Laie | North Shore Family
When I first learned we would be moving to Hawaii, I reached out to several photographers to try to get the lay of the land. Its one of those things we do for every move. I feel like I spend countless hours trying to prepare ourselves for whats to come. Sometimes we get amazing information that changes how we make big decisions. Sometimes we truly have to figure it out when we land. This move was a bit of both as the more people we chatted with, the more we realized it was going to be similar to our move and time spent in Italy in many ways. Maybe I’ll dig into more of that in another post, mental note * document our next move better *. All that to say, one of the things I kept hearing was client base. That it would be mixed between those visiting the island and those living on the island. This seemed so strange to me because I could count the times on one hand I had an out of state visitor book me for photos prior to moving. But here we are, almost a year in and sure enough, I get to hang and celebrate with folks who are vacationing on this island and its pretty dang cool. A couple times I’ve had an even bigger honor and get to photograph the family of friends. This was such a session and I couldn’t have imagined a cuter little man if I tried.
Tiny Toes in that Pacific Ocean surf
One of the things I love most about being able to photograph families in Hawaii is how much the environment just begs to be explored
Another magical thing about Hawaii…the backdrops. I sometimes joke that I don’t even have to try to get good pictures here, the landscape alone elevates images. In truth, little humans are always little humans so its work but dang it definitely helps with these views
I found myself just loving the black and white edits in this session as well. Fun fact, I don’t always edit in black and white (unless its a birth, birth stories get all images in color AND black and white) but when I do, you also get the color edit
Insider tip: the majority of the time I’ll tell y’all to totally ignore me. If I need movement, I’ll ask for it. If you’re in the way, I’ll you to move (it still cracks me up how many partners move out of the frame because they think they’re messing up the shot when they actually ARE the shot). But we always try to get at least one ‘Christmas card’ shot where everyone is looking at the camera
Even here…this little man understood the assignment
Something I ALWAYS try to do with family photos especially those with young children is to make sure parents have an opportunity for photos together without the kids. Its a season in life that can be all consuming, where you’re giving your everything to these little humans and having to be intentional about connecting. It might only be for a few seconds and there might be pouts in the background but I promise its worth it. Some of my favorite photos from our past family photos are of me and my husband. After all, that’s how this whole wild adventure started to begin with!!!!
