Island life!

Mary Jo and her family will be leaving the island shortly. She wanted a shoot for her kids to remember Okinawa by...Living in Okinawa, you pretty much might as well live in flip flops...

Of course we started at the beach...It was sort of threatening to rain, but at least it wasn't or didn't because it was a LONG rainy season on Okinawa...

Moving on to get brother hanging out next to his favourite chosen piece of graffiti...

and sister looking pretty in pink...

Look at those lashes!

Safe travels and Sayonara as you go onto pastures new!
I am way behind on blogging, more coming asap as I wash about 20 towels a day from all the water activities we are doing now the kids are out of school and it's about 90 degrees underneath palm trees!

I Heart Faces - Pets!

I definitely wanted to enter this shot in the I Heart Faces pets week.

This dog has some personality for sure and LOTS of energy. He was appropriately names Blaze! Full blog post HERE.
Blaze on over to

to see hundreds of pet entries :)

Walkiessssss...

The anticipation of a shoot is quite exciting. From juggling the weather to wondering how the shoot will go. Once at the shoot, it's like I have tunnel vision, I am totally into the shoot, it's all about the images and whomever is in front of the camera. There's always one I just absolutely know is going to be my fav. So, here it is!...

Yep, you saw that right, that's Blaze the Retriever! Jessica wanted to capture her puppy and the love between them...and there was loads of energy going on. He is a big lollipy puppy! If you don't believe me, check these outtakes out!

Yes, don't let his calm-butter-wouldn't-melt-sitting-next-to-Mama look deceive you!!!

It was actually a beautiful day after what seemed like months of yuckiness...

The sun was most definitely shining in reality and on the walls!

And dogs? Well, they just wanna have fun!...

Thank you Jessica and Blaze for a super fun session! You were both great stunning models :o)

The lady in the park...

So, to continue after my last blog post (the garden shoot) Trish and I walked around a local park. Trish said there were some people that lived in the park. We chatted photography and then we saw a man waving at us. We walked up to the gazebo he was under and there was also an older lady there tending to her cat. We asked if we could take some photos. The man was too far back and more in the shade, but the lady was right on the edge of the gazebo and her eyes captivated me. She was happy to be photographed and very natural.

I can't really explain the feeling when I get a shot like this. This is what fuels my photography. It's like the foundation of why I shoot images. Taking it back to basics with 'street' photography. To capture the fire in a persons eyes. An instant connection. Some may love images like this, some may not. To thy own self be true (my little mantra I need to practice more!) and this is pure truth to me! Here's a BW version...

The next weekend, I had another shoot at the gardens, I wanted to take a lady a copy of her portrait. She was so happy to get it and I took these pics but they can't really translate the massive smile and 'arigato gozaimasus' I got when I first gave her the photo!

I LOVE days like this!
Here's one more from the park that first day...

See you later!

Family at the {rainy} Gardens!

Some firsts for this shoot. First time shooting a client at the Fukushen gardens (quite surprising really), I have shot there for my own amusement before so at least I knew how to get there!
First time I had someone come along on the shoot with me, Thanks Trish, I am glad you enjoyed it and hope you got something out of it!

It was one of those days, shall we cancel or not. This is what I was driving into! (Mcd's - wherever you go, there it is!!!)

Well, this family was PCSing so it was another we do it now or we don't do it at all most likely. So, we did it! Yes, it rained. Yes, of course it stopped raining after the shoot was complete! But that's life, innit! You live it!

The kids were great sports considering this was mosquito central (I counted 28 bites on my calves and ankles that - very itchy - night). I am sure they had the same.

They were troopers!

I love this place...

LOVE it!

Look at the colour of the pond. Beautiful!

Of course, I had to get some portraits of these gorgeous children :o)

So this family has flown off to pastures new and I hope that these images will give them some great memories of this unique island. Happy travels Kids...

...and, of course, Mum and Dad!

On another note: I have been asked quite a few times by people if they can come on a shoot with me. I am so used to working alone, I felt weird about it, so when I never took people up on their offers to 'shadow' me or assist me before, it wasn't because I was being rude, I just didn't feel comfortable and thought I would feel self conscious, but it wasn't like that at all. It was so nice to have someone with me: they can help me in so many ways, including with their own visions that I might otherwise miss. So thanks again for breaking me out of my little box, Trish!
After the shoot, Trish and I went for a little walk, chatted photography and took some photos. I will post that next!

Love, love me do...

Here are some more from the recent-ish engagement session with Heather and Jason...

Lots of beautiful places to chill...

It seems that all the photos I have chosen for this blog are kissing ones LOL

But it's all good...

This was an engagement session after all!

Where would you like to be caught kissing?

OK, let's see some individual shots. Here's Guy, em, I mean, Jason. I decided he bears a bit of resemblance to Guy Richie?

And here's the beautiful, Heather...look at those eyes, like the tropical sea :o)

It was getting bright and hot out there as we finished up for the morning...

Thank you, you two, for making my job so easy, you were just great :o)
I am super behind in blogsville, but life must go on, it's the blog or the kids breakfast (just kidding!) See you soon :o)

I Heart Faces - Play

This one is a bit of a blast from the past. Taken last year during Hayley and Tommy's maternity session. Near the end of the shoot we decided to have some fun in the water, they were having a blast splashing each other and so was I and then this rainbow formed between the splashes and I was in heaven!

Poor Tommy, Hayley got him good in this one!

I Heart Faces - Barefoot week

This week's for fun theme is to raise awareness for the organization 'soles4souls'.
I knew instantly that this photo would be the one I used esp. since I titled it 'soul 2 sole' on flickr! Taken in Okinawa in Oct, 2009 with a fisheye lens.