Bequia Boats

I picked up a copy of the April Caribbean Travel & Life magazine this morning. I've got a couple images on page 40 with an article by Chris Cox. "The Fleet Petit". I was happy to see that they were finally used. The photos of Christopher Waldron outside of Withfield Sails were some of my favorites of the trip. It seems like a long time ago.

Hawaii by Land

I have been to a couple of volcanic islands in the past ... St. Vincent and Dominica. Some of the beaches were black sand, and the peak of the volcano could sometimes be seen in the distance. But driving around Hawaii, I saw first hand how these islands are made. The simplest way that I could sum it up was with the following image. I saw the photo as I drove to a meeting with the director ... a flash of three colors through the car window. But they seemed to perfectly capture the natural elements of Hawaii - the ocean, the vegetation and the volcano. I parked the car on the side of the highway and had to hike over an old lava flow until the image looked good through the 400mm.

The Hawaii I was Hoping For

I took two days after shooting wrapped to see some of the Big Island. (I feel a little weird using such a familiar term for such a new place, but I also don't like names that don't really say where you are ... such as "I'm going to Africa." Anyway.) I found Brett LeMaster's company Mele Nai'a through some sort of web search, and I had some great email conversations with his partner Leina before I left Miami. To be honest, all I needed to know was Brett's reputation as a freediver and see the photos of False Killer Whales on their website to know that I wanted to dive with them. I REALLY made the right decision! Spinner dolphins is the basis of their business, and we had just found a pod on Monday morning when Brett got a call about some Pilot whales logging on the surface. Before slipping in the water in front of the slowly moving pod, Brett casually warned me about Oceanic Whitetips that often travel with the whales. And as I sat in blue water waiting for the whales to pass, the first thing I saw come out of the distance was a shark. As it got bigger, I consciously told myself to be ready for an aggressive shark. And it was aggressive, in a slightly disinterested way. On that first pass, I had to stick my fin in it's face to send a message, and I know I was nervous because I didn't think to shoot the shark just behind my fins. It was nice to turn and see Brett behind me. But after that, the sharks were turned simply by eye contact, and I have to admit that I was wishing them just a little closer, just a little closer. Wow are they incredible! Such huge fins. Such amazing color. I have wanted to get in the water with an Oceanic Whitetip for a long time now. I can't believe how seemingly easily is happened.

Hawaii Production

There came a point on Day 2 of the production ... sometime after the wind went quiet on Mauna Kea, and the clouds completely rolled over Parker Ranch, and the production reached a generally low point ... there came a point when one of the clients pointed out that Bob Gordon's company motto is "Making the impossible, possible". Yes, it was more a comment on how impossible the idea of ever completing the commercial seemed at that point. But at the same time it was probably obvious to everybody that the best way to overcome most impossible situations is a talented helicopter pilot. And in Hawaii we had two of them ... Craig Hosking and Don Evans. Plus Akoni Kama, who's job it was to be literally dragged around by a helicopter. Who needs wind when you have a Hughes 500?


The fact of any film shoot is that mornings are early. We had back to back 4:15 am calls on this job. And it was a surreal experience to drive through the pitch black, with an impossible number of stars overhead, following small crew signs along the roadside. And when the sun came up, our location was revealed as something closer to the moon than the Hawaii I was expecting. Mauna Kea was one of the most dramatic and beautiful places that I have ever been.

MIT Triathlon

Lara ran the Olympic distance event at the Miami International Triathlon this morning. I have been looking forward to shooting lots of swimmers churning water. However, the swimming portion of all events except the sprint happened before the sun came up. Here are a selection of the few that almost worked. I blame my poor shooting on lack of sleep and the huge amounts of Nyquil in my system. Note: all camera blur on the bike photos is intentional. All blur on the swimming photos is the result of the 7 am start and the 7:29 sunrise.


I am trying to wade through the gigabytes of photos that I returned from Hawaii with. It might take me a couple of days to get something posted.