12 Apr Hawaiian Jungle Shoot With My Bride
I hope all you viewers took a couple minutes to read Scott’s last post, which included a few of the photos from Alice and I’s wedding day, and got you up to speed for this post. Of course being photographers, visiting a tropical island for 10 days, we didn’t pack light on the gear. In fact, we even went through the trouble of lugging the quadcopter (which most of you refer to as a “drone”) along for the trip. Boy, unless I’m on paid traveling gigs, I hate bringing it with. Every time, and I mean every time I take “the drone” through the airport, it is a security check circus nightmare. Every time is it stopped, pulled aside, pelican case opened and swabbed for bomb stuff (or whatever they are sniffing for). I personally think it’s just so they can look at the thing and get all of their curious questions answered. Anyways, we brought a horde of cameras, lenses, and the heli to capture the island of Kauai. Sure, most of it was justified for Scott to capture all of the wedding activities, but with 10 days on the island, a bit of it was for us to use as we enjoyed the place.
We arrived to the island a couple days before the wedding, giving us some time to settle in, scout out the wedding event locations, and see to all our guests arriving. Not a minute of the first 4 days were spent by ourselves. Wedding day was a blur (granted a fun one), and then Alice and I spent the next couple days hanging out with our friends and family that made the trip to the island as well before they left (which was also a great time). And then, finally, on our seventh day on our Hawaiian wedding trip, we found ourselves alone to relax just to two of us. We got to see pretty much the entire island (surprisingly a lot of driving when the only main roads are on the rim of the island), and got our fill of what the island had to offer us by the end of our trip. One of the things I wanted to do while we were there was to conduct my own shoot with Alice in her dress.
You better believe Alice didn’t mind wearing her dress for a second time in the same week. We packed up the car and headed out for our shoot – one beautiful bride and, um, a guy in a t-shirt and shorts. We located a great spot, offering both jungle and ocean views within the same small area. We found that no matter where we were, if Alice was wearing her dress, she received a “congratulations” from everyone woman who passed by. Yes, even in the middle of a jungle hike, the occasional passerby would congratulate her, no hesitation, no wondering what was going on, just a congrats and a smile. Pretty funny.
We found ourselves an array of absolutely gorgeous cliffs that dropped straight down to the ocean. The cliffs curled and zig-zagged much like the Hawaiian islands like to do, which allowed me to send Alice out to the edge of one cliff and then manage to position myself on another to give me a great perspective. At this point, I’m purely focus on getting the shot and ask Alice to head over that way. Hesitantly, Alice asks, “you want me to go over there? Like how far out?” I reply with an, “all the way out, it’s awesome looking.” She was brave (going out most of the way) and we got some great shots.
We then ventured back into the jungle to get that classic jungle feel to tell that Hawaiian landscape story. Away from the windy, scary cliffside, we could focus on some nice composed shots (rather than the paralyzing fear of falling off a cliff). I really love these photos. Call me bias, but these are some of my fav images I’ve ever taken.
I particularly love the vertical B&W image in the next set, it reminds me of an old classic film. It has a ‘King Kong’ feel to it, right? One of my all-time fav photos. If you could see it full resolution, wow.
As often as Alice is in front of my lens, usually for doing light testing, along with the dozens of “just for fun” shoots we completed together, this definitely still felt very special. Fittingly, our first shoot as husband and wife was a shoot just for us, between us.
Thrilled with the shots we got, we packed up and hiked back through the jungle to the car, but not without the occasional “congrats” by fellow visitors. It was a quick 10 days on the island, a place where you never want to leave in the first place, but at least we have some amazing pictures of the wedding day and of all our adventures to look back on. I’ll try to string along another couple sets of images to share here on the site soon.
