Trip journal entry for Saturday, August 27th, 2011.

Could it be, our last full day on Maui already? With the helicopter tour and sunrise at Haleakala crossed off the list, it was time to just go with the flow.

Sleeping In

Saturday morning was back to the regular golden hour shooting time at 6am, which was sleeping in compared to the Haleakala sunrise the day before. This shoot was an action shoot of skim boarders on Ka’anapali beach a few resorts south from where the Hyatt was. The morning air was fairly calm that early in the morning, but the waves that had been rolling in rather rougher than I’m used to seeing made for some nice action shots that early in the day.

Seeing that I was pretty content with the weeks event to-date, and keeping thoughts of leaving the day after out of my head, I put myself in a more carefree and stress reduced state of mind.

I shot for about an hour before heading back to meet with the Mrs. for a little breakfast at the Hyatt coffee bar. Here was the shot I was most happy with from that first shoot of the day.

Classes and Lunch

The rest of the morning was a few different workshops on digital editing and modifying light for portraiture. Not directly Maui related, so I’ll breeze of those details for you. I do have a full review of the entire workshop at my photography blog if you’re interested, though.

With our last full day on Maui, we did decide to head back over to Whalers Village again, and had a nice family lunch at Leilani’s. Just lunch this time, no doubling up on the Hula Pie twice in one trip. Or year, for that matter.

There wasn’t too much time left after lunch to hit the shops again, so it was back over to the Hyatt to finish off the afternoon.

Back to Class

The next session after lunch was a portfolio review class, where each photographer could submit a handful of photos and have the instructor review and critique them in front of room full of other photographers. Sound scary? It’s actually pretty helpful, and after getting good tips in the same class back in ’09, I knew I had to attend again this time around.

Again, I won’t ramble on about the class details, but it is worth noting that this was a big shift for this session because in ’09 I submitted some of my Maui landscapes. This year, I was sharing portraits of our son that I shot over the summer. Quick a big contrast in subject matter. You can check out the photos I submitted here if you’re in the mood for cute baby photos.

Beating the Dinner Rush

With the portfolio review class wrapped up, there wasn’t anything in next time slot that particularly intrigued me, so we decided to head off for an early dinner and be back in time for the sunrise. We didn’t want to stray too far from the resort, and found ourselves over at Aloha Mixed Plate right behind the Cannery in Lahaina.

We had lunch at AMP one trip and remembered that the food was good, the prices were reasonable, and the parking was a little hard to come by – depending on what time of day it was. Well, we lucked out this time because there were only 3 cars in the lot when we pulled up. Nice!

Compare that to the 2 cars waiting for an empty spot when we were ready to leave, we knew we had timed things well. And speaking of timing, we had a sunset to catch.

The Final Sunset

Part of me thinks that heading sounds a little ominous, but that’s exactly what it was. Before we knew it, we had our final Maui sunset quickly approaching. It was time to soak it all in and make this one last until our next trip back to the island.

We knew we wanted to back down to the beach and maybe let our sun play in the sand one last time, but we had to fight for a spot in the sand and the odds were against us. The last sunset shoot of the photo festival was a faux wedding setup, and as luck would have it, there was also an actual wedding happening on the beach by the Hyatt as well. So not only did the paying bride and groom get their stretch of paradise for their special day (and rightfully so), the crowd of photographers had staked their claim, too.

We setup just South of the beach near the beach park, which was okay for sitting on the beach blanket, but being under the trees in the area meant the sand wasn’t the greatest for a nine month old to go exploring on hands and knees. But still, whenever you have an ‘ohana with as much Aloha in our hearts as we do, and have a gorgeous Maui sunset as a backdrop, you know there are memories to be made.

See for yourself.

Now, I will go on the record and say that the sunset portrait from Thursday’s journal entry was my favorite of the sunset shots, but that last one right here is a close second. Although there’s not sunset, just knowing the fact that we’re coming to terms with leaving the next day and how amazing it’s been to be new parents and back here on Maui made it a very special moment. Not as bittersweet as you’d think, just sweet.

History Repeats

Aside from the saddening task of having to pack ahead of checking out the following morning, I was still contemplating whether I would go back out and shoot the stars again that night. I had done so on the final night of the ’09 workshops and ended up with this self portrait of me and the Milky Way.

I was maybe 50/50 on whether I’d go or not, but being in our room at around 9:45pm and seeing as our son was hardly settling down for bed, I decided to pack up my gear, grab my tripod, throw him in the stroller and head out for a stroll along the beachwalk. If I could get him to doze off and then get some shooting time after that, it would be a win-win.

And it wasn’t long before the cool summer air and the sounds of the waves against the beach put him right out, so I was off to scout for a location. While I didn’t find the exact spot from ’09, I did wind up with another great view of the Milky Way. Maybe after 30 minutes or so, I had things setup and came up with this sequel to my ’09 photo.

It was truly a great moment, and I good have stayed out there for another hour, but not two minutes after this shot, my son woke up and he was NOT happy. Being on the other side of the resort and all my camera gear setup, I tried walking him in the nearby lawn area for at least 20 minutes before I had to call for reinforcements. Before long my mom came down from the room and had him quiet in no time while I packed up and walked with them back to the resort.

At least I got my shot.

But Wait, There’s More

Even though Sunday was our last day, it was still going to be a full day thanks to the red-eye flight schedule out of Kahului. And we still had some friends to meet up with, too, before leaving for home.

Just one more trip journal entry to go!

– Kris