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Photojournalistic
Wedding Photography for
Honolulu Wedding Photographer
Wedding Portraits, Wedding Candids, Wedding Photojournalism,
Custom
Wedding Albums
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Welcome to a unique, artistic experience amidst an ocean of picture
takers. Browse this site to find all kinds of useful galleries and
samples of our work, wedding photography advice, informative articles,
wedding day photography tips, and contact information to schedule an
appointment to book our services. Our style is very unique.
Most fellow wedding photographers say that we have a very unorthodox
approach to wedding photography...and that's fine by us. Our style
is a combination of traditional portraiture, candid photography, and
photojournalism, with an emphasis on photojournalism.
When researching, most brides need information in an
orderly format. This format seems to have worked with numerous
brides in our 15 years of experience.
Photo
Samples
Pricing
Contact Us to
Schedule an Appointment
We service all areas of Honolulu, Waikiki, and all of Oahu, for all wedding photography
services without any travel fees.
We can also travel to Maui, Molokai, Kaui, and the Big Island for very
reasonable travel fees. Many brides book us for this service...we
think because we are the best!
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Wedding
Photography Photojournalism for
Honolulu Wedding Photographer
Wedding Portraits, Wedding Candids, Wedding Photojournalism,
Custom
Wedding Albums
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Many Brides ask us what
our style is. Some others ask us directly: What is Photojournalism?
Dictionary.com
defines photojournalism as:
1.) journalism in which photography dominates written copy, as in certain
magazines.
2.) news photography, whether or not for primarily pictorial media,
publications, or stories.
Simply stated, Wedding photojournalism (Oahu,
Honolulu,
Waikiki, North Shore,
Maui, Kaui, and the
Big Island) are all covered for wedding
photography services without travel fees) is a style of photography
that is becoming more and more popular in the wedding business.
Traditional photography has a dated look when it comes to designing custom
wedding albums, and photojournalism adds more flavor by telling the story
of the wedding day from a photographers perspective, rather than just
having a series of snapshots, and posed pictures. And while these
may be pretty, they don't often possess a sense of elegance. We see these
types of pictures in what we in the industry call "formals", or even
jokingly we refer to them as "prom pictures". and the photographer
shoots posed pictures of the bride and groom, bridal party, and even the
bridal family. Photojournalism is different because we try to remain
as unobtrusive as possible during the wedding ceremony. We try to
capture images from an artistic perspective that also tell the story of
the day. While there are many photographers who claim to be
photojournalists, it is doubtful that many of them truly understand what
photojournalism is, and where Photojournalism came from.
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Modern Day
Wedding Photography for
Honolulu Wedding Photographer
Wedding Portraits, Wedding Candids, Wedding Photojournalism,
Custom
Wedding Albums
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Bill
Hurter, Editor of Rangefinder
Magazine, and author of "Best of Wedding Photography" (Amherst
Media) shed a great deal of light on this subject. Here are some
of his thoughts:
We live in the midst of a great renaissance of wedding photography. It is
a time when divergent styles collide with changing attitudes to produce
the finest imagery this genre has ever known. At no other time since
photographers began recording the wedding ceremony to preserve its history
has the style and artistic merit of wedding photography been so
remarkable. The focus of the modern wedding photograph is emotion
and intimacy, and through the tools available, like digital capture and Photoshop,
the end result is romance.
In the earliest days of photography, weddings were photographed in
styles that captured the bride and groom in stuffy, overly formal poses.
Even with the emergence of “the wedding album,” which incorporated
group portraits of the groomsmen and bridesmaids, and the bride and groom
with family members, posing remained stiff and lifeless—no doubt a
byproduct of the required length of early exposures. As the style
and variety of wedding photography progressed, posing techniques closely
mimicked the classical arts, and there remain many flawless wedding
portraits in evidence today from those early years.
The tools at the disposal of today’s wedding photographer are vastly
superior to yesterday. This classic wedding image captures the romance and
mystery of the wedding by incorporating areas of softness and high
contrast to define the mood of this inconspicuous bridal portrait.
It is against this backdrop that wedding photography evolved—or rather,
rebelled. In this early style, each shot was a check mark on a long list
of posed and often prearranged images. Even spontaneous events like the
bouquet toss and cake cutting were orchestrated to reflect the classical
posing techniques. Spontaneity and the joy of life had all but disappeared
from this most joyous of ceremonies. Amidst such a controlled environment,
it is not difficult to see why there was an active rebellion in the world
of wedding photography.
Today’s wedding photographer works unobtrusively and while he or she may
set up the situation, the participants define the action. A class of
wedding photographers known as wedding photojournalists, spurred on by
their leader, the articulate, provocative and talented Denis Reggie from
Atlanta, GA, rebelled against the formality of the art form. The
photojournalists believed (and still believe) that capturing the emotion
of the moment is the most important aspect of a good wedding image. The
story of the true and natural unfolding of the day’s events had to be
the end result of such efforts. Furthermore, everything about their
methods and procedures was different than those of the traditional wedding
photographer. They shot unobserved with high
speed film using available light. They used 35mm
SLRs with motor drives—and flash became a last resort for the
wedding photojournalist.
As you might guess, the
traditionalists recoiled in horror at this new breed of wedding
photographer. They denounced the grainy and often out-of-focus “grab
shots” created by the photojournalists, and they predicted that the
final days of wedding photography as a profitable and predictable
livelihood were at hand. As at many other times in history, a
spirited clash of ideas and artistic differences spawned a new era of
enlightenment. For the first time, brides were able to make real choices
about how they wanted their once-in-a-lifetime day recorded. In addition
to pristine color and a wealth of storytelling black & white imagery,
brides can now choose from a diverse range of styles, imagery and
presentation. Add to the mix the incredible and explosive creativity
introduced by the advent of digital imagery and we now find ourselves in
the midst of a true Renaissance.
Masters of the medium, like Yervant
Zanazanian from Australia, are gifted at creating the subtle
intangibles in an image. In addition to flawless posing and emotion and
design, note the hourglass shaped highlight covering the steps. Artful
burning-in and dodging was required to produce such a skillful effect.
Once viewed as a near-deplorable way to make a living, wedding photography
now draws the best and brightest photographers into its ranks. It is an
art form that is virtually exploding with creativity—and with wedding
budgets that seemingly know no bounds, the horizons of wedding photography
seem almost limitless. This book first appeared a little more than
two years ago and this is now the second edition. During that short time,
I have “discovered” dozens of new and amazingly talented wedding
photographers, most of them of the photojournalistic persuasion.
The trend away from traditional wedding photography continues but with
some surprising new twists. The new breed of wedding photographer has no
problem “directing” an image, as long as the results are spontaneous
and emotion-filled. This is a surprising turn of events, considering the
almost evangelical mind-set of the pure wedding photojournalist. To be
sure, there are many more of these kinds of photographers who exhibit the
same fervor for the “captured image,” but there are also a growing
number of new photographers who don’t particularly care if they are
purists, in the photojournalistic sense.
There are few limits to today’s wedding photography. How about a posed
kiss and dip in the middle of Grand
Central Station? The move away from film and towards 100% digital
capture continues unabated, although the current breed of digital wedding
photographers is aware of the increased time and effort involved in being
purely digital. New methods of workflow and image editing continue to
evolve and new software is helping to aid in the transition. The
little picture is just as important to the wedding album as the big
picture. Also evident is a move towards fine art imagery, complete
with the elements of abstraction, symbolism and the finer points of
design. Yes, it is a changing genre, to be sure, seemingly forever
redefining itself and always growing more popular among brides. The
modern-day wedding photographer is among the upper echelon of the
photographic elite, both in status and in financial rewards. This book
then is a continuing celebration of this great and evolving art form and
its fabled artists.
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Digital Wedding
Photography Vs. Film for
Honolulu Wedding Photographer
Wedding Portraits, Wedding Candids, Wedding Photojournalism,
Custom
Wedding Albums
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The question we are asked
most when meeting with brides, or even when we are on-site at a wedding
is: "Do you shoot film or digital"?
The answer we give them all the time is "100% Digital."
Now I know some purists out there are moaning and groaning right now, but
in our humble opinion, there are too many reasons to shoot digital over
film. The main advantage of digital photography is feedback.
With a professional Digital
SLR camera, we get instant feedback on what the basic exposure is.
With film, we don't, and let's be honest: with film, there is still some
guesswork. One of the biggest arguments that film shooters still use
to this day is: that digital images don't enlarge as well as film images.
And that may be true to a certain point. But, as long as you are not
ordering a 20x30
photo album, you have nothing to be worried about. Through the
use of Photoshop's
Image size with stair interpolation method, and the use of Genuine
Fractals, enlargements can be made very easily, and with little to no
loss of clarity. Today's professional Digital SLR Cameras like the Nikon
D2X, or any other professional grade camera body that one could
purchase at Ritz
Camera, Calumet
Photo, Samy's Camera,
Best Buy, Circuit
City, Walmart, Target,
or just about any other retail establishment that sells camera gear,
costs several thousand dollars, and the reason for that is obvious: They
produce images as good as film cameras, and have more controls built in to
the camera to optimize exposure, than film cameras do. When
developing film, there are still many variables that one must fully
understand in order to get perfect prints. Digital eliminates a
bunch of those complications.
Ken Rockwell, a great photographer and industry guru has written
several articles on this subject. Here is a excerpt from one:
The choice depends on your application. Once you know your application the
debate goes away. The debate only exists when people presume erroneously
that someone else's needs mirror their own. I can get great 12 x 18"
glossy prints from my digital camera, and we all can get fuzzy results on
film. It's the artist, not the medium, which defines quality. If and only
if you're an accomplished artist who can extract every last drop from
film's quality then film, meaning large format film, technically is better
than digital in every way. Few people have the skill to work film out to
this level, thus the debate. Most people get better results from digital.
Artists print their own work, but if you use a lab for prints you'll have
more control and get better results from digital. Convenience has always
won out over ultimate quality throughout the history of photography. Huge
home-made wet glass plates led to store-bought dry plates which led to 8 x
10" sheet film which led to 4 x 5" sheet film which led to
2-1/4" roll film which led to 35mm which led to digital. As the years
roll on the ultimate quality obtained in each smaller medium drops, while
the average results obtained by everyone climbs. In 1860 only a few
skilled artisans like my great-great-great grandfather in Scotland
could coax any sort of an image at all from a plate camera while normal
people couldn't even take photos at all. In 1940 normal people got fuzzy
snaps from their Brownies and flashbulbs while artists got incredible
results on 8 x 10" film. Today artists still mess with 4 x 5"
cameras and normal people are getting the best photos they ever have on 3
MP digital cameras printed at the local photo lab.
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An Artist's Vision for
Honolulu Wedding Photographer
Wedding Portraits, Wedding Candids, Wedding Photojournalism,
Custom
Wedding Albums
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Long before wedding day
even arrives, I start planning the shots and angles ahead of time.
Since we have worked at just about every major venue in Hawaii,
Oahu, Honolulu, Waikiki,
North Shore, Maui, Kaui,
and the Big Island, we are already
familiar with their lighting conditions, and we know what shots will work,
and what shots won't. It has taken long years of experience to
understand the delicate balance of artistic wedding photography vs.
standard portraiture, and we are presented with constant challenges that
keep us on the cutting edge of education and understanding. Black and
white photography vs. color photography vs. sepia toning photography is a
constant evolution and knowing how to capture those moments on your
wedding day, and to know which moments work best in color or black and
white is essential. Each wedding is unique, and we are constantly looking
for that one subtle difference in each wedding so that we can exploit it,
and make your treasured wedding moments stay captured so they will be with
you for a lifetime.
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