i was hired to shoot a series of press photos of female emcee rocky rivera aka eyeasage during her recent trip to honolulu.  it was a unique opportunity to shoot a real rarity in the hip hop world…a female emcee, and not just any female emcee but a politically-conscious, asian american female emcee.

i packed up a set of strobes and set out to shoot on a windy, rainy day in honolulu.  the key for this shoot was that the client didn’t want a set of photos with a sense of “place.”  in other words, rocky plans to use these images to promote herself on the mainland US and a distinctly “hawaii” look isn’t what she needed.  i used a buffed wall and parts of chinatown to get an urban look that is ambiguous enough to be relevant everywhere.

it was a privilege, and my lucky streak of shooting really interesting, amazing performers continues.

-a

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hey i haven’t made a wallpaper image available in a while, so…

i give you an HDR image of waikiki, near the ihilani.

17-40mm f/4L lens, canon 5dmkII, 9 bracketed images in 2/3 EV stops, and HDR processing. you should see how sharp this is at native res. mean.

enjoy the wallpaper!

-a

[ right click + save to grab the full 1920 x 1200 px image file ]

souls of mischief at fresh cafe.

i haven’t shot a good hip hop show in some time now and it was fun revisiting that old routine.  i saw a lot of people that i haven’t seen in a minute and it was a great show, a great venue, and a fun night!

-a

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mayer hawthorne.  contrast party. pipeline.

available light photography thanks to a nifty new 35mm f/1.4L lens.  mean.

-a

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this week i was hired to shoot another series of press photos for another amazing local band.  painted highways wanted a set of images that were definitively “hawaii” in localization, but not cheesy at the beach at sunset with a coconut tree kinds of images.  so i took a set of strobes, umbrellas, stands, and radio triggers and set out to take those images.  night photography with an evenly balanced background is tricky because properly exposing the background requires a long exposure.  that meant the band had to hold their poses as still as possible for a while, not an easy task.  it really took commitment on the band’s part.

from a creative perspective, the guys in painted highways are always on some next level kinds of things.  a clown suit, an operation boardgame, records, and painter’s palettes were all things i never expected to incorporate into a single photo shoot.  but somehow they made it work.

the images were great…and it was really one of the more fun, random photo shoots i’ve had in a while.

-a

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way back in 1995 when i started taking pictures of my friends skateboarding with my first camera, i could never have guessed how things would have turned out today.  it’s been a long, strange trip but along the way i’ve met some truly amazing people.

back in high school, i listened to the best radio station i’ve ever heard, and i was turned on to a lot of great music.  i remember making mixtapes, digging the crates at jelly’s, and learning about the DJ, emcee, and hip hop culture.  in that culture, which has impacted my life so profoundly, there were a few legends that i learned about and listened to.  part of what makes someone or something legendary is that very inaccessibility that makes that thing or person a figure that exists but will never be a part of your world.  kind of like the often-overused metaphorical “unicorn”, it’s something that you kind of grow up knowing about but never expecting to actually see.

well, last week i got to shoot portraits of a living legend in the world of hip hop, a man who helped create the music that is a big part of my everyday life.  i could babble about the technical bits of the shoot but why do that when i can just gush about it like a total fanboy?

kool herc’s an amazing, genuine kind of dude.  i was fortunate enough to have a lot of time to chill with him.  the shoot was truly an honor, and….just wow.

-a

PS: a few portraits i shot this will be run as an ad for nextdoor in contrast magazine, and look out for the press photos who knows where??  ha.

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morals fiber hired me to shoot a quick set of lookbook and linesheet images for their newest season of gear.  the concept was to shoot in “the saw bathroom” a.k.a. a grimy, generally gross looking location.

well we found what is arguably the nastiest bathroom in the ala moana area (no i won’t tell you where it is, why do you want to know anyway, gross).  of course there wasn’t any available lighting and of course it smelled like death in there…not even bathroom smell, just that decaying food smell.  in order to preserve the moody, dark, sort of gritty feel that the bathroom needed to look sketchy, i kept the strobes dialed in at lower settings, relied on snooted strobes and stopped down aperture to keep the light nice and moody.

i’m happy with the results, and the shoot was…well, it was good.  but i’m glad its over.  and i’m glad that the office i’m sitting in at the moment smells 10 million times better than that place did.

-a

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a brief lookbook photoshoot for organik clothing.  it was shot at diamond head during the worst possible time…noon.

i’ve always been old school in the lighting department, and never got used to using reflectors or excessive post-production to make images look properly exposed.  so instead i broke out a few external strobes for fill flash and improvised.  i stopped the image down, dialed the strobe into full, and started winging it.  it was a solid, fun little shoot, and just in time for ASR.

-a

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cool herc.

nextdoor.

live painting.

fun.

-a

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old friend/favorite weekly rag the honolulu weekly hired me to shoot a quick series of portraits for their entrepreneur issue.  i got to snap a few photos of brandon reid, owner of the manifest in chinatown.

the concept was fairly simple, the image was to portray young professionals on the move.  the weekly pretty much had its game plan so all i needed to do was show up, snap a few action shots of brandon cruising hotel st. on a bike, while wearing a suit.  while on location i also blasted a few strobist portraitures, using an umbrella and a fill strobe to blow out the background and fill out the shot.  the weekly didn’t run with any of the portraits i shot but i always like to provide clients with options.  i liked the results.

quick, easy, and to the point.  what’s not to like?  congratulations to brandon and the weekly for a killer article.

-a

ps: new, larger gallery images and a less obtrusive watermark are now in effect!

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