Another fun year at the Rell Sunn Menehune event at Makaha.  Spending time as a family and good friends.  The video highlights the kids from Halau Nalu surf club and the photos below are a few of the other participants, including Rell Sunn’s grandson in the yellow jersey.  Also a special shout out to Kumu  Ka’iulani for hooking us up with a place to stay and for helping with the kids in the water.

It has been a very fun and busy summer for our family here in Hawaii.  In previous posts you have seen some of my work, but I have not had much time to blog as I have been balancing work and family time.  So I thought I would throw up a few shots from our summer fun with a few of our friends and family.  We started the summer with the kids surfing in the T&C grom surf contest in town.  My parents came in July for a couple weeks and we went to the west side and stayed in a little beach cottage.  The kids had a great time surfing and Atticus even got behind the camera and snapped a few shots.  I also got my mom and the kids to help me sew a new board bag for my new long board I shaped.   Patria and the kids got me a foam blank for Fathers Day, you can see some of the shaping photos below.  We also celebrated our 13 year anniversary in town without the kids, thanks to my mom and dad for watching over them.  Finished up the summer with a week of camping, some sailing, and we even laid net and got about 10 fish.  By the end I was definitely ready for school to start so I could get some rest.  Can’t wait till next summer.

Recently with hearing about the two war photographers who were killed in Libya, Tim Hetherington, and Chris Hondros, I’ve been thinking about the situation.  I find their stories and the stories of people doing similar work really compelling.  The ethics around what they do and the crazy intensity of capturing images of horrible events.   While I wonder about how people emotionally handle that work I know that it’s often images that connect us to an event.  The images from the recent tsunami in Japan for example are what helped me grasp the immensity of the situation.  I think we need these images.  Last week on NPR’s Fresh air Terry Gross interviewed two veteran war photographers Joao Silva and Greg Marinovich.  It was interesting to hear the stories behind their photos.  Heres the link to the their interview. They have also compiled a book of their memoirs called “The Bang Bang Club”

This is where my heart is and will always be.  I love a lot of things.   I love the ocean, I love where we live,  I love all the good people we are around every day, I love to surf and I love to take pictures.  But there is  nothing I love more than Patria, Ruby, and Atticus.  They bring me the greatest joy and happiness.  Happy Valentine’s Day.

These photos were taken in about 5 minutes  before church yesterday.

I don’t remember where I first saw it, but someone had a slide show made by Pummelvision.  They just take a bunch of your photos and make a fast slide show in a few minutes.  Instead of trying to make a slide show with all the photography from this last year, like the weddings, family, and commercial photos; I decided to just use the local underwater photography.  It was kind of a fun thing to see.

In our home I do most of the cooking.  One cooking blog I love is www.kitchencorners.com.  The author of the blog, Damaris Santos-Palmer, was visiting family in Hawaii over Christmas.  While she was here we set up an underwater shoot.  It was so much fun to arrange and photograph this scene of her cooking underwater.  We rigged this together in under 15 minutes with the help of her husband Christian.  You have to read her blog to get a sense of how much fun she is – you can probably see it in these photos too!  Bon appetit!

As most of you know the Quicksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau big wave contest at Waimea Bay  did not go today. There was the size, just not consistent.  Contest or not there was still some amazing surfing.  I had a shoot on the North Shore this morning, thought I would head over after and get a few shots.  As I was standing on the bluff, I couldn’t help think to myself, how could I get on one of those skis to shoot from the water.  That is the angle I would like to be shooting from.  Maybe next year.

Picked up another water housing this last week for my DSLR. Just in time for a trash the dress session tomorrow. Here are a few photos from my first time taking it out on the North Shore shooting surfers at V-land.  I love the guys smile coming out of the barrel.

My wife is a little bit into fashion.  When it comes to clothing she doesn’t buy a whole lot,  but she does prefer to buy things that are classic and well made.  Some of her favorite clothes are 10 years old in her closet.  One of her favorite  designers is Emerson Made.  Since Patria loves them and they are having a giveaway for customers who send in their snaps, I took a few shots of her wearing the brand and she sent them in and they ended up on her blog today.  I grabbed the shots above from www.emersonmade.com Check out Emerson, she is an amazing artist.  Clothing made in NYC.  Emerson designs and models the clothing and her husband photographs her for the blog.  They moved out of the city and onto a New Hampshire farm and it all looks incredible on her clever blog.