02/13/22

I have been photographing this family since I moved here! I rarely shoot off the beach, but this was a rare exception I made for the mother because they really love this spot, and they specifically asked for me to shoot here for them! They aren’t really beach people and preferred the botanical gardens for their backdrop!  Grandma, mother, and two grandchildren are represented here and I photographed both of the sisters over a year ago for their senior pictures at this location too!

This was a shoot done in the middle of the day at about 2:30 pm, when the sunset was at about 6:20 pm. I am grateful for the cloud coverage this late afternoon and made for some really great vibrant photos that they will love forever! I always love shooting for returning clients, and I love capturing the memories for them in all aspects of their lives! 

If the sun was out and there weren’t a whole lot of clouds, this shoot would’ve turned out very differently and I would have had to run and find shade as quickly as possible! Thank goodness for clouds and nice Hawaiian backdrops like the botanical gardens in Kaneohe, Hawaii! It’s a gorgeous place to go if you’ve never been to Hawaii, it is only open until 4pm, so I recommend going earlier in the morning when it’s a bit cooler outside. 

SonyA1
24mm GM Lens
Cordial Knot camera strap
F1.4
ISO 100
Shutter varied 1/4000-1/8000

The equipment that I currently use literally took me over 3 years to make myself fall in love with what I am using right now, and I don’t foresee a change in that anytime soon. I am currently the proud owner of the Sony A1 and the Sony A7IV. The lenses I own at the moment that I use regularly for portrait photography are the 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm, all Sony G-Master Lenses. I love each lens I own, but lately, my 35mm has not come off my camera in quite some time. 

I use my Sony A1 and my 35mm GM for 99% of what I’ve been photographing lately, including the highlight videos I just added onto my portrait sessions. I have a Tiffen UV Filter on all of my lenses to protect the glass, and if you don’t have one, I highly recommend getting one. I have custom made across the shoulder paracord straps that are measured to fit me so my camera sits on my hip just perfectly when I am not actually holding it. I have tried and tested out various big brand shoulder straps, and I wasn’t feeling them at all. They were way too complicated and too much going on. 

I shoot medium continuous drive mode on my cameras so it shoots a few frames per second and we all know if you do that often, your images have a hard time buffering to the SD Cards and sometimes depending on the camera you have, your camera will black out. When that happens, you cannot use your camera, playback the images, because it takes forever and a day to buffer to the SD Card. So I gave up and sold all my slower SD Cards and have been using the Sony 277Mb/s 128GB or 64GB SD Cards. Since giving up my Sandisk Extreme Pro slower cards, my camera buffers real quick, and I can keep shooting with no screen black outs or lag. 

I have been through a few camera bags over the years, and I have been using the Brevite Jumper and I am more than happy with it. It’s small, comfortable, and fits everything I need in it with no issues. I have had Manfrotto, LowePro and a few other bag brands that in all honesty weren’t for me. The Brevite is reasonably priced as well, and it’s pretty fashionable looking. 

What’s in the Brevite Jumper Camera Bag?
SonyA1 & SonyA7IV
Sony G-Master lens – 24mm, 35mm, 50mm 
Tiffen UV Filters
Sony SD Cards 277mb/s – 64GB or 128GB
Custom made paracord across the shoulder camera strap

One of the things that we can’t control during our sessions is the weather. We go and schedule our photoshoots hoping that the weather will be absolutely perfect. We hope that there are some awesome clouds, with awesome colors, amazing breeze, beautiful golden sun and no bugs.

I scheduled this session back in October for a family session. We scheduled it for before Christmas so they would have a Christmas card photo. Sure enough, we had to reschedule due to their family getting covid. Fast forward to our reschedule date, which was about a month later and it rained! Third time’s a charm right? No. It’s not. It rained again on their third reschedule date. Well instead of rescheduling again, she asked me if we can just change the session to a cake smash since her daughter turned one. Studio sessions can happen at any time, so I said “of course”. Thankful this little butternut was happy as can be, but extremely curious of me. One thing I learned from this session was to make sure you have some days in your calendar that are open for situations like this. We should not be over packing our schedules. We need a life, yes, but we also need dates that are available for bad weather!

This shoot was AWESOME! This little girl was so sweet and adorable, I truly enjoyed shooting their family. I photographed the mother and the father a little over a year ago for her maternity pictures and I love returning clients that come back to me for milestones. I know these images will look wonderful enlarged and blown up on the walls of their new home on the mainland. 

I was a bit worried going into this shoot because the weather wasn’t supposed to cooperate, and when I arrived at the location it was actually harsh sunlight which was a surprise to us all. We waited it out a bit closer to sunset so the sun wasn’t so harsh and blaring. Knowing the sun was blaring, I made sure to keep their backs to the sun at all times so they weren’t squinting and there were no shadows on their faces. 

The shoot ended up being so incredibly fun and I was so happy to capture these moments for this family of three celebrating their little ones first trip around the sun! Bring on all the tiny families with littles! I find such joy shooting families with real little kids, it always makes for a great time and the true emotions and candid memories are captured!

At this shoot, I also filmed a few video clips and provided them with a short 51 second video of their little family having the best time ever just enjoying the good times and playing with their daughter!

I shot this entire shoot with my Sony A1 and my 35mm GMaster lens which lately rarely comes off my camera. As you all know, I shoot wide open so this entire shoot was photographed at F1.4 and ISO 100, and adjusted shutter speed as needed for light and movement. I edited this session using SALTY04 & SALTED02 with several brushes from the SALTY Preset Pack. 

The video was recorded on my SonyA1 in slow motion, and I did post processing in Final Cut Pro and IMovie. I used a LUT that was made by myself to mimic SALTY05 for the video and I added a royalty free song to the video I purchased through Epitome. Video is becoming my jam and I have since added it to my price sheet for an add on service to my photo sessions. If you wish to see the video, you can check it out here: The Holford Family