Camera Toss over ocean surf in Hawaii!

I had wanted to do this shot earlier, but I had forgotten, so as everyone was leaving the workshop today, we ran out and did a quick shot on the beach. We waited until the water was a little less than a foot deep and then I threw the camera up. I REALLY wanted to get the horizon line, so I did about 8 tosses. Then we got this shot! Kevin Swan who has challenged me on his camera toss, just got one-upped!

Oahu Workshop 2009

We had a great group of photographers come out for the workshop on the North shore of Oahu. I absolutely LOVE the variety of the scenes here, the backdrops and the light.

Erik & Sara {Four Seasons, Kona - Hawaii}

Who would know, 12 years ago, I played tennis with this guy, well, more accurately, I was beat at tennis playing this cool guy, Erik Darby. He was king of the courts. Last winter we connected on facebook and one thing led to another, and they asked me to have the honor of photographing their wedding. After we met up, and shot their casual portrait session in San Francisco, on the hottest day of the year, April twenty something. I knew after working with them that todays wedding was, well, nothing short of amazing. Weddings at the Four Seasons Hualalai on the Big Island are so beautiful.

We met earlier in the day and shot a few shots outside the Temple in Kona.

My new Iphone 3GS made for a great reflective surface.

Here was their save the dates that one of their friends made. I love it!

Sara picked out some sweet Martinez Valero shoes.

Tiffany & Co and Acqui Di Gio, more elements that are sweet, and sweet to shoot. Erik wrote her a lil love note with the fragrance. Erik impressed me all day with how much of a Man he is.

Her niece was so cute and sweet, giving her input for the hairstylist.

Later we headed over to Erik and the guys to get them getting ready.

The first time they met in a Lava field was pretty sweet. I cut my foot on the lava, but I would have done it again for shots like these. I'm always looking for unique and stellar backgrounds. This kind of stuff makes the shot.

Sara had a few minutes to relax before her girls were ready. Lit with window light from a soft window, which was like a big softbox, illuminated her up.

The usual camera toss was in full effect, borrowing my buddies lens, Jim Russi who was there to help shoot with me today. Thanks Jim! James was also there all the way over from Hilo! You guys were such blessings to shoot with.

So the story goes....

...all week I was warned about the jump-kick. Their practice paid off. They pulled off the most classy, high and sweet looking jump-kick. Who says grown men can't have fun.

Sara's dad was so proud! I had to sneak up almost underneath the pastor to get this shot. I love getting dirty in sand to get the shot, because many people would not go that far. If I ruin clothes, or get messy, its like an athlete sliding into home belly first, getting the game winning run. 100% worth it.

I guess Erik had practiced this shot, either way, he made it look easy!

The sky was stunning this evening! I loved how God made the dark cloud to the south, I was able to have a darker background behind my couple which made the shots turn out even better.

The coolest group of bridesmaids and groomsmen, little did we all know 10 years ago that most of us would be here at their wedding, many of them from Monte Vista High School where we grew up back in the day!

Erik owns GQ. At least the look of GQ. Windblown and classy.

Thanks guys, you are not only very sweet and amazing people, but it was a blast serving you on the first day of the rest of your life being married. Those 13 hours flew by SO fast!

Erik & Sara (Pre Day shots)

Wow, what a sweet day and a beautiful couple! We met at the Mormon Temple after their ceremony in the morning and there was this insanely beautiful wall as a backdrop. More shots to come later today...

Arial view of Molokai Hawaii.

Flying from Oahu to the Big island we passed over Molokai, where we
will spend a few days after the workshop. I cant wait - Molokai with
my wife is my haven away from this busy world. A place for me to gain
fresh vision for my life.

Alton & Colleen

I LOVE shooting in San Francisco, and it seems as though its the city I've shot in most in California. I met Alton & Colleen this winter at their home in the city. A few months later we met up and had our shoot. Thanks to their driver, we had a great time zooming off to as many locations in the couple we shot hours as possible.

Looking east over the city, there is this one street that gets the bay bridge in the background.

Their personal favorite, twin peaks, with a sweet view of the city from another angle.

Heading to a "secret" part of town, there is a section of murals that make for a great backdrop.

Alton poses here next to the clock suggesting that maybe, he is a bit more on time than Colleen. We had a lot of fun with this.

Ok. the arrow, (shhh, your not supposed to go up there) but we went up real quick for a cool shot. I've seen guys trying to skateboard on there the last time we were shooting.

The embarcadero has a lot of sweet shots to shoot at, Fog City Diner is a spot not to miss, unlike any other restaurant.

With all the traditional cable cars in SF, this last shot was about 1/15th of a second.

Anyone else want to shoot in the city! I'm fired to to keep shooting!

In the 8 days before I left for yosemite, I shot 3 weddings, and 4 casual portrait sessions, thats almost 30,000 images!

North shore Oahu sunset...

I miss it here..

And the Results are in....

Ok so the winners of the 500th Post are the following: (It was the first thing I wanted to do when I got back from my 28th annual family camping trip to Yosemite).

Katrina, you won the shoot! Your blogger profile was not open for me to find you, so email me and I'll send you the details for the shoot you won! That is so generous to give it to your sister!

Katrina said...
Hey Mike! Just read your blog about the 500th post and wanted to congratulate you, your wife and your whole team on the continued success of your company! My fiance and I are so thrilled to be working with you for our wedding next year. If my name is chosen to win I would like to give the Casual Portrait Session to my sister. She and her husband are due to have their first baby this August. I think that it would be a wonderful gift to capture them as a family with their newborn baby boy.
Congratulations again!
6/08/2009 2:09 PM

The winner of the workshop seat is Aric Becker! Aric, I hope that this blesses your business and that you grow and become a leader in your industry and in your company.

Aric Becker Photography said...
Congrats Mike. Glad to see you made it home safe to your wife. Hope you are enjoying the surf today. I would love the portrait session. I heard you speak here in Seattle. My wife and I haven't had a session together, ever and it would be cool to get some good pictures of us. You are a true inspiration.
6/06/2009 12:10 PM

Thank you for all those who were so sweet with your comments. I have been so challenged with what I do, to do everything with excellence even more.

I want to challenge you to do everything you do with excellence, because everyone is watching. However, we really should think of having an audience of one. Doing what is right, because it is right. Not doing things just to look good to the world, but by doing what is right, looking good to the world that would be a byproduct of our hard work.

Have a marvelous day...

AMAZING EAST PACIFIC SUNSET

Tonight I was flying to Hawaii and my favorite thing about flying east over the pacific is the long sunset. The clounds look SO cool from up here. Tech Specs: Canon 5d Mark II, 1/30th sec, 8.0, 500 ISO. Lightroom edited in a RAW file. I normally shoot in jpeg, but i knew that I had a bright sun and a darker cloud below, so I needed to pull both out. For this kind of shot, I'm RAW all the way. There are almost 20 stops of light between the brightest and darkest areas in the image. I used to shoot this kind of landscape image all the time, its what got me into photography. And I still love it.

Half Dome

Im having such a relaxing week here in yosemite, for this shot, using
a 70-200 I shot this with my iPhone, looking through the lens barrel.

Yosemite day 3.

Today Rachel and I took a 12 mie bike ride, checked out climbers on El
Capitan. We rode up to mirror lake and laid out in the sand bars on
the old lakebed (now a new meadow). I live sitting and chatting,
connecting with my sweet wife. We talked about what God has put on
our heart for the rest of the year. I think it's so important to
connect and have Vision. For without it, we prerish.

Here is a shot of yosemite falls.

Lupine

The shrubbery up here is cool, especially the lupune flowers.
Everywhere you go, you see so much cool stuff.

500th Post! - Comment and Win! (UPDATED)

I've updated this post: Since, so many people have commented, I'm going to choose TWO people to win. I felt that I wanted to stoke out more people than just one out of 85!

Wow its been a fast last two and a half years, I've can't believe that this is the 500th post! This blog has been my creative outlet, and while my travel limits me to access to be home and blog, i blog from my Iphone, or from my new macbookpro. I'm thankful for all the heartfelt comments and cheers for the images, stories of the life, love, and lovers that I've been blessed to photograph and capture. I have been so fired up lately as I have streamlined my life to be more available to people, and less to tasks, I've been able to connect again with more people and make the time to have this creative outlet showcase even better work. There has been only 30% of the work I do that makes it to this blog, and thats GOING to change in the next 500 posts!

So lets celelbrate, shall we, because thats what milestones are for, celebrating victories, especially of sustained effort with discipline over time. I want to have that in my life in all areas, including in my marriage. My pastor has put it well,

"its not the hero who is exceptional for 20 minutes and gets their fame, yet the person who is exceptional for 2o years and who's consistency multiples much more in others lives"

Therefore, let us in our lives be of the character that influences other in ALL we do, doing everything with excellence.

To Commemorate all the lovers and love captured on and captured comments blog, I am going to reward one lucky person from all the comments from the next two weeks. They will get their choice of one of the following:

- A stunning Casual Portrait session.

or 

- A one day pass to one of my next upcoming single or multi day workshops. Just like the Oahu portfolio shooting & business workshop we have in Oahu coming up from June 28-July 1st.
 
Thanks again everyone for sharing in my passion.  I'll announce the winner here on the blog on 6.19.09!

p.s. please be sure to not leave an anonymous comment if you want to be entered to win, Its a bit hard to track those down! ;)

- Sincerely, Mike Larson

Craig and Autumn [tiber canyon ranch]

Our good friends Craig and Autumn had their special day at esoteric Tiber Canyon Ranch, tucked away just outside of San Luis Obispo. I must say, "good work!" to all who were involved in this event. Hair by Karri at Salon Lux. Amazing taco salads and guacamole provided by Maya Restaurant. The amazing ambiance lighting on the oak trees was set up by Kramer DJs and Melissa DJ'ed and MC'ed the evening. Congrats to Craig and Autumn on their marriage!

The light was so-so in this shot above and we used our Sunbounce to reflect light into the building, I LOVE doing this, because it creates such great light!

So the guys had a good sense of humor and wanted to have some fun, so we played around with some of the tools and random things on the property adjacent to the wedding. Seeing their character come out as they had fun was great.

Craig, was mightily holding back the guys. Autumn, does't this make you proud! Look at your man. He was barley trying and still looks cool.

Autumns parents were so sweet as her dad waked her down the isle, Autumn always smiles, but this time her smile was SO HUGE. It was great to see her so blessed!

I'm addicted to finding the angles that nobody has ever found, and I climbed and maneuvered my body to get this shot. But its totally worth the hunt!

The manzanita bark was so freaking cool. I could have shot there all day!

This series below is inspired from their casual portrait session in the apple orchard. I love how they make each other laugh. The coolest part is hearing how this was one of their friends favorite shots from that casual portrait shoot we did!

As we turned around after we finished, shooting, I saw this little bit of light come through and could not resist!

As always, Kramer DJ's lights were off the hook! They made this event look amazing at night!

Jake & Necia [engaged and loving it]

Jake is cool, and Necia so equally cool, and since they are getting married, thats just like a big basket of peaches on a warm summer day. Jake has been shooting with us since 2006 and we love him. I'm thankful for the team member he is.

I love how he loves his future wife. Thats why they were so excited for this shoot, it was the 1st time they could have something that showed how proud of their relationship. I believe that everyone should have something that they can visually see and remind them of why they are married. The ring is a symbol of the commitment, and the images that you have that show how you love each other, something that you can have big on your wall, or a screen saver on your cell phone. For me, I have them everywhere, reminding me that I married the most beautiful girl in the world, the most sweetest smile and I love the pictures where she is laughing at my jokes and being silly.

Jake is this way with Necia, they are so sweet together and make such a great team. Capturing them was really a joy. I'm VERY much looking forward to their wedding later this year!!!

Necia also does the coolest invitations design as well, and I'm going to be blogging those soon!

{Craig and Autumn}

I have known Autumn since before I was married to Rachel. They used to be roomates in a house of Mill St and they got married last weekend! I'm going to be posting some more images soon, but here are a few from their casual portrait session we shot a few weeks ago!

Every single couple has their inside jokes and funny things they do, lets face it, if us guys were not funny, and the girls didn't laugh, life would be so much less exciting. So one of my favorite things to do on our casual portrait shoots is to encourage them to be themselves, as if it was the 1st month they were dating. Looking back at when I was dating my sweet wife, I went to great lengths to make her smile. We would even go into Walmart, and I would hide inside HUGE 70 gallon tupperware container and she would drop a dvd case as a "cue" when someone would get close. Then I would pop out and make a loud noise and scare the people who were walking by. I'd trade off with her sister and we would have a blast. Simple fun, laughing and being silly. (I know, I know, I was 24 then and young!)

Its those times that remind me of why we were attracted to each other from the beginning.

We were fun people and while we have spent the last 4 years growing closer and serving each other, the initial sparks of fun, and silliness came out and made us smile. Thats why I spend so much time at these shoots doing these kinds of shots. It may take an hour to get to this point, which is why our casual portrait sessions usually last several hours, depending on the couple and the light and how many cool things we come up with.

Life is so fun, and its so important to capture it now. Its been rightly said, "never forget the joy of your youth". I am a firm believer that if everyone remembered these things about their wives or husbands, there would be less excuses about "drifting apart" and pain that comes when marriages separate and end. If only we can remember how much fun we had, and remember that life should be more simple, serving our spouses, respecting as if we were still on the 1st date, and having as much passion and energy for making them laugh as we did in the early years. Thats just part of why I do what I do for a living. I hope your marriage is blessed beyond your dreams Craig & Autumn...

Studley Castle - Day 2.

Here was day two! We shot for around 3-4 hours today and we had so many great variations of poses, shots, action, technical & practical advice and tips.

I actually was super inspired and felt like I not only shared my heart, mind and passion behind what I shot, but I learned more about why I shoot and pushed the edge with the quality of light, using the sunbounce system, the sun or flash to get amazing images. Thanks to everyone for having me there, here are some of the highlights...

Getting ready shots in the Castle Chamber room

Here we had a sun swatter above the bride, with a black gobo on her left.

There was a sweet arch door that we found in this abandon field of the Castle.

We had almost 30 people shooting during the day. Everyone got along as we shot 15-20 different setups for over 3 hours!

Below here, I moved to the side and framed with the British shrubbery and briers that were the equivalent to American bushes. I love shrubbery!

Isn't this door amazing, today I had so much fun shooting!

This was actually the first shot that I took.

My usual toss, this time next to a castle, and infront of the Canon UK rep. He loved it.

Here is the final group shot before we all departed.

Day 1 - Studley Castle Workshop

The Flash Centre & California Sunbounce has asked me to talk and shoot at an amazing workshop here. Its been an honor to be here, and fun shooting in an amazing countryside, I am blown away at how beautiful and majestic the countryside is here. The people are friendly and I love their accents. I even tried my aussie accent on for size.

We had some models to help out and had a great day, shooting and discussing from 10am-10pm. Canon was there to demo gear, and print out prints from the day's shoot. Bogen, Manfrotto, and a few other companies as well. There was even a photographer who flew in from Finland! We had two segments, leadership & influence, shooting right the first time, as well as three practical 2 hour shoots. It was great. Tomorrow we have two more segments on the discussions and more shoots. We'll go over the business and marketing. While I am looking forward to going home on Saturday after a two week trip to reunite with my wife, I'm very much enjoying my time here in England at this castle with all of the photographers and businesses that have congregated for this workshop week. Thursday is going to be a great day!

Touring Around Middle England

We went to and old town and first had tea time, I had some good tea and a scone. I took my iphone and shot some images around as we explored today!

Then I found the largest Tea cup in the world, I wanted it so bad, but it was not for sale!

The buildings were from the 1600's. I am in love with this old town, so quaint and nice. The architecture was stunning. The brickwork was great, the whole vibe was Perfectville in the 17th century.

Flying into Birmingham Airport.

Here is Studley Castle, on a warm beautiful day, it was around 85 degrees, HOT for England.

Here are some of the homes and shops around the town surrounding areas.

Tomorrow we shoot the 2 day workshop...

Studley Castle

We just arrived at the Studley Castle here in the heart of Great Britan, and I'm excited, this place is from the 1700's! We will be here 4 days, and we start the 2 day workshop tomorrow morning sponsored by California Sunbounce, Dave from the The Flash Centre, Canon and a few others as well. I'm super excited about this place! But now we are heading on a tour of the grounds!