Rolling with the punches....

Yesterday.........well it was one of those days. The kind of day where you have a ton of things to do and no time to do them, and to make it all worse things happen throughout the day that just work against you. Yesterday was such a day for me.........it began by being woken up by a loud crack of thunder. It was a weird way to wake up but i welcomed it as i really enjoy severe weather, my 1st concern was Kai our 5 month old puppy. Oh yeah for those of you who dont know we got a second dog, very cute and smart but extremely stubborn and strong willed. Heres a quick photo:




Where were we? Ah yes Kai!He was in his kennel and to my surprise he seemed to ok, no howling or crying nothing. I let him out went downstairs to let him go outside. Well he didnt want to set foot outside and just sat at the doorway, no problem, i figured if he really needs to go he would go out. I regretted that decision 5 minutes later when i found a huge pile of poop on the carpet!! It was the really soft and runny kind too, the kind that dog owners LOOOOVE to get on their carpets. I was ticked! I knew it was going to take forever to clean that up and make sure it doesnt stain the carpet......all the stuff you need to do in order to save the carpet. Anyway, i was pretty upset and not looking forward to this, but i figured i would treat a couple other small areas of the carpet that needed more cleaning after we had shampooed the carpet. So the dogs went outside, and i cleaned away forgetting that i had used the hose and forgot to turn it off. My backyard became a mud puddle and i didnt realize what was going on until i went outside and heard a splashing noise and saw Kai vigorously digging in the puddle! I ran to the backyard and was greeted by this......





I was even more upset now and i could feel it........but i took a deep breath looked at my 2 boys and couldnt help but start laughing. The backyard was a disaster, my day was shot as i now had to clean up the backyard and then clean up the dogs. What can you do though, if i were them i probably would have done the same thing. Its easy to get caught up in this life, to let these little incidents become disasters. Its hard to see past the crisis thats in front of your face, but a lot of times its a crisis because we make it a crisis. I overreact way to easily and let small problems become big ones all to often, it took 2 very dirty dogs to remind me that i should live by the motto i tell everyone else "Life is only as complicated as you make it." Theres times to get up set but for the most part i think life is full of very little problems and a few BIG ones that come a long in our lifetime. I think ill try to to relax from now on, sometimes all you can do is just roll with the punches...

Coming soon....

Ryan and Katelyn!

Kohala Sunset.....

Over the last few trips that we have taken to the Big Island i have fallen in love with it more and more. While my favorite island is still and always will be Kauai i have come to have a great appreciation for the Big Island. There is so much to see and do on the Big Island that i have no clue how anyone can be bored there. It has so many climates and different types of beautiful landscapes packed into one place that i just go nuts there going from one place to another. You can be on one side on the island driving through desert and an hour later you will be driving trough beautiful coastline, next massive thick green jungles, or rolling hills that make you feel like youre in the midwest as opposed to hawaii. One of my favorite places on the island is the Kohala area, this may seem a little strange since this is the furthest thing from the tropical paradise that you could possibly see. This part of the island is dry as a bone, lots of dead trees and brown grass fields. The real draw is the huge dramatic clouds that come into the area, with these in the sky it makes for some gorgeous sunset. Its a bunch of elements that by themselves are all that much but here they all come together and at sunset it is breath taking. After a while the images get a little repetitive since the trees are always a part of the compositions, but it is incredibly fun to be there and shoot. So with all that said here some images for you to enjoy.

Hawaii 2010. The Big Island

Its true........I AM STILL ALIVE! I just havent been posting, i have been catching up on the mountain of editing i have to get done since i got back from vacation. On top of all that we have had some BIG events that have occupied my time lately, but more on that at a later post. You may have known but for those of you who didnt, my wife and i were in hawaii a few weeks ago......i know i know BIG SURPRISE!! Many people think that we are obsessed with Hawaii, i dont see it exactly as an obsession but we do like to visit there a lot and meet new people and catch up with old friends. If you still choose to think that we are obsessed well then thats ok, im obsessed and im happy to feed the habit. This year we went to the Big Island and Kauai, Jen was with me for 2 weeks and i spent a 3rd week on Kauai by myself. Our trip was incredible, we got to meet some great people and experience somethins new on the Big Island that will be with me forever.......but more on that on a later post. I have lots and lots of pictures to go through so posting will be in no particular order, plus right now im editing those photos to take a quick break from all the work i am finishing up so its a slow process. Our time on the Big Island was split between Hilo and Kona, we spent the 1st part of the week in Hilo and finished our time on the Kona coast. Here are some of my current favorites from the Big island, feel free to share the contents of the blog with friends and leave some comments. Enjoy!

Return to Joshua Tree....

I just got back from a quick trip out to Joshua Tree with my buddy Shawn Mesarra. It was such blast being out there with him driving around and exploring the park for places that we wanted to take pictures of. We arrived very late on Sunday night set up camp at Jumbo Rock campground and since it was so close to sunrise we just decided to stay awake and take pictures of the sun coming up. The weather was beautiful albeit hot, we could have used some clouds not just for cover but for some dramatic effect in the photos......alas it was not meant to be and we had nothing but clear skies. Having been to Joshua Tree before and having shot many photos at the park its always challenging going there and finding new ways to make the images look different than things ive shot before. I had decided before we left that the thing that i really enjoyed about Joshua Tree was the expansive landscapes and the awesome rock formations found all over the park. ive also gone a little panorama crazy lately and i shot a TON of them while there. All in all we had a lot of fun out there (well i know i did, hopefully Shawn did too) and found some other areas of the park that we want to explore for our next trip out there. Now heres some photos for you. hope you enjoy them!

Sunrise over Jumbo Rock campground























We waited for sunset overlooking this part of the valley, decided to do several shots at different times during and after sunset.





The moon was out and a very nice size, and while adding the moon to a photo can be very cliche i went for it anyway. Double exposure done in camera.







Here are some of the panoramics, you can view them larger by clicking on the link below each photo.


View On Black


View On Black


View On Black

As Promised........

Its taken me a while to get this up on the blog, i have a ton to get done and oh so very little time to do it in. So here we go! We kick things off with the Goodban wedding! Jen and i had the great pleasure of photographing Dales wedding, i have know Dale and his family since he was just a little kid. So it was really neat for me to be able to capture his and Lori's special day. I couldnt have asked for more laid back people, everything that came up they had a total go with the flow attitude and they gave me total control over the photos. Its always so nice and easy to work with couples that hire you because they like your work and are not trying to control your images. The day was perfect, sun was out, no rain and best of all great people. The reception was awesome too!! All the little kids took to the dance floor and 2 in particular turned out to be little break dancers.......it was awesome. So heres an extra dose of sweet images from their day, my apologies for taking so long. More to come in the nest few days! So stay tuned. ENJOY!!