Top family photographer Kauai

February 10, 2026 | Kauai Photographer  I call my kind of family and couples photography “ natural representation .” To me that’s a real merger of four specific, special things. When you book me for a shoot, I don’t just show up, suggest poses, and shoot away. The first thing I do is throw in my all to obtain from you your own freeform expression . I need that from you before I can think of the subtle design stuff (part two—it sounds better than number 2), which I’ll initiate once the freeform thing is happening. The third itty-bitty special thing is flattering lighting , which we might have to search for. I might need to lead you from place to place in the hunt, and in some cases I’ll have to support it with my own fill light—a sneaky little magic device that comes with me to all of my shoots.  Then there’s the number 4.  I’ll get to that one in a moment.  Let’s look at freeform expression . It means I have to get you to laugh. Okay, my jokes might be corny, but...

"Give me a cutaway, a reversal, and don’t cross the line.”  Language that makes complete sense to you, right?  How about “Roll sound?” Maybe you’re familiar with that one, where a movie production’s sound guy is told to start the recorder, and then the slate person places the slate in front of the camera and the AD says “Mark it! “ But I bet you’ve never witnessed it at a wedding.  If you think I’m going to tell you that I do all of this at weddings and events (I'm a wedding cinematographer)  well, no. But I do follow the most intrinsic protocols, the stuff  taught to me many years ago when I was a supernumerary/ apprentice at Pinewood Film Studios in England. I was seventeen and I’d quit school early because I hated school. My initial training started with knowing the difference between emulsion and celluloid, key numbers and reel numbers, how to recognize fogged film, to know what butterflies, HMI's and scrims are and how and when to use them—a ...

What your eyes see is not what a camera sees. What we see is what we see whereas a camera approximates based on the photographer’s light and back focus settings. We call this the exposure—a term that is basically meaningless to our eyes. To our eyes, if it’s bright outside it’s bright; when it’s almost night, it’s dark. If we’re inside a candlelit room it probably looks moody, and when we’re sitting on the beach staring at the ocean as the sun sets it’s glorious and if we’re wise we won’t stare directly into the sun.  In photography, it’s not that straightforward.  Imagine it’s noontime and you’re in the middle of a sweeping grassy field fringed by lofty trees to your left and several dramatic gray clouds above.  I’m taking photos of you strolling along, the lofty trees sitting in shade are in the background. My camera's exposure settings would show you in the best light so that you don’t appear excessively underexposed or greatly overexposed. I could give you the p...