Great Moments in Great Light

In Hawaii we are very fortunate to have so many talented photographers, and not only that, but also so many breathtaking backdrops.

The beach, the ranch, the hills, the lush interior part of the island, I’m just enamored with this island everyday more and more.

I was a participant at Fred Larson’s photography workshop. He visits the island from San Francisco every year, and puts this workshop together called Great Moments in Great Light.

Fred is a photojournalist Pulitzer Prize finalist. He worked for the San Francisco Chronicle for 24 years, and specializes in documentary and sports photograph. He recently released a photo book Mystical San Francisco, where he explores the moon, sun and fog over San Francisco. From talking to him I gathered that timing and positioning are essential to achieve the kind of images he captures. He shoots early in the morning, before 5am, or at midnight, when the light is more even.

For pictures visit http://fredericlarson.com/

The Great Light portion of the workshop tittle captured me. The workshop consisted on a photography tour in different outdoor locations around Honolulu.  The first location was Waikiki strip, the next day we met at Magic Island, and the following location was Chinatown. We met at 6pm for all days, and had the opportunity to get the twilight time of the day in its entire splendor.

We walked alongside Fred and got tiny bits of advice here and there. His class is 99.9% hands-on, although I would have appreciated to have an orientation session on the first day, added to the critique session on the last day of the workshop. Also it would be nice to list knowledge of manual settings as one of the requisites for the workshop, that way the novice that are just transitioning from auto to manual don’t slow down the rest of the class.

For the people who is just transitioning I would recommend the Know your Camera I, a workshop by Jerry Omo. He is an excellent teacher and very thorough, there you will learn all the basics and more!

Some things I learned from Fred is to appreciate the light shining through objects; another little trick consists in zooming in or out while pressing the shutter in order to create a movement effect around the main subject; and to focus on a surface that is lighter than the subject (background) then setting your camera two F stops under. This way your subject will pop (ex. The eyes) and you will create a nice frame/vignette around. Anticipation is key and so it is talking to people, connecting with your subject.

Fred is a great street photographer artist. Thanks Fred for your valuable critique of my images!

Here are some of the pictures I took over these three-four days: