share a little aloha

one of the nicest things you can do for someone is to give them a ferrari.
one of the second nicest things you can do is to say nice things about them to everyone you know.
if you're reading this you're probably like us and have boatloads of photographers that you look to for inspiration, and maybe even a few that you inspire. every day we visit the blogs of photographers around the world in an attempt to shrink this huge planet of ours and bring everyone closer together. today we read a blog post that said lots of nice things (about us) and brought a smile to our hearts. that post was written by san diego photographer donna rohmer.
donna and her uber cute daughter cassi have been under the weather lately, so if you have an extra minute or two please surf over to donna's blog BY CLICKING HERE and wish her and cassi well. friendship is the best medicine. get well soon you two :)

martina and dylan..."professional Disneyland guests"

when denise first contacted me inquiring about taking some photos of her two children, martina and dylan, we talked a bit about the places they would like to take the photos. what places do they love to go? in talking with denise i discovered that she is what her friends call a "professional Disneyland guest." since they love Disneyland as much as i do, i suggested that we take their photos there. denise couldn't say yes fast enough. martina and dylan needed no convincing. the stage was set for a super fun photo session.

this shot is a re-creation of a moment shared between martina and her grandma that denise had captured years ago. on a side note, sadly, Mr. Lincoln isn't in the opera house these days.

martina and dylan were such great models. they were A. adorable, B. up for all of my ideas, and C. always had a smile on. even with all the rides tempting them, they stuck with the plan & were two of the best young kids i've ever worked with.

martina and dylan were being as good as angels, but i could tell they were ready to crank up the fun a notch or two, so...

we made our way back to toontown where they could finally let loose a little. i love that part of the park. it's so colorful and fun. you can't help but feel like a kid once you're in there.

peek a boo dylan!

i wasn't kidding when i said martina was as good as an angel.
cue the angelic "aaaaahhhhh" sounds.

dylan was super cool. in fact, he was a little too cool. this was taken right before he crossed that velvet rope in the background which ,in turn, caused a cast member to yell "you can't do that!" apparently, dylan's been reading our blog. we don't like velvet ropes either. :)

martina had a good laugh about her brother's run-in with "the law."

can you name them all?

thank you denise for inviting us to photograph your ohana at one of our favorite places. we had such a fun day. we absolutely love your kids, chicklets and all. :)

Rain's shots from the Salton Sea TTD

when i sat down to think about what to call our company it took me a while. like most things that i do right, i think and think and sometimes overthink about them. that's the virgo in me (for those that are in to that stuff). several crumpled pieces of paper later it came to me. the light turned on. what was the most important thing to me? what did i want this company to represent? who would this company be? my family. my ohana. ohana photography is not just a name. it's us. ALL of us.
we've been taking rain with us on as many shoots as possible for about 2 years now. last summer, when we went to do the ttd session in orange county, rain asked if she could get in on the act. we said sure and let her use a canon digital rebel, showed her the basics of how to use it, and told her to take whatever pictures she wanted. that was her first ttd session. fast forward to the salton sea ttd in january 2008. rain, a salty photographer at the ripe old age of 8 at the time, again joined us. since she already knows how to work the basics on the camera we gave her no instruction this time.
these shots are all hers (except the first one).
i helped her on the post processing only. i did not crop any of them. rain did all the composition in-camera.

nice white sand beach right?

take a closer look. it's not sand at all. it's made up of fish bones. it was definitely strange walking around this "beach."

fish jerky anyone? yummo!

this shot was taken at an old mobile home park that had been destroyed years ago. rain said she took this shot because it told the story of this couple being sad about the destruction. it kind of blew me away that she would even think of something like that.

here's a little behind the scenes stuff.
auntie nely was helping make the light pretty.

as eddie's shirt said...here's the crew.

here's how we got the light to look so nice for those shots on top of the organ.

muchas gracias mr. christensen.

our extended ohana was well represented. from the left: melissa, jeanette, alyssa, the hottest woman i know, rowena, and b-pril.