Hawaii photographer
Congratulations Joseph Cadousteau, the reigning World fireknife Champion. Here are a few shots I took of the finalist. To learn more about the World Fireknife Championship got to http://www.worldfireknife.com/
Fire knife competitions are by far the most challenging thing for me to photograph. During the competitions I am not allowed to use a flash, and the goal is to freeze the dancer but keep the shutter open long enough to get a full circle of fire. For example I keep my shutter for 1/10th of second for the very fast start off and 1/8th to 1/6th when they slow down. I consider how much gas is on the knife or how many knives the dancer is using since 1, 2 or 3 fire knives can quickly change the lighting. The last variable is time, I only have a few minutes to capture each competitor. After I fill up a card the images are taken and sent to the Asociated Press. I don’t even have a chance to look at them, so there is very little room for error.
I staged the first 4 photos below that are going to be used for the 20th annual fire knife competition advertising for next year. The last 5 are some of my favorites from this most recent competition.
I am shooting the World Fireknife Championship this weekend at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Laie. Here are a few of my favorite shots from last nights senior, junior and group competitors. One of the kids from the junior division, this is ages 6-11, learned how to fireknife from youtube. You can see Preston Weber’s performance from last night in the video below. And yes that is me in the lower right hand corner, I finally made it on youtube.
