I have been so busy shooting weddings here in Okinawa the last few months ( just shy of 100 over the past three months!) that I have found myself drifting to more relaxed landscapes during my downtime. Here are a few recent shot I have snapped around the area I live, I will be adding more here as time goes on, especially now my work load has a couple of quiet months ahead.
I am super interested in mixing landscapes with high key black and white at the moment, below are a couple I took with that feel in mind, plus a bit of other stuff to wet your appetite. enjoy!
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Had a fantastic shoot with James and Megumi, everything just came together at the right moment. The idea behind the shoot was to make it as natural as possible, as they are both very laid back, fun loving outdoorsy people, yet at the same time bring out the intimacy they share in a fun way. They had never modeled before, but were super keen to try a bunch of styles of shooting. We really wanted to shoot something near the water as they both love to surf and dive, and the fact that we scored a brilliant sunset, just made it all come together perfectly...Got to love when Okinawa throws on it's charms for you!
Here is what they had to say about the shoot and the photos they received:
"AVL photography really made this shoot fun and interesting with his enthusiasm for detail and ideas. AVL has a talent to make you feel comfortable in front of the camera and can catch natural expressions and bring a smile with his humor. The final product was much better than we expected with the various lighting and other trick he has up his sleeve. We are 100% satisfied with his work and will be back again. Sincerely ,
James & Megumi"
Thanks guys, you were awesome to shoot and I really look forward to doing it again!
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Had a great time shooting with Bobby, Kim & Hana, the idea was to put together some photos so they could send them home to family and friends plus use some as a Christmas card. We decided to shoot in an Okinawan themed location as a great way to share where the are with the people from back home.
Here is what they had to say about the experience.
"Working with AVL Photography is by far one of the best photography experiences a family can ask for here on Okinawa. His attention to detail and enthusiasm makes it fun and entertaining for the whole family. We were most impressed with his creative ideas that made it almost impossible to deal with the anticipation of seeing the end product, which will absolutely blow you away. The immaculate precision, technical edits, and innovative filters gave us a family album that we're incredibly proud of. Lastly, a characteristic of AVL Photography that will surely stand above the rest, is his great professionalism balanced with an awesome personality! We sincerely thank you AVL Photography for Christmas family pictures that we could never forget, and will never be topped!"
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I have a terrible hangover, so when my girl and I decided we needed to go run some errands, I was not in the mood to drive. Instead I put my 35mm 1.8 lens on my Nikon d7000, rode shotgun and snapped some candids as we drove around. I should mention at this point that my girl drives pretty fast and hard, that along with a queezy stomach and shaky hands added a little extra challenge to shooting wide open at 80km/h. Enjoy, and leave a comment or two.
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I just bought a Nikon D7000 body as an early Christmas present to myself, I had the day off, a crazy strong northerly weather front was on top of us and I thought why not go grab some shots of waves smashing onto rocks and put my new weather proofed dslr through its paces. Zanpa Misaki (Cape Zanpa) is a very well known and notorious place in Okinawa, great for fishing, sightseeing, surfing and much more. it's jagged cliffs and rocks are amazing to behold, however it has also claimed it's fair share of lives. With huge swells ripping in from the north through deep seas, and slamming into the cliffs, rouge waves are a real danger here.
Here are a few shots I took today, was having a nightmare keeping sea spray off of my lens, while negotiating razor sharp rocks and gale force winds, and although the shots looked great in colour, I was in the mood for some black & white today...enjoy and feel free to comment.
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While out shopping and looking for a few street candids in Chatan Okinawa, a rain squall ripped in and added some drama to each moment. I was shooting with my 35mm F1.8 prime lens on my D7000 Nikon body, but it didn't take long until my lens, camera and well everything was soaked through.
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When Mimi asked me if I would be keen to see her in her underwear, I was like "hell yeah!" joking.
Mimi has wanted to do a shoot like this for a while now, we had planned a whole day with some indoor stuff and then a few locations, but the weather wasn't playing nice so we spent a few hours indoors and tried a few shots...One of the reasons I really enjoyed this shoot, apart from having a sexy girl pose for me in her underwear was, that Mimi's husband is a Marine and it looks like he has a mid east deployment coming up in the near future, so she really wanted to take some sexy shots that he could take with him, to help with the time apart. Sometimes a little back story can change a shoot into something a touch more special.
We got together in my make shift home studio, I grabbed my Nikon and wirelessly tethered it to my iPad, so Mimi could see a live preview of the shots we were taking (very important in my opinion to share the images with the model, especially when you are shooting someone who feels a little exposed) At first it was a tad tense, but within 30 minutes we were both relaxed and the shooting came natural.
Great job Mimi!
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Had a very short afternoon model shoot yesterday with Apple Basto, a young military wife from Guam and now living here on Okinawa. I went with the title "Sex and the seawall" for this shoot for two reasons; firstly I wanted to do a street style shoot, that was both fun and sexy, in the vein of sex and the city, and I chose the Sunabe seawall area in Okinawa, for the location. I pretty much used only one lighting setup for the entire shoot, a speedlight and 24" softbox, which I had my assistant James move around...One new toy I brought with me for today's shoot was a Spider holster, these are seriously the bomb, keeps your hands free to help pose the model, move around, carry gear and if you are shooting with multiple bodies there is no worries about straps sliding off your shoulders etc.
Of course I was shooting with my Nikon DSLR, and using iShoot radio slaves (worked perfectly for a lot less then pocket wizards etc...highly recommend them) and was bouncing around between my 10-24mm and a 35mm prime for most of the shots.
All in all it was a really fun shoot, Apple was very easy to work with, and was up for all my silly requests and ideas, even a jump shot while wearing high heel cowboy boots!....Hope you all enjoy!
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Working with Kim is so awesome it is almost like being at a great party with a great friend, who just happens to be extremely attractive and doesn't mind you staring...
For this shoot, I turned on the lights in my studio...aka my living room, grabbed a few lens, my favorite Nikon DSLR body and just snapped some photos of Kim while we chatted away about this and that...working solo meant that I was jumping all over the shop adjusting lighting and such, but hey we all need a workout where we can get one right? I had my camera wirelessly tethered to my iPad ( highly recommend this) so that Kim was seeing each image as we went along...I think sharing the images like this with a great model is a great idea, not only does she feel less exposed, but also she can see where she is casting shadows, or if she finds a pose flattering or not and adjust herself, cutting down on the time it would normally take to explain the shot and pose the model yourself.
Awesome girl, great day of shooting.
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