CUE THE MUSIC...10.06.18

Cue mood music...Do you think it makes a difference on how you edit an image to what kind of music you're listening to at the time of editing? Do you edit in a quiet peaceful environment or are you watching TV & editing at the same time? 

For myself, my zen zone is, at my workstation in my room, sitting on the floor  Japanese style listening to contemporary instrumental soft jazz music. Yes, it has to be instrumental no singing, way too distracting!!! 

I used to listen to & still do every once in a while, alternative & heavy metal music. I started to notice that my moods were very "on edge" & somewhat irritable. I really didn't like feeling that way & started to listen to soft jazz & I believe it helped out mellow my moods & I wasn't always in a rush, especially while I was shooting, running around "looking" for every single composition, instead of slowing down & "seeing" my composition. There is a difference between "looking for" & "seeing" a composition. Nowadays I try to let the composition come to me, it's hard to explain but it's more of a combination of feeling & knowing when & where the composition is or will be. 

So what do you listen to while your editing your masterpiece?

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved 

LEAVE NO TRACE...10.02.18

I’m not posting a picture today, I think it’ll distract from getting my point out today. There has been a movement within the photography world called “Leave No Trace”, I first heard of it from a podcast that I listen to called "F-Stop Collaborate and listen" hosted by Matt Payne an outstanding photographer whose work I admire & draw inspiration from. He interviews many of the iconic landscape photographers & how they work their vision to capture that shot.

In a nutshell, Leave no trace, has been adopted by many photographers it entails not revealing the location of their images for this reason. Many of the popular photographers who post their work on social media & on their website have many other photographers inquiring about where this location is. In the past, they did share their "secret" spots but they've been noticing that more & more photographers visit that same location & trash the aina. They trample the greenery, move rocks, & the vandals that tag the location. I'm sure you've heard of these idiots in the news defacing the beautiful landscapes to get their shot. With social media, these secret spots get popular by the minute.  

In Hawaii, there are a few "secret spots". Once a photographer posts his image, it gets viral locally very fast & it's not a secret anymore. However it's not only the locations, but it's also respecting the aina, I've done this myself in the past where a small branch of a tree is in my frame & I've broken it off, just to get my shot. Nowadays I'll remove it in Photoshop or find another composition. In my eyes it’s just wrong to pull out a plant or break off a branch just to satisify your vision. It takes decades for a tree to grow & it takes 5 seconds to deface what nature has given us. Who are we to play “God”?!?!  

Moving forward, for the most part, I'll put up the location on my blog but it'll be a general area of where I am. In the past 5 years, I've taken the time to explore the landscape as to where I can possibly shoot from. There are locations where it is not accessible at certain tides. Do your homework & go out to explore not only physically going out to a potential spot but Google maps reveal many things on our shoreline. Find out if it is accessible to the public, if not get permission from the landowner to shoot from there. These are my own opinions & I hope I haven’t pissed off too many people’s, if I did block me.

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved 

LIGHT AND LACE, REBRANDING...10.01.18

Hey there my friends, I know I haven’t been keeping up with my blogging, I’ve been so busy with my craft  being sick, as well as dealing with everyday life. 

I wanted to let you all know that I am working on a new website & branding my boudoir & lingerie styles shooting. For this reason I’ve taken that page off my main website, ryansakamoto.com. I personally think that it’s a bit confusing having my seascapes, wave & portraiture images on that one site. So I’m starting to rebrand my name into a secondary boudoir & lingerie style of shooting. I’m not giving up seascapes & wave photography that will alway be my 1st love…at least for now, but I do have to admit, sadly, that I don’t have the same excitment for seascapes as I did before.

I have been studying more lighting techniques & have recently purchased a Stella Pro 8000 LED lighting system & a 20” Deep dish softbox . The Stella Pro is a constant LED light so I can see the way the highlights & shadows fall on my subject before clicking the shutter. The Stella Pro won’t replace my Godox/Flashpoint AD200 lights, they have their own use & is so much more powerful than the Stella. As with my style of shooting on the dark side, I bought the Stella Pro to explore the low key boudoir style of shooting, showing enough but not everything of my subject & on the plus side have less equipment to lug around.

So be on the lookout for my new branding Light and Lace, lightandlace.ink…Aloha


Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved 

WITHIN THE DARKNESS...09.29.18

My buddy & I revisited “The Tree” once again, a perfect +high tide that will give the illusion that a single tree growing in the ocean, which it actually is, & by looking at the forecast for wind conditions with 5-10mph breeze we decided to chance um’. We arrived there early Saturday morning & 1st thing we noticed, no wind, maybe a slight breeze here & there. Why was the wind so important? I wanted to shoot a long exposure, 3-4 minutes long to smooth out the water & streak the clouds, & if the wind was blowing it would blur the leaves on the tree, with that said I did have an alternative plane that in my pre-visualization I’d use the blurring of the leaves in my composition, so either way would have worked for me.

I've posted my original, unedited raw image below, I purposely overexposed the image knowing that I can recover the details in the highlights in post. I also tried something different, at least thinking wise, by overexposing the image, I could darken the shadowed areas in post & not introduce any noise or hot pixels. Granted viewing the image on the back of my camera looks like CRAP, I had to suck it up & carry on with my experiment. My settings for this image was 181 sec exposure, f/8 & ISO 100. I did bring down the exposure & shadows in specific areas in the foreground but wanted to keep some detail of the wooden plank to make the viewers eyes look deeper into that area. As an artist I have to be aware that this in camera image is just a sketch or final draft of my vision & knowing what I can do in post will bring out the beauty of the final image. I also did crop the image just a tiny bit to balance the composition.

There were some unwanted reflections on the wood plank in the foreground that I had to remove, that annoying yellow leaf (which I should have removed at the time of the shot, laziness shows it ugly face once again!) & on the very bottom of the image there were a lot of white rocks that I removed, I thought they were too distracting. I added the golden light back on the horizon, which was actually there, for a little while, & added some textured highlight contrast to the clouds.

Original RAW unedited image below…

Original RAW unedited image

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved 

BACK IT UP...09.22.18

Had a fun 2 days shooting season 10 of Cooking Hawaiian Style at Kualoa Ranch. 2 days, 13 episodes, 10 hour days in the humid hot sun & luckily no heat stroke or sunburns this time! 

I made 1 rookie mistake & what a doozy of a mistake. On Saturday morning, day 2 of the shoot, just after sunrises I wanted to get a shot of the morning light hitting the Koolaus.  I’m not sure what I was thinking last night but instead of removing my SD cards out of my A9 & keeping them safe at home, I switched them & put it into my A7R III body.  So when I began to setup to shoot the Koolaus that morning I realized that the cards were in the A7R III. I removed the 2 cards from the  camera & stuffed them into my pocket with my iPhone. 

Just before lunch I started to backed up my current card from the episode we just wrapped up to on my WD My Passport Wireless SSD drive. That’s when 1 of the SD cards fell out of my pocket & I realized that I didn’t put the cards away in my card wallet from this morning. I dug into my pockets to find the other backup card, my heart skipped a second when I couldn’t find it!!! 

I didn’t panic knowing that I did have a solid backup plan in place already. The lost card was the backup card from the day before, my A9 has 2 card slots, the 2nd slot I have the camera copying all the contents from the 1st card as a backup. When I reached home on Friday night the 1st  thing I did was to copy & import  the card to Lightroom on my local external RAID drive, so I already have 2 copies at home. I still have the main SD card, this would be my 3rd copy, with all the files on them. The 4th copy, the WD My Passport Wireless SSD drive, after each episode I would religiously backup my files to the WD My Passport Wireless SSD drive. 

Just the fact that I lost $50 for that card was a shake my head, lolo moment! 

UPDATE: On Sunday morning 9/23/18 the Producer of the show emailed me & said one of the crew found my card in the grass while they were breaking down the set! Whew what a relief. So the moral of this story is to be sure that you have a solid backup plan for all your shooting events. If it’s a personal shoot, it’s not so bad but if your being paid to photograph anything you need to cover your ass & have a backup plan. 

I just wanted to share this lolo moment with you all & to let you know that we all make mistakes.

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

A GIRL, A SAMURAI SWORD & SOME INK...06.17.18

I wanted to post something different instead of waves. Been itching to shoot low key boudior style. Waiting on a few peices of equipment to come in so I can follow the shodows!!!

The beautiful & exotic Kelsy. Unreleased image from our photoshoot back in June.
It’s Aloha Friday, have a safe & GREAT weekend everone!!!

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

SONY PRO SERVICES

I headed out to Sandy's this past weekend, I had an itch to shoot waves. I've fallen in love with my 2nd body, the Sony A9!!! It is an amazing full-featured camera body! Being able to track the waves with no blackout between frames is so freakin' awesome! I'm getting so spoiled but I have to go back to my A7R III for the resolution.

Earlier last week I did get my Sony A7R III back from Sony Pro Services, but unfortunately they were not able to recreate the problem I was having with not being able to bring up the menu or reviewing my image, it would come up for a second then kept going back to the shooting view. They did clean it, reset & recalibrate the camera & I had it at my doorsteps in about a week. So no horror stories about people waiting for months for heir camera to be returned. As far as service using the Sony Pro Services I'd give them 5 stars, even if they could recreate the main problem. The day after they received my camera from a prepaid FedEx shipping label they provided, they called me to tell me that they weren't able to recreate the problem & wanted to know more about my shooting conditions. A couple days later I called & they said they we shipping it back to me, still unable to recreate the issue. I haven't used it since I got it back, I'm just too head over heels with my A9 & having so much fun with it! I think this weekend I'll take the A7R III out for a test spin to see if the "issue" will come back!? I'm praying it won't, wish me luck!

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

HERE COMES HURRICANE LANE...08.19.18

As hurricane Lane sluggishly creeps upon the island of Oahu, I wait at home with my family & thinking about everyone's safety. It has been downgraded to a Cat 1 storm as of this afternoon, which is very good news, but Lane could turn or pickup strength at any time, so we wait & cross our fingers until it passes. I have to admit that earlier in the week, as I monitored the movement of Hurricane Lane, I was very worried as it predicted path was heading straight towards the Hawaiian Islands! All we could do was to wait & try to prepare for the worsts & pray for the best.

In the meantime, I'm dying to go out & shoot the high surf but, I do know of the safety hazards & precautions I'd have to take, & with my better judgment I'll say at home &  take care of the family today. Tomorrow is a new day & we'll see how fast or slow, Lane moves away from our Island home! Stay safe everyone & keep the ALOHA!

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

2018 PACIFIC INK & ART EXPO →

It took a while but I finally finished editing the pictures & it's up on my site! Follow this link, 2018 PACIFIC INK & ART EXPO. As always I so enjoy walking around & shooting this event, meeting new artist & seeing old friends!!! 

I did take a darker more old school look to my edits this year. I desaturated these color by dropping the vibrancy, I found it a little distracting. 

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

ROUGH WATERS...08.04.18

Well my Sony A7R III is now on it's way to Precision Camera via my Sony Pro Support Membership & it should get there on Wednesday 8/15. Made the call on Friday & received an email about an hour later with a prepaid FedEx shipping label. Sony Pro Support will expedite the repair & I should have it back after a 3 day turnaround repair, we shall see...I'm hopeful!  

It started acting up about 3 weeks ago & got worst while I was shooting the Pacific Ink & Art Expo. Whenever I tried to review my pictures it would pop back to the shooting view. The same thing happens while I try to access the Menu, so it got to a point where I couldn't change any settings because I couldn't keep the Menu screen on long enough to do anything! It was a bit frustrating, to say the least! This past weekend I used my backup A7III to shoot sunrise, which was perfectly fine. I had previously set all the buttons & setting to mirror what I had on my A7R III, except for a few functions it's almost an exact mirror. But I want my baby back ASAP!!!

We shot at Kaiona Beach this Saturday, it was a dropping tide & no wave action. My focus of interest has shifted from shooting the long exposures seascapes to shooting waves. I've noticed that without that focus of interest, I seem to lose my creative focus as well when shooting LE seascapes. When I look out at a scene I see nothing. On Saturday's I shoot with friends & for me the camaraderie with my friends is my focus & photography comes in at a close second! So I really don't mind if I come up empty especially in the company of good friends!

With that said Sunday's I normally shoot alone. I've come to enjoy the calmness of having no expectations, no one to wait for or waiting on me, the freedom to come & go or shoot or not shoot & just enjoy watching the sunrise. This is my "calm".

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

PACIFIC INK & ART EXPO 2018

The 2018 Pacific Ink & Art Expo will also be happening on the same weekend August 3-5 at the Blaisdell Center Friday: 3pm - 11pm, Saturday: 11am - 11pm & Sunday: 12pm - 6pm.  I'll be there covering the event with my camera in hand, all 3 days, well maybe 2 days, not too sure about Friday night yet, since I’ll be at The Contemporary Photography In Hawaii Gallery opening. My fascination with inked body art runs deep! Hope to see you there...Aloha

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2016 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

PARTING SHOT...07.29.18

The last series of shots from Sunday's wave shoot at Sandy Beach. I shoot until the sun is about 15-20% above the horizon or when the light gets just way too harsh. It's always hard to leave my little spot & I always tell myself one last set, this is going to be the shot! It never is as I chuckle to myself, but on that Sunday morning this set rolled in & I locked my lens on it & took a short burst of shots as the lens followed the wave as it curled...ahhhhh, I think I got it?!

Taking these long exposure shots of the waves at anywhere from 1/6th to 1/10 of a second, I'm craving a little sharper images but knowing that at 1/6 of a second & panning with the waves, I know very well that it would be tack sharp, acceptable sharp? Hmmmmm, I'll have to take acceptable sharp. I'm still experimenting with my shutter speed, maybe boosting it up a tad bit may get me where I want to be?! With that said I know I'll have to sacrifice something in the textures of the wave at a higher shutter speed.    

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY IN HAWAII 2018

Aloha everyone, one of my images has been picked to show in this year's Contemporary Photography In Hawaii 2018 gallery. The artists' reception will be held on Friday, August 3, from 6-8pm. If your free please come down & join me to see some amazing artwork from the Aloha State.

Congratulations to some of my friends who also had their imagery accepted into the gallery.
Lance Agena, Leslie Gleim, Stephen Sakamoto (no relationship), & Shane Sakata. Aaron Feinberg will also have one of his prints on display in the gallery, I'm such a big fan of his work! I hope he's the same Aaron Feinberg from Kauai, I'm thinking about?!?

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2016 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

A NEW JOURNEY??? ...07.22.18

I also have a few shots that are on the artistic moodier side, more of my style of shooting & interpretation on a single composition, fine art. I've been asking myself why do I enjoy creating this type of moody images, & I can't come up with an answer. This shoot with Lei was the 1st time I've incorporated this type of feeling into a portrait shoot. I may never figure out why I like this style but it does speak to me in ways I cannot explain. Perhaps a new photographic journey awaits me???

Model: Lei Mancini
Lead Assistant: Tien Enga   |   Special Effects: Dave Furumizo   |   Back Lighting: Reid Fujita
Sony A7R III  |  1/200 sec.  |  f/1.8 |  ISO 125  |  Sony FE 55mm F/1.8 ZA
Edited in Lightroom Classic & Photoshop CC 2018
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

THE PINK LEI...07.22.18

Did another model shoot this past Sunday with the beautiful & talented Lei Mancini, a local girl from the west side of Oahu. Was a little antsy about this shoot, I wanted to incorporate smoke into the background, which sounds easy enough, right?! With the help of some friends, I found a company that will ship smoke grenades to Hawaii, which will release colored, red, pink & white, smoke for 90 seconds, again simple enough, right?! All these questions, with one thought in my head, releasing that much smoke on a popular hiking trail will attract some attention as it rises over the tall looming trees. The last thing I need is the HFD & HPD slipping & sliding down the muddy trail trying to figure out if it's a fire or not! 

Model Shoot with Lei Mancini
Lead Assistant: Tien Enga   |   Special Effects: Dave Furumizo   |   Back Lighting: Reid Fujita
Sony A7R III  |  1/200 sec.  |  f/1.8 |  ISO 125  |  Sony FE 55mm F/1.8 ZA
Edited in Lightroom Classic & Photoshop CC 2018
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved here…

Switched to Plan B, & used the 4 cans of Atmosphere Aerosol & backlight the white smoke with a pink gel, worked like a charm!

Being a seascape photographer, there's always something about the water that attracts & feeds my creative soul. It's so calming but exciting, all at the same time, being in my element. Working with Lei & getting her to lay down into the water & capturing that perfect comp, was exhilarating!!! The reflections coming off the still water was definitely an added bonus. 

This is the 1st time I've had a 3 man crew plus the model. The crew consisted of Tien Enga, lead assistant, Dave "The Smoking Man" Furumizo & Reid "The backlight" Fujita, couldn't have done it without you guys, thank you so much!!! Lei was a pro, never complained even after submerging herself into the cold waters of the stream & freezing her butt off, you're amazing, thank you so much! 

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

EMERALD CREST...07.15.18

Too much freakin' work STRESS this week!!! Just want to get out & shoot tomorrow with friends, no drama, I had enough. 

SOOOO glad it's Friday, 2nd of my double post today, hope you all like it :) 

It’s ALOHA FRIDAY! Have a safe & relaxing weekend everyone!!! 

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

INKED BEAUTY SERIES...KELSY

Had the privilege to work with the beautiful & talented Kelsy a few weeks ago, she's a natural in front of the camera. Kelsy is in the art of body piercing & can be found at Rising Tide Tattoo, @rising_tide_tattoo. 

One of my favorite shots from our shoot! I remember telling her that there's something about her "looks" that's so mesmerizing...exotic! She also has some beautiful tattoos on her back that goes down the side of her thighs & ends just above the knee. 

1st of a double post today

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

FIRE & ICE...07.15.18

Ran into a few friends on Sunday morning at Sandy's, always great to see familiar faces in the dark hours of the morning! As usual, I trekked out to my "spot" on that first rock, but always weary as I stand & watch how the waves are breaking over & around my perch. The tide was on a downward swing & the swells were pretty large but not consistent, so that meant that I had time to sip my coffee in between sets! 

I tried something a little different that morning, the night before I attached my 1.4 Sony Teleconverter to my 100-400mm lens. So it becomes a 140-560mm lens. I was expecting it to hunt on my autofocusing & it did but not any worst than without it...maybe just a smidgen?! Definitely, need to shoot with it more & get to know it's pros & cons. I also realized that the waves were backlit, which meant that the front of the waves were dark & that's when the lens would struggle locking focus.

I'm still learning & experimenting with pretty much everything, aperture, ISO, Shutter speed, teleconverter, backlighting & focusing, but having so much fun learning what works & what doesn't!!!

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

SYNERGY...07.07.18

I felt something when I saw this raw image & wanted to do an edit on this. I tried so many things & little tricks that I knew in Lightroom but nothing seemed to work, to show what I was feeling from this image. A bit frustrated I desaturated it, just enough to keep some of the blues & remove a lot of the haze from the salt spray with a little bit of clarity. Much to my surprise, it worked & I felt that it was enough to show the raw power of how Mother Nature can be so beautiful yet wield the power for massive destruction with just simple water. Every year that passes countless numbers of locals & tourist underestimate this power & pay dearly with their lives. We need to educate our keiki to respect this power that Mother Nature holds.

Respect the power & beauty of our ocean!

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserved

THE BARK PARK...07.09.18

I've been going down to the Diamond Head Bark Park with my daughter & Maile, usually during the weekdays. It's so nice to see Maile run around & get a chance to play with the other dogs! I always forget to bring my camera, but on MondayI brought it with me & got this nice shot of Kim & Maile just after we entered the park.

I've started to notice that the same people & dogs coming down during the same time & I look forward to seeing this particular bulldog. Unfortunately I didn't get his name but he's so adorable!   

Aloha a hui hou my friends! 
www.ryansakamoto.com
Copyright 2018 Ryan Sakamoto, All rights reserve