Published!

Woohoo! I recently got word that my work will be printed in an upcoming book entitled "1000 Handmade Greeting Cards". I learned about the Call for Entries from someone on poetic-pixels.com and immediately made my submission.

So just last night I finished the greeting cards and mailed them out today. Yay!

If you have handmade greeting cards and would like to be published in the book, follow this link. Hurry, the deadline is March 15th, 2008!

The Story behind the Picture - Week 4

Welcome to week 4! I know its strange that I've had this blog for at least three months and have only had 4 installments of this weekly story series; funny how time flies! Keep your eye out for more content in the coming months.

This photo is one of my personal favorites and best sellers. Believe it or not it was actually taken with my compact digital camera (Olympus Stylus 300 SW - $300 retail) when my photography was in its early stages. The camera works great still, and is actually waterproof up to 10 ft, with no special underwater housing to buy. Perfect for the Hawaiian lifestyle.

Anyways, back to the story. This photo is entitled "Malaekahana sunrise", named appropriately after the beautiful Friends at Malaekahana campground on the North Shore of Oahu. This peaceful place is surrounded by wind-swept trees and fine sand with s secluded beach that stretches for more than a mile. It even has its own separate island (called Goat Island) about 100 yards across the reef if you are daring enough to make the trip.

I had to improvise to take this shot, since I didn't have a DSLR yet, and no tripod, I placed it on a nearby picnic table to stabilize the camera to capture the incredible sunrise that morning. I unintentionally created some dynamic leading lines that lure the eye deeper into the photograph and really adds to the overall feeling of tranquility and peace that it evokes. The lines can almost be mistaken for shadows coming from the trees branches cast by the sun's bright early light.

This photo is available for purchase in my Etsy Shop.

The Story behind the Picture - Week 3

This photo is entitled "Timeless Napali" and was taken last August when my girlfriend Tess and I hiked the famous Napali coast on Kauai.

We hiked 11 miles on the Kalalau trail on the day this photo was taken. This is the most beautiful trail I have ever been on, and I recommend everyone does it at least once in their life, it's truly an amazing experience.
This is an image of Kalalau beach, at the end of the trail, with the sun setting behind the towering pali cliffs. Off to the right of this photo we camped underneath the cliffs in a huge cavern that we had all to ourselves. Once the sun set, we had an awesome view of the night sky above, blanketed with stars.

The photo itself is an HDR (High Dynamic Range) image and was assembled from three different exposures of the same image, -2, 0, and +2. By using a program called Photomatix Pro, I combined these three exposures into one and adjusted the tonal range until it looked as close as possible to what my eyes saw when I took the photo. This can be alot of fun to play around with, because the original photo was overexposed in the sky, and underexposed on the cliffs, they were almost completely black. It can be challenging to find the right middle ground on high contrast images like this one, however once achieved it brings a great sense of satisfaction.

This photo is available for purchase on my website.