Hawaii Wedding Photography by Mark Holladay Lee

Here is their sweet little baby shoot in Laie.  Love this family!  I really liked the  way black and white photography looks in  this series.

I  photographed Josh & Lynne and the cool thing about it was that their wedding was on Waimea Bay beach.  The state doesn’t give out many permits for Waimea beach weddings, but this couple got one.  We had a lot of fun shooting at Shark’s Cove and Ke Iki beaches too.   They were glowing and having a genuinely good time with each other.  How fun to be married with sand and surf at your feet, wind in your hair, sun on your face, and palm trees all around. 

I very seldom write about my wife or my family on this blog, but I think I am one of the luckiest guys in the world to be married to such an amazing woman for over 11 years.  I would not be the person I am if It wasn’t for Patria.  She inspires me to not only be a better person but a better photographer.   Thank you for your love and support.  Happy Valentines  Day, I love you Patria!

This is what’s left of one of Laie’s landmarks.  I was on my way home from a photo shoot and decided to jump out and snap a shot as this little inn came down.  When I set up my tripod to take some shots, I was surprised when my van was surrounded by 4 cop cars.  I asked what was going on and they said they had received a call that a guy was loading a gun in his van across from Laie Inn.  Either someone mistook my camera for an assault weapon, or someone didn’t want me taking the photos, or someone was playing a practical joke.  I don’t know, but it made for an adventurous photo op.

I’ve known Rob for over 10 years now.  We’re basically brothers.   I was so excited to hear he was asking the girl of his dreams to marry him.   A few hours before the big moment, he called and asked if I could hide out in some trees and capture his proposal on film.  He chose a beautiful beach in Laie to ask Kelley to marry him.  It was a beautiful day in Hawaii to get engaged.

She Said Yes!!And the ring fits!Celebratory KissI’m Caught!I’m fully caught.So stoked she said yes.  Praise Heaven.

The PR firm that I work with for the Polynesian Cultural Center just sent me this shot of the cover on the North Shore News. I took this a few week back at the Moanikeala Hula festival in memory of Aunty Sally Wood Naluai.   This first shot is the original and the second is the cover.

Some of you may remember when I photographed Heather and Drew’s wedding last year on the North Shore.  Here are a few pictures from our recent maternity / family shoot last month.  It is fun as a photographer to watch as families grow.  I am excited to do their newborn pictures in about 5 weeks.  The underwater maternity photographs were taken at Sharks Cove and we shot the other family pictures at Keiki Beach.  I really have fun shooting in the ocean, and love using water and light to create some cool images.

So there are talkers and there are doers and families of Halau Nalu are definitely doers.  In just a matter of a few days, they organized a bake sale for Haiti that brought in over $500 in just a little over a hour.  Even after they had sold out of the very delicious baked good, people still came by and donated money.  What a great opportunity to teach our children that they are not just US Citizens but World citizens as they were the ones that worked the bake sale and delivered the money to the Red Cross.  I happened to have my camera in the car and thought it would be a good opportunity to document this  with a few photographs.  Enjoy.

There are a few ways to donate to the Red Cross, you can go to their site here, or  text “HAITI” to 90999 to donate $10.  You’ll get a text back to confirm the donation.  Millions has been collected for Haiti via text messages. Brilliant.

I have shaped about 20 surfboards over the years but this is my first alaia.  As I was working on it I tried to involve my two kids as much as possible.  They both did a lot of sanding and we even went to the Bishop Museum to research the design. I took the board to surf club today, this clip is of two of the boys from Halau Nalu riding it, I think they did an amazing job for their first time.

Alia Surf Board Hawaii from Mark Lee on Vimeo.

So most of you that check my blog regularly know that I am much better at photography than writing.  So I decided to ask Katie Speed one of the girls below to be a guest blogger and talk about our shoot at Melaekahana Beach Park.  Make sure to check out her etsy site, she is an amazing artist and full of style.  Enjoy.

First a bit about myself, my name is Katie Speed, I was born and raised in Las Vegas but now live in Hawaii.  I have my own little family consisting a husband and a baby girl.  I graduated from BYU with a BFA in fine arts where i did lots of oil painting.
I’m the one in the pictures with the brown top with flowers by the neck.  I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my Etsy shop lately.  It’s called Pretty Swell (http://www.etsy.com/shop/PrettySwell) where i sell fabric flower garlands and other fabric flower items.

A few years ago  the 5 girls in these pictures all met in Hawaii and became friends quickly.  True friendships are a rare thing… how about 5 TRUE  friendships at once!    We do lots of things together and one of them is surfing.  Life got going and before we new it we were all pregnant and one of our dear friends was moving away.  We all regreted not taking the time to get some pictures of us all surfing together.  Earlier this week, as a birthday present, our dear friend Shira returned to Hawaii to visit us!  Having always wanted pictures of us surfing together we decided to book a water session with Mark to try and capture what it’s like to surf with 5 of your closest friends (a really good time!)  The shoot was a good time we set up some of the shots but mostly we were just goofing off and having a great surf session.  It was a great way to sort of document this time of our lives and our strong friendships.

Malaekahana Beach Park Hawaii Surf Photography from Mark Lee on Vimeo.