helmet really creeps me out. Of course, I had to snap a shot of it, otherwise no one would believe me.

Remember, I warned you that goaltenders a not like other hockey players.  This is just more proof of that, I believe.

– Kris

P.S.: Sorry for the bad play on words in the photo’s title. If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, say the title again but slow down for each syllable.

Photo: Chicago Wolves mascot Skates lets off the fireworks during the pre-game festivities.

Man was it a great day to be a hockey fan on Sunday. I shot my first of two Chicago Wolves games for this month, and the new lens I rented was a huge advantage over my previous games. Plus our seats were incredible again, with only 1 row separating me from the glass. It’s going to take a few days to get through most of the keepers, but I’m excited.

Go Team USA!

The other reason it was great day to follow hockey was the result of the much anticipated Olympic showdown between Team USA and Team Canada, with the Americans coming out on top for the first time in the last 50 years of Winter Olympic competition. That gives the good guys a bye in the next round, and they’ll be waiting for the winner of Switzerland and Belarus I believe.

As you can guess, the blog posts this week will be hockey oriented, so stay tuned for more action this week – and likely next week as well.

– Kris

Photo: An aerial image of Cana Island near Baileys Harbor in Door County, Wisconsin and the lighthouse that shares its name.

Preparing to be overloaded with hockey imagery soon, I thought I’d bring back a few older photos to add a little variety.  This image is from the aerial photo shoot I did back in October over the coastline of the Door County peninsula in northern Wisconsin. You can read the post behind the photo shoot there to relive some of the challenges I encountered with this particular aerial shoot, but I gave this image another go now that I’m trying out Topaz Detail from TopazLabs.

I’m still getting the hang of some of the options and when to use Topaz Detail instead of some of the presets in Topaz Adjust, so we’ll see how this works its way into my workflow in some scenarios.

Drop the Puck

Time to get ready. First of two hockey games at ice level starts on Sunday, following up with a rendezvous in almost the exact same seats the following Sunday.  Getting excited!

Let’s see how the Canon f/2.8 70-200mm lens I’m renting for these games steps up to the challenge that my existing lens have struggled with.  Here’s to hoping for the best.

– Kris

Photo: The clown fish from the crystal piece “Harmony” of the 2005-07 SCS Swarovski Trilogy.

Since my wife picked up her 100^th crystal piece from Swarovski today – yes, I said 100^th – I thought I’d fish out a photo from the set I shot last year in commemoration. Now, you’re probably thinking a 100-piece collection of these little guys is a lot. We’ll … you’re right.

But keep in mind that Cindy’s going on her fifth year as a SCS Member, and with their annual member pieces and new collections coming out 2-3 times a year, it’s easy to see how it adds up over time.

Photo: Taken at the top of many cliffs during a hike along the northern end of West Maui.

At first this might seem like a typical landscape photo looking into the vast Pacific Ocean. Maybe it’s not even that interesting during an initial flyby when flipping through a stack of photos. But there’s a few things I like about this shot that I wanted to share.

• Look down there, tiny little people. Both at the very bottom of the image and down by the water – just below center. Goes to show you just how high up we were.
• See that peak there just before the giant volcano in the background? That’s Kahakolua Point, which I also captured later that same week during my helicopter tour. I thought that was pretty neat that you can see it from here.  Check out this map on Flickr to see just how far about these two points are.
• And of course, the volcano on the horizon. Okay, it’s only the dormant volcano Haleakala and not something spewing giant amounts of lava. But it’s intriguing to me that you can see it in the distance from so many places around the island.

So, maybe this image isn’t going to be hanging up on someone’s wall anytime soon or may not get attention from too many others, but every now and again, I like having images that I personally find interesting or share a special meaning only to me and a few others.

That is sort of the point, right?

Photo: Looking at the tops of the West Maui mountains while cruising out on the water.

One year ago today we were on our way to Maui for our most recent 2 week stay on the Valley Isle.  This shot was taken during the dinner cruise we signed up for near the end of that visit.

While a winter/spring trip wasn’t in the cards this year, it’s always wonderful to revisit photos from our previous trips to keep us motivated to save up for that next trip.

Photo: The Hawaiian flower lei I gave my special wahine for Valentine’s Day.

Ever since we first caught the Aloha Spirit in 2006, we try to keep it around us as much as possible. Few things can bring that magical island feeling back like a fresh Hawaiian flower lei.

We’ll order them from time to time, usually from hawaiian-leis.com, and while they usually only last a few days, the memories they bring back are well worth it.

Wait ‘Til Next Time…

This particular lei was a surprise V-day gift for my lovely wife, and I only had about 30 minutes from when it was delivered to when we came home – talk about cutting it close!

That didn’t leave a lot of time for me to set everything up for more thorough photo session. I almost wish I had a macro lens or had switched to my 50mm f/1.8 instead, so the next time we order these little floral gifts of Aloha, I may be better prepared.

I did take a few smaller bracketed exposures to play around with the Super Resolution technique I’m reading about in Photographic Multishot Techniques from my book list earlier this year. I honestly never knew it existed and haven’t tried the software yet, but at least I snapped the necessary shots to experiment with.

If it works out, you’ll probably be seeing this image again in the near future.

– Kris