Maui Wedding Photojournalism and Romantic Portraiture

Sometimes we get caught up in a particular "style". Some call it a rut. We like to mix it up a bit. Our Maui photography team will be catching candid images on the fly most of the day. We'll also bring a portable light setup to capture the formal portraits and sunset shots without that nasty on camera flash look that my good friend Tony Novak-Clifford hates so much. He's right. Beware of the on camera flash guy. With wireless strobes, there's no reason to blast you head on at sunset. If my assistant has another gig that night, I'll hold the flash with one hand and shoot with the other if I can't get my light stand over the rocks or it's too windy for it to stay up. Ask your photographer what kind of lighting he uses. On a cool, overcast day, we don't need much, but on Maui we get those bright days with high contrast that require supplemental fill. We use a flex fill reflector and off camera strobe with umbrella when possible. Of course, we still keep that on-camera strobe to fill in when we have to but we don't rely on it all day and night. Be sure to hire a professional. Most wedding planners hire part timers for their $695.00 package. Great price but you'll be very disappointed in the images. When the tan fades, the cake is gone and it's deep dark winter, all you have left to remember your Maui Wedding is the images. Don't hire an amateur.

Maui Wedding Photographers

Maui Wedding Photographers come in all shapes and sizes with varying degrees of experience and competence. Some have been doing this for half their lives, others haven't. How can you tell? Generally speaking, you get what you pay for. If your photographer is offering a zillion images for 69.95 you can be pretty sure they aren't going to be very good. If she tells you you'll have the disk before you leave the island it means she's either not very busy (bad sign #1) or doesn't know anything about photoshop and digital imagery, is shooting in jpeg format and dumping unedited images on a cd (bad sign #2). We all put a strobe on our camera to fill shadows on bright days but lighting is very important and we need to know when to use that strobe, how high the ratio needs to be and when to use the wireless strobe off camera. Typically, we use the off camera wireless lights at sunset, to avoid those ugly shadows and the harsh amateur look. If your Maui wedding planner is doing a 495.00 wedding with images on cd and full reproduction rights, the photographer is definitely not a professional. Check the online gallery and be critical. It's worth a few extra bucks to get awesome images of your once in a lifetime Maui wedding.