THE NEXT MORNING...04.08.18

This past weekened was kind of a blah weekend! Saturday morning after arriving at Sandy's at 5am the light rains drizzled non stop, 2 of my buddies arrived about 5 minutes after I got there & as we were talking story the drizzle turned into rain. We decided to pack it up & have an early breakfast. 

Sunday came around & as I left my house the ground was wet from an earlier rain. Not too optimistic, I drove to Sandy's once again. I got my gear ready & walked into Sandy's, observing how the waves had changed the landscape. The areas that once were covered with rocks was now under the sand. Nothing seemed to have caught my eye as I continued walking into the depths of Sandy Beach. I came upon an opening & watched how the incoming waves washed over & around these rocks. I also noticed that in this spot the waves were consistent with a good deal of motion. It took several tries to finally find a composition I was happy with. Having my 16-35mm lens on I needed to get closer, as the 35mm focal length wasn't enough reach. I thought about changing my lens to my 100-400mm but the wind was blowing a little too hard for me to comfortably swap out lens with all that salt spray in the air. 

I knew where I needed to be, & muttered under my breath, "crap I didn't want to get wet this morning!", but you know how that goes! After wading out, with water just above my knees I had to remind myself to keep 1 eye on the incoming waves & to watch for the rouge waves that might roll in. As I finally got to the right spot I set up my comp & looked at the clouds & wanted to it to be a big part of my image to convey the feeling of how overpowering the gloominess was & actually overtaking my thoughts. I also knew that this image was going to be a black & white. My only disappointment was that I wished that the clouds would have had more texture to it.


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

OLIVIA...03.28.18

Last week Wednesday I had the privilege to do a photo shoot with the YOUTUBE sensation, entertainer Olivia Thai.  She is a very beautiful young lady, very down to earth & of course a very, very talented musician, singer/songwriter. 

I first saw her on IG & was drawn to her music. I reached out to her & asked if she wanted to collaborate on a photo shoot & after all this bad weather we've been having, we finally got out to shoot! This was 1 of the first shots I took thst day & as you can see, it's pretty hard to take a bad shot of her! 

You can find her on:
YOUTUBE
Instagram



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

THANKFULL...03.31.18

With all the bad weather & bad attitude I've been having, this past Saturday was a blessing! We arrived at our location & as we unpacked & got our gear ready, I looked up to the skies & could see a lot of low lying grey clouds, but off to the right just beyond the last house on the beach, there was a small patch of clear sky. Hmm. I wondered if there was a small chance that it'll open up?! 

We had to wade through the water, just a little bit enough to get the bottom of the shorts wet, which actually felt good on this muggy Saturday morning. I've never shot from this spot before, so I was very excited to see what this location has to offer & it didn't let me down! :) 

The skies lit up with some beautiful colors & combined with the rain clouds that surrounded the clearing just above Rabbit Island, made a recipe for an amazing sunrise!!! Maybe it was God's way of showing me even though the surrounding grey skies are closing in, there's always that glimmer of hope!!! For that glimmer, I am thankful...Amen

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

HIDING BEHIND THE TEARS...03.25.18

I've been crying all day, off & on Tuesday, hiding behind my computer screen at work, driving to my daughter's appointment, back home & then back to my mom's place to give her, her meds. I received a call on Tuesday morning that my mom has a compression fracture in her back. While at work, I felt that the entire universe was working against me! I have a photo job scheduled in Maui to shoot the 9th season of Cooking Hawaiian Style, I always look forward to shooting that job, it’s more fun than work!  My moms doc is out of town & won’t be back until 4/12, the day I was planning to leave for Maui. I realized that I may not be able to shoot this season, which was the straw that broke the camels back, that's when I impulsively wrote that Facebook post. 

I’ve been taking care of my mom since my dad past away in 2009, caregiving can be so stressful that it can suck the life out of you! I love my mom dearly, but it can be very hard emotionally & mentally draining. Mom has been in & out of hospitals & rehab 3-4 times in the last 5 months. I've become used to having some down times for 1-2 months at any given time, of peaceful nothingness, no falls, no medical emergencies but it's hard to fully relax knowing that in the back of my mind, I know something bad is coming & being in this state of mind for a year & 3 months has taken a toll on my me mentally & physically, especially with the news of her recent compression fracture to her spine...I'm just so tired! I think everything that's been happening since November 2017 til now with my mom snowballed into my breakdown on Tuesday. I know I’m being selfish & should just suck it up, but it’s so hard...so very hard!  I had a long talk with my wife & she’s going to take mom to the docs on 4/12 so I can go to Maui to do my shoot & get a little R&R & just getaway from all this, at least for a little while. This Maui shoot, which I was so looking forward to, was the tip of the iceberg that sent me over. I think about it now, a day after, & since I’m thinking straight & it’s such a peytty excuse to go off, I feel embarrassed! 

I am so blessed with so many friends that care so much about me & my art!!! I thought I was done crying but as I read the comments on the Facebook post, the DM messages & text messages, I was touched as I teared up once again! Thank you all for your loving support, again I am truly blessed to have friends such as yourselves!!! As far as my continued shooting, I don’t know?! I don’t want to stop, but we’ll see what happens this weekend if I pickup my camera or not?!

A friend texted me yesterday with some kind words of encouragement, she knows who she is, "I've found my calm" once again! Thank you 😊 

My tita Sista in the mainland who was very worried about my state of mind, called me, you are truly My Sister, love you girl, I’ll see you soon!!! 😊

They say laughter is the best medicine, it is so true! My buddies who I shoot with on the weekends helps ease the pain, worry & always there for me for anything, love you guys!!! 

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

STARS AT MAKAPU"U

Totally rained out on Saturday woke up to the sounds of water hitting the ground outside of my window, I didn't have to check to see if it was raining! I checked my phone & my shooting buddy had already texted me to go back to sleep. It's nice to sleep in every once in a while!

By Sunday I was weary as my alarm sounded at 3:45am, I listened for a moment straining my ears to hear the sounds of raindrops...nothing! I staggered up & walked outside into my garage & looked up at the sky, I could see STARS!!! I ran back inside & got ready, grabbed my F-Stop backpack, which was prepacked from Saturday, made my coffee & out the door I went straight to Makapu'u Beach. I was very surprised that as I pull into the parking lot, there were no other cars, only mine?!  I would have thought that with the rain out on Saturday every photographer would be out here??? 

I quickly set up my gear & immediately started to compose & capture the Milky Way. I composited about 3 images to increase the light trails of the cars passing by along the main road near the mountainside. 

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

DAWN PATROL PART II...03.17.18

In hindsight, I should have overexposed this image by bumping my ISO up a tad bit, Live & learn! Here's the Image I was talking about in Wednesday's post, the long exposure that smooths out the crashing waves & gives it a more somber look & feel to the image. I thought it was an OK image but was lacking something, & yes it was a blah colorless sunrise, which I really don't mind! I originally grabbed this shot just for the showing more movement in the clouds. 

With all that said I also see another picture within this frame! I'll have to come back when the tides & surf have similar conditions, & compose another shot. Many times this is how I see the 2nd composition from one of my wider shots. At the time of capture, I'm so caught up in the moment trying to get the shots that I need for another shot & I don't see the other compositions!  

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

DAWN PATROL PART I...03.17.18

Whenever I want to show the waves & how angry the sea is, I always shoot 1 long exposure to capture the motion in the clouds. A normal exposure time for somthing like this image, is between 1-3 minutes & then shorten my shutter speed down to about 1-1.5 sec to get that silky movement that has that just right texture to it. I'll take it into post & use PS to blend the different areas of each wave. In this image I used 4 frames & masked out only certain areas of each image where I thought had that perfect wave motion.

Layers in PS

In the image above the bottom, 4 layers have the 4 frames I used to blend. You can see the white areas on the mask is where I revealed for that specific image. Above the 3rd layer, I added a curves adjustment to match the exposure to the layers below. The 5th layer from the bottom is showing only the rocks with the water rushing back into the sea & then another curves adjustment on the 6th layer to match the exposure. 

Layer 7 is a is a comp layer of all the underlying layer into 1 single layer. Layer 8 is a 2nd adjustment to the sky & remove the white halo around the edges of the dark rock on the top of the cliff. The haloing normally occurs when too much contrast,& clarity is added, so I made a selection around the rocks & cloned out the white halo with the clone stamp tool set to darken. Save in PS ...

Round trip back to LR & did my final adjustments, by bringing up the exposure just slightly & then using the Oval Radial Filter to selectively bring up the Whites on the waves & remove some of the shadows on the rocks. I don't time myself when I do edits like this but I'd say a good 45 minutes was spent working on this final image. It was fairly an easy blend, had some noise issues at the end when I brought up the shadows on the rocks but I went back in & cloned all the color noise out in PS. Friday I'll post almost the exact same image with a 3 minute exposure, it changes the mood so dramatically!


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

THE GALACTUS CORE...03.17.28

I walked into this composition knowing that I was going to get only 1 image that would be composited later in post. I found my spot early, took a few shots to where I thought the MW was & to be sure that I was able to capture the beginning, core, & the tail of it. Made a few little adjustments & was happy with the exposure. I needed to be sure that the stars were in sharp focus, so I switched my lens into manual focus & using the focus peaking function on the Sony A7RIII, focused on a boat with a bright light shining on the horizon. Knowing where the MW was previously, I recomposed & did a final test shot & adjusted my comp to taste.

I then took about 4 shots, checked my focus & waited for about 20 minutes, twiddling my thumbs, until there was enough ambient light. A very important thing I had to remember, do not move my camera or tripod! This was very important as I didn't want any movement in the focal plane of the MW & the rocks. I now changed my focus point to the farthest rock in the midground, changed my aperture back to f/8, dropped my ISO to 100 & shutter speed to 30 seconds & used a 3 stop soft grad to bring down the brightness of the sky & not blow out the horizon & then took my shot. I just wanted the midground rocks & foreground to be in sharp focus with a usable exposure. I guess in a way I've applied 2 different techniques, exposure blending & focus stacking into this 1 image, 1st time I've tried it & in need of more practice for sure! Want to incorporate 1 more thing in next weeks MW shoot, my Sharp Star Filter, if weather permits with clear skies. The hardest part about blending these 2 images together was matching the foreground rock to the MW sky exposure. Having the dynamic range in these Sony files helped immensely!!! 

Side by side, the 2 frames that I used to composite my final image. 

The only thing about this shoot, is that I knew that I was going to walk away from this with 1 final image, so I couldn't move around to grab different compositions, interesting theory, so if I messed up I was going to get nothing for my MW shot. Planning all this took a lot of discipline, as I wanted desperately to move around & get more compositions but knew that if I did I'd screw the alignment when I’d layer the images in PS!!! Would I do this again? YES I would, next week...YES, YES, YES!!!


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

THE BEAUTY OF MOMO...03.11.18

This past Sunday had a chance to work with the beautiful Monique in a boudoir setting. She says that she's a bit rusty since taking a break from modeling, but from my standpoint, she was a pro! What caught my eye when I 1st saw her portfolio was this look of innocence with a touch of sensuality. As normal the 1st hour was a bit awkward as this is what I call our warming up time to feel each other groove. The same as when I go out to shoot a sunrise, I need a warmup period to feel the life of the surrounding environment. During this warm up period, the majority of my shot are a bit stiff & this is part of my expectations. My normal shoot time is about 3 hours, by the 2nd hour, there's a more relaxed atmosphere. Playing music really helps the model & myself to get into our groove! I'm the first to admit that I'm very picky about the models I shoot with, especially a TFP shoot. I'm looking for a certain look or you could call it my vision, it's hard to explain but I know it when I see it. Every photographer has his/her own unique vision, as do I.
I'm still trying to build my portfolio with new faces so if anyone is interested please feel free to contact me through my website, www.ryansakamoto.com  

It's ALOHA FRIDAY have a safe & wonderful weekend my friends!!!

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

GOING IN WITH A PLAN...03.03.18

Saturday morning met up with my friends at Sandy's, 1st thing I noticed as I stepped out of my car @5:40am was the grey clouds overhead & on the horizon. Thinking that this mornings sunrise was starting to look like a bust with no colors. I thought I still could use the grey clouds in a long, very long exposure to blur the clouds into streaks across the sky. I also had planned to go to a specific cove that I wanted to use my 100-400 lens & try to grab some detailed shots of the mouth of the cove as the waves crashed over them & capture the runoff cascading off the rock back into the sea. The unexpected part of this shoot was how the sky exploded with color, it was amazing!!!

Thinking about it, almost every aspect of this 3 framed composited image was planned, the location, compositing the huge swells & the early morning color explosion of the sky. The location was determined the day before. Seeing the size of the swells as I scanning the waters when I arrived, I knew that I wanted to capture these huge waves, & of course the unexpected colors in the sky. 

Going in with a preconceived image in mind always helps but many times it can be frustrating if the conditions are not right, & then there are times when unexpected things or conditions happen & you have to think fast & try to compose a shot in your head with only a short amount of time to capture what you need to get that shot. It's these times that I capture parts of my image in several frames knowing that I'm going to bring everything together in post. I try my best to capture everything right at the time of capture but sometimes Mother Nature just makes it that much harder to do. That's when you need to learn to think on your feet whether you bracket your shots or capture multiple frames of different elements for exposure blending. This is when experience comes into play knowing what to do & when to do it, and the only way to know this is, of course, practice, practice & practice! I have nearly 9 years of practicing this & I'm still learning new techniques today.

*Prints are available upon request.

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

INBETWEEN THE CRACKS...02.17.18

I think my creative juices are fizzling out! In the last 4 weeks, I've been having such a hard time finding my composition! Not really sure why, but I still want to shoot, but seem to have a creative block with my composing my seascape imagery. I feel that I'm just going through the motion & getting nothing, to the point of trying too hard & getting frustrated! I've trashed 2 sunrise shoots because I just came home with nothing creative! There's a ton of family health issues going on in my life right now, so I need to work through them. With that said things are starting to look up & like a basketball player in a slump I just have to keep on shooting until it clicks, pardon the pun!!!

This shot was an interesting one, I think it was the last couple of shot I took for the day. I felt that there was something there but had to work on it to see it come to life! For the most part, I like it but it's not that "WOW" that I'm always looking for. This shot I had to lower my tripod down very low & squat to get the comp, but it made me realize, maybe, I need to get in tighter to my composition?! All these thoughts & ideas that run through my head everytime I go out to shoot brings me one step closer to that "WOW" image!

If you like this post please take the time to click on the "Like" icon on the bottom right hand corner & or comment below, I would greatly appreciate it...Aloha

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

STAR CHASING 2018...02.17.18

It's that time of year again, star chasing the Milky Way! This past Saturday morning I arrived at the location that I wanted to compose a Milky Way shot I had in my head, but was greeted by many, many other photographers with the same idea! I pulled in stepped out & took a look at the skies, no moon & clear skies a perfect combination, just too many people. So I jumped back into my car & headed out to where I was supposed to meet my buddy for sunrise. While I waited I rigged my gear up & took a few shots or the MW, not to creative for my foreground elements but I got a shot of it, 1st one this year, I was happy...for now! One thing I have to adjust is the shutter speed, even at 20 seconds the stars are just beginning to trail, so maybe around 15 seconds should be the sweet spot? We'll see!

Next weekend the weather forecast will be for overcast skies so, I'm slightly bummed & no MW shooting! I do have a creative model shoot on Sunday so I'm looking forward to that but the weather still forecasting overcast skies so I'll have to create my own sunlight. Everything should be a go unless the rains come.The model,  my assistants, gear & I can handle some drizzling & light rain but not a storm like last weekend! Praying it holds out.

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

ROCK PILE...02.10.18

Met up with 2 of my buddies on Saturday & decided to shoot at the Point. This location has many places to explore to find interesting comps, but to get there is another story. My legs are still aching from the climb back up, coming down was no problem!

I walked out as far as I could to, up to my knees in water to grab this comp but was still too wide & had to zoom in until about 29mm on my 16-35mm lens. The composition wouldn't have worked as the surrounding area was a bit to busy & would have added too much distraction to the overall image. The lesson today was, less is more! 

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

SEEING THROUGH THE DISTORTION...02.03.18

Sometimes we can see our path clearly through our own eyes, but there are many souls that have a distorted vision of the same life we share on this earth. I purposely shot this image well aware of the distortion on the piers piling & also wanted to split this image in half using the piers dark shadowed boardwalk almost to mask out what lies above it...the unknown!

Today is a better day not only because it's Friday but because a part of my soul has returned. 
It's ALOHA FRIDAY, have a safe & wonderful weekend my friends! Life is too short enjoy your loves while you can...Aloha


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

HOPE IN DESPAIR...01.31.18

The constant pounding of the ocean waters have eaten away at the metal piling & have begun to fall back into the sea. The waves that are constantly washing over these surround pilings may not have been very large but the constant high & low tides have deteriorated it as it inches it’s way back into the sea. It seems to stands alone but it is surrounded by multiple pilings as to give it strength. Perhaps just enough strength to continue standing for another day, week or years, but always fighting the elements that surround it trying to stand tall. 

The gloomy rain clouds that hover over these pilings give it a sense of despair & hopelessness, but I always look for that glimmer of hope in everything. Behind these rain clouds, I can see a pocket of light....good light, & hope that will never give up to the darkness!  

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

FLOW...02.04.17

This mornings sunrise shoot was a little bit of a struggle. I drove to Sandy Beach at my "normal" spot knowing that it was just about a peak high tide. The surf was not very impressive so I jumped back into my car & drove farther down to my 2nd fav spot. The wind was blowing but not enough to warrant me to look a spot to have the wind against my back. So I went exploring & found a spot that I have not shot from before & found this little comp. I waded out until I was thigh high in water, inching my way closer to the rock in the in the center foreground. 

As I composed my shot, the skies blew up with color! It was so beautiful! I took this as a sign & opened my heart & spirit up to God. We had a short conversation, well a request or prayer, whatever you want to call it. During our "conversation", I missed capturing the crescendo of the color explosion in the sky, & as the waters washed past me, the very same waters rolled down my face, it seemed to me that I was standing in an ocean of tears, sadden & hoping for an answer. I guess only time will tell. Just my thoughts & continuing journey through this crazy thing we call life.

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

ALLURE...01.27.17

Returned to Cromwell's for sunrise with 2 of my buddies. This location is not an ideal location to be shooting sunrise but there was a rock about a good 40 yards out that I saw the last time we were there & wanted a chance to try and capture. I also wanted to test out my new F-Stop Ajna 40L backpack, it's a huge bag! Everything in my Mindshift Rotation Panorama bag fit into it with room to spare.

All through twilight I did my best to compose my shot in the dark. That's one of the most frustrating things about shooting so early in the morning during twilight is grabbing focusing & trying to get that comp just right! I was happy with the position of the rocks but it was missing something & as I waited for long exposure to finish I watched the waves roll in as several surfers waited for the perfect ride to come along. That's when it hit me to speed up my shutter & take shots of the swells coming in, I have to say that these waves had such a beautiful structure & form to it. From this point, I knew that I was going to do a composite & add, hopefully, that perfect wave! 

So here's the breakdown of the 2 images, the long exposure shot was taken at a shutter speed of 182. seconds, f8, ISO 50 & the faster shutter speed frame with the wave taken at 1 sec, f/8, ISO 320.

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

RISING TIDE...01.21.18

Here's 1 more image from Sunday's sunrise, slightly different angle with less chaotic water flow, more soothing, I think. I really love this pastel muted colors in the sunrise, it's what I look for instead of the vibrant, oversaturated images I see everywhere. Nothing wrong with that look, it's just not for me. The way I look at it, everybody sees's the world differently, that's what makes art so amazingly beautiful!!!

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

THE CUP IS ALWAYS HALF FULL...01.21.17

When I decided to come here, I had in mind shooting in black & white but when I saw how high the tide was I began to think of new possibilities! I was mesmerized by the incoming waves as it rushed up the beach towards my position & wrapped around the break wall. I instantly knew that I needed to capture multiple images with a slow shutter speed 2 minutes or more to slow down the clouds to have that beautiful smooth streaking motion that would glide across the sky. The 2nd image needed to be a faster shutter speed, in this image 0.5 seconds, to capture the motion & texture of the water. So while I had the colors in the sky I did several 2-3 minutes long exposures & just making sure that the sky & clouds had that look I wanted. Then as the ambient light became stronger I experimented with a 1-second exposure but the water wasn't streaking like I wanted it to look. Tried a 1.5, nope wasn't working, then a 0.5-second exposure, yes that's the effect I wanted, moving silk! 

I came home with 57 frames & after culling through the images I deleted all but 18 frames. Out of that 18, I used 10 to edit. I then proceeded to edited these images using exposure blending technique, so basically used 2 frames per final image, stacked in Photoshop. So 5 final edited images came from the initial 57 imported frames. 2 images that I really liked but they look similar as I kept the same composition with a slightly different perspective & water movement. I'll share 2 more images from Sundays shoot later on in the week.

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

THE SKIES HAVE IT...01.14.18

It's ALOHA FRIDAY, have a safe & wonderful weekend my friends! 

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