Alright, so what am I doing up so late again. Just burning the midnight oil, cleaning up my office, returning emails, and getting bit by this darn misquito that's flying around! So I have two wedding blogs that I wanna post on here before I head to bed. Oh if there are any couples who want their pictures and love story posted, etc..etc.. just tell me. I'll post it. It's not that I forgot about you, it's just that I just select my weddings at random.

Matt and Kristy
Sunset Beach
July 20, 2007

Well, Matt and Kristy truly eloped on the shores of Sunset Beach. For those of you who don't know, Sunset Beach is known for two things, it's awesome waves during the winter, and it's breath taking sunsets. One thing that I never understood though was that Sunset Beach is on the North Shore, and the sun sets right there. Then at the same time, over the mountain, on teh west shore at Ko'olina, the sun sets over there too. I'm really not sure what's going, how the science works, but how can the sun be in two places, the north and the west shore at the same time? I have lived here all my life and I still didn't figure it out.

So Matt works in the movie industry and Kristy is a strict principle at a school. Haha....just kidding, I'm not sure if she rules here school with a communist fist, but hey...who knows. What I do know is that Matt, who worked on the Tranformers Set, has informed me that the cars in the movie "Transformers" actually do transform, and they are alien robots who flew down to earth to shoot this movie. They flew here to free us from the pending tyranny that loomed, but then like many heroes, their popularity went to their head. Next thing Matt knew, they were aksing for their own trailers, they got agents, pr people, and the Optimius Prime demanded that he only save the world once every light-year. One thing led to another after the success of the movie, the studios didn't want to pay their appearance fees, and they went on strike and left our planet...geez......

Anyway, Matt and Kristy met a little over a year ago, and they have just been magic since day one. They are very much a laid back couple and a fun one. During the wedding, a surfer walked by in the shot, and well, I thought it would add a touch of Hawaii to it, so I snapped away. What do you all think?

footprints in the sand...

Then like always we stopped by a few locations; the abandoned building, and Kawela Bay. Here are a few photos from those locations.

I wonder why they dug up most of the area in front of the abandoned building...

This shot without a flash. Natural lighting, if perfect, should not be disturbed.

Now onto my second wedding!

Brandon and Jennifer
August 18, 2007
Ko'olina 2:30pm

So I just shot this wedding. Unlike most of my couples where the bride does most the planning, Brandon actually did most of it. In fact, he did all of it! And unlike most of my couples where they would just call me or email if they really ever needed, Brandon made it a point to call me every single time he had a question. Did it bug me? Nah, not at all. That's what I'm here for right?

I wish that Brandon told me he was a New Orleans Saints fan or a Dallas Cowboys fan first, then I would have not taken him as a client. Just kidding Brandon. Being a Philadelphia Eagles fan, I have to be honest with you. Those two teams are truly my rivals. The Saints beat us twice last year, and the Cowboys, I don't have to say anymore. But the great thing is that Brandon and I had a lot in common as far as football goes and shared a great conversation.

His bride, Jennifer, was great as well. She told me how they met...at a club of all place. Brandon was on his way out, and Jennifer was on his way in. Brandon saw one her and basically made a huge U-turn. Their wedding went perfect, but their pictures...well, we had one picture that didn't come out too good. What happend? Well Jennifer blinked.

Now I can promise that all of my pictures will come out great. What I can't control is blinking. Most of the time I can catch it. There have been the few where it slipped through. So how do I fix it? Well, through the magical art of computer graphics. Lets take a look at the photos below...

So the 1st step here is to find a photo where her eyes are in a very similar position if she weren't blinking. Then we just visualize what would it look like if we cut and past her eyes from the above photo to the blinking one.

The result is here--->

To fix the picture was a bit more complicate that cutting and pasting. There was a bit of color matching, enlarging, and a little distortation to angle her eyes as well. The result though was a photo that is basically looks great.

This couple was great. Beacuse Brandon and I have such a love for the game of football, playing and following, we still keep in touch.

Well everyone, today is Sunday, and guess what. I'm still fighting this darn cold STILL! So to date, I was sick for about two weeks, then better for a week, then sick again this past week. The great news is that I am getting better! I went to the doctors, and luckily, I have nothing serious. I just had a friggen relapse, that could have been due to me heading back to the gym a little too early. Pardon my language, but it's really frustrating not being healthy.

I've been slowly proofing my articles. I'm about halfway done so far.

So I wanted to quickly post about the wedding I did in Maui. Well, not all of everything. (I'll follow up on a great post about them soon). But here are just their photos. See, Trudy was such a cool bride that she scanned in all of my photos and posted them on our website. So here are my shots, all of them. As you can see, they are all consistent in quality. None are touched up.

You know, what kinda gets me, is that when other companies lie to their couples telling them that there is no way I can shoot just 36 picture, or 72 pictures, and have them come out great. I'm a sharp shooter, accuracy counts. How can they call their photographers professional when only 10% of their shots of their 1000 photographs turn out average. Getting 10% correct to me is failing. Anyway, that's just me venting about my competition and their lies lies lies....

So here are their photos, all of them.... :) Just to let you know, this is only a slide show of the pictures. They have this funky crop (sometimes all the way to the side!!) to them due to the slide show settings that's set by default. It's best to view the pictures in full and unedited by following the link under the slide show.




Wedding Steve Young <-----click on this link for unedited photos OKAY SO HERE'S THE CONTINUATION TO THIS POST...

Trudy and Marco
July 12, 2007
Makena Cove

So today is August 21st, about 1:30am in the morning. I woke up just awhile ago to watch the hurricane make land in Mexico. For a little peek into my private life, I actually sleep with Fox news on my TV, or I have my favorite talkshow "Michael Savage" playing at night if I miss it during the day. Doing so actually allows me to learn a lot while I sleep. Sometimes if I hear something that interest me regarding the news such as a stock the market crashing, or a hurricane hitting, then I will literally force myself to wake up early. Strange sleeping habbits I must admit, but it gets me through the night.

But anyway, now that I'm wide awake, I thought I'd finish up this post on Trudy and Marco. Trudy and Marco are a very cool couple who live in California. They have been together for quite some time now, I believe over 5 years, I actually think it's close to 8 years if I could remember correctly. So you guessed it, when Marco finally proposed, not only was Trudy estatic, so was her family, and Marco's family!

Trudy and Marco chose Maui as their destination and paid for my minister and myself to make the trek over from Oahu. My minister, Bob Fa'apouli, and I really don't mind traveling to Maui for weddings. Why? Well, not only is it fun, it's because we get to buy Krispy Kreme donuts for the family and bring it back to Oahu. Yes, we don't have Krispy Kreme in Oahu. Yeah, I know some of you take for granted...but we are not privledged...yet.

Trudy and Marc really didn't have any idea where they wanted to get married. They wanted to get married on the beach in Maui. Now, if you read any of my articles, you will know that the outer islands, Maui included; white sand beaches in particular are very scarce. There was a beach there that they had looked at called Big Beach, but it really didn't fit what they were looking for. Plus, according to Marco, there was a lot of big red ants on the beach! Wow. I personally have never been to that beach, but that's pretty scary....

So on the day of their wedding, we basically met up and Trudy, Marco, and their entire wedding party followed me to Makena Cove, a small little beach tucked away in the middle nowhere. Makena Cove looks somewhat like The Secret Cove at Ko'olina, but not as good. Photographically though, I can accomplish the same shots there.

The wedding went smoothly. We had a quick rehersal, Trudy's sister gave her away, and the magic begun. Trudy was bubly, and she cried during wedding! And...I think Marco shed a tear, I wasn't sure. But he sure did have a large smiles on his face. The ceremony of course was concluded by the perfect passionate wedding kiss. You're probably asking, what the hell do you mean Steve? Well, the perfect passionate wedding kiss is one with passion, but not too much tounge beacuse your parents and guest are watching. I know it's funny, detailed, blunt...but hey, you know I'm telling the truth...

The wedding ended just in time as another wedding was about to get started. Yes, Makena cove is a rather popular wedding spot at times becuase it's really one of the only nice beaches on Maui. Unfortunately, storm clouds moved in rather quickly, making sunset shots rather impossible. So I did the best I could with the photos. Storm clouds, if used properly, can be a blessing. They create really soft light....and they take a lot of color away from the picture. So what does that mean? If I have any sort of bright color in the picture, such as a red bouquet, or a palm tree, it will really pop. Storm cloud lighting is also great for people who have burnt themselves lobster red while tanning for their wedding. Many times, I can adjust the light to a point where they look rather normal.

Alright...so I hope you enjoyed this two part post!!!!! I will see all you folks later :)

Well, this is a quick blog here. But I have a slight relapse on my chest cold. My cough is back, but not as strong. My body is weak and sore. It's a really good thing I don't have any weddings till Saturday.

As far as the hurricane goes. There are not much signs of that a hurricane is coming. We had pouring rain in town, but by Ko'olina and my house, nothing but blue skies that were broken apart by a few showers here and there. Well...I'll talk to you all soon. As soon as I get better, I'll update my blog with more weddings. And I'll keep you posted on Flossie as it makes it's way to Oahu.

So I have all of the articles I wrote up so far! You can visit that page at http://www.dreamweddingshawaii.com/articlespage.htm I'm going to put up more articles eventually. If you have any ideas what I should write about tell me!

I still have to proof them, but they are all done for the most part!

Hey it's 4:27am now. Mr. and Mrs. Smith is playing on my LCD behind me as I burn the midnight oil today. I had a pretty long day today. I had a few weddings, a few wedding inquiries to return. I didn't get to my email just yet folks, but I will first thing in the morning. So hang tight peeps...I'll get back to you.

So I had a great wedding today at Ko'olina. I don't have their pictures yet since I didn't pick them up from the lab just yet. But the really interesting thing is that right after the photoshoot, a very nice woman approached me. She was from a competing wedding company and she asked for a businesscard of mine. Well, I really don't carry businesscards. But she told me that her company was always looking for photographers and that she could push a lot of work towards me. Since my couple and I were waiting for the sunset, I had a few minutes to talk to her.

I tried to explain to her about my photography style, and that I still shot on film. Her first reaction when I told her I shot on film was a rather big surprise. She asked, how do you expect to get the quality of digital? I gave her one of those humble smiles to hint that "she knew more about photography than me" even though I knew she didn't know a cent about the art. I then tried to explain my photography philosophy because I thought she would want to know about it since she expressed an interest in my hiring me. But no, she didn't want to hear any of it. She asked me more about how many photos I snapped, and how much was I willing to charge. Well, the conversation ended wtih me giving her a fake phone number to contact me at, so I won't be hearing from her. Very nice lady though.

What did this experience tell me? That she was only interested in quantity, not quality. And I knew that if I would have shot any photos for her, she would have used my photos on her website to publicize her company, and pass off as her companies. This has happened a handful of times actually. I have my photos on a handful of my comptetitors sights because I helped cover a few weddings for them. Couples book their company thinking that they'll get the my style of photography, and when they get their photos, of course...they are dissapointed.

I do know that many companies are now telling their photograhers to copy my style of photography. Some of them come close, but most of them are far away. I know before myself, many photographers chose to do nothing buy extreme close-up shots. I was one of the few who would always shoot landscape photos instead of portraits... Then I was the one who implied the use of a "dutch" shot, or slight angle shot to imply motion. And then again, I was the one who started using negative space as a tool to include more scenery into the shot. These were all movie techniques, more so, story telling techniques. But the photographers who do copy my style miss their marks because they fail to know WHY these shots are made. And consequently, they don't know WHEN to apply them. For example, sometimes, they angle their shots too much, and thus this implies "sickness" rather than "motion."

So all I have to say brides is that to watch out. I know many of these coordinators, not personally, but professionally. And they all seem very nice, very well mannered. But I can tell you that most of them are just concerned about their bottom line, rather than the quality of vendor they partner with.

Interesting blog wasn't it... :) Well, that's my update for now...I'm headed to bed :)

So I'm sitting here working at my desk at 3am in the morning. What am I doing up so late? Well, tonight, I'm just laying out my new articles section. It's almost all done...I think by tomorrow morning, tuesday, it should be all up. Then give me a day or so to proof them all to get most of the spelling errors out.

Anyway, so I'm sitting here working and this friggen flying 747 sized roach comes flying in from behind me. It lands on my wall. And I swear, this sucker was the biggest roach I've seen in years. It flutters it's wings and stares at me, calling me out to fight. I guess he knew I was a boxer. But I knew I couldn't out box the roach, so I grabbed my kleenex box and smacked him a good one. You wouldn't believe it, but this roach didn't get phased. It started fluttering and eating at my kleenex box! So I hit a few more times, and all it did was stun it a little.

Now I have years and years of roach killing experience under my belt. I hate these suckers, and I think my name goes around in roach circles. They sent their best and ugliset tonight to get me because this one wouldn't die. The force was strong with this one my padwans. So I got my trustee vacuum cleaner and sucked him up and watched him twirl into microscopic pieces. That will teach him to deal with the wedding guy.

Anyway, now that my nemisis is dead, I can call it a night. I'm heading to bed. But before I do...I wanted to tell you about one of my most recent weddings.

BRANDON AND CAMILLE
June 30, 2007
Waimanalo Beach

So this was a very cool wedding. A pretty young couple that came from two different ethnic backgrounds. Camille is filipino and Brandon is you're next door anglo-saxon american. The two met a couple years ago, and well, you know how it goes, fell in love. Unlike many of my smaller weddings which consist of only a handful of people, Brandon and Camille actually had about 20 people in attendance.

Well, the wedding for the day actually started out great. It was quite windy for the occassion, but there was no signs of rain...yet. Camille and her bridesmaids arrived in a very cherry looking Rolls Royce. Talk about style. Brandon arrived in a caravan.

So that's the greatest news. I'm 80% better, or recovered. I got my voice back. I sound a little raspy, if I could best describe it I sound like Scooby-Doo and Mariah Carey (when she's not singing). I still have that lingering cough, and my stregnth is not 100% up to par yet. So far, in this short week, I actually shed about 10 pounds of muscle, and gained a little more fat. So I don't look exactly like myself.

But the great news is that I'm better, I can function, which means I'm back to being the wedding guy. And one my first things on my agenda, other than returning missed phone calls that I couldn't return, is to lay out my articles page. I have about two more articles to write. I'll probably finish them both tonight before I hit the hay... Then on Sunday I'll start laying them out for you.

I also have a few wedding blogs to update... So come monday, be looking for some great articles to read, and some new and exciting blogs.

Talk to you all soon!

Steve