Lanikai – Page 2 – SarahRuthSeeks

When life hands you lemons…

August 10, 2021 No Comments

You go for sunrise walks?

(This is post published, written end of last week)

It’s been a week to say the least. I feel like it can be really easy to look at the situation I’m in- living in Hawaii on military orders- and be really jealous. And to be honest, I probably would be too. But I was warned, and will not sugarcoat the fact, that military life is hard.

Brian found out that he is changing boat assignments due to a staffing issue. The good news is, the boat’s homeport is Hawaii and staying that way for the indefinite future and this is incredibly good for Brian’s career. The bad news is, he joins the boat on deployment sometime in the next month (I have to stay vague, because, you know, the Russians are listening).

There is a whole lot of backstory that I can’t share here, but essentially it’s a really good thing for Brian’s career and for a lot of other things. But it also means that I am without Brian, my husband and best friend, for the next 2-5mths (again, can’t give specifics). Before it was official, Brian’s bosses asked his opinion on it, and Brian said that he’d agree but would have to consult with me because we’re a team and I’d be the one that needs to be convinced. If any of you are single reading this, THAT is a quality in a husband you should have on your list. Brian’s bosses offered to meet with me and that meeting happened and, as much as him being gone will suck, I am a lot more ok with the move.

Brian’s bosses keep reminding me that deployment was going to have to happen at some point, and that’s fair. I am also truly in a best of the best situation where his bosses will even talk to me about this and ease my concerns. But if I told you your husband was going to be gone tomorrow for months vice a year from now for months, how would you feel? I, for one, feel wholly unprepared.

There’s a lot that was supposed to happen before he deploys; I get to meet the boat spouses, attend Family Readiness Group meetings, fill out a bunch of paperwork, he’d finish hanging pictures… As with the year that was “supposed to be” and all the “supposed to happens” of 2020, we’ll just stack these on top.

The biggest challenge for me for his deployment will be to try to find friends and more company. I keep dipping my toe into events with spouses at the Marine Corps Base, but I need to work on developing relationships. That and I need to figure out how to kill cockroaches (we’ve only had one so far! But that’s not a roommate I would hope to gain)

Send good thoughts and prayers my way. And if there was ever a time you wanted to visit Hawaii and not see Brian… this might be a good one!

Here’s a second picture from the same sunrise for good measure. Unsure if I’ll still wake up so early with Brian gone.

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Sunrise 9AUG21

August 10, 2021 No Comments

Here’s me playing with some leading lines again. I still feel like for some reason I’m missing the “wow” factor. Maybe I’m just being too hard on myself. Anyway, I want to introduce you to the crew that I call the “puppy parade”

Apparently they more commonly found hiking the pillbox in the morning and she started an instagram called PillBoxPups. You can imagine what they’re all waiting for in this picture…

They’re such a fun crew and tag along behind their owner. Some of my furry sunrise friends!

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Beach and Beverages

August 9, 2021 No Comments

Last night we invited a couple friends over for BYOBC (bring your own beach chair) and BYOB. Brian has wanted to sit at the beach at night relaxing and chatting for a bit, so we finally decided to do it. Here’s my hand at taking some low light photos. I kicked myself for not bringing my tripod, so these are all hand held with slow shutter speed using any apparatus to steady the camera. The first is the sun setting, looking toward the Marine Corps Base.

This is of some fishermen (and fisherwoman?) setting up lines with the dark outline of one of the Mokes in the background.

Then, I tried to capture stars and palm trees. A tripod would’ve done a world of good, but it’s a start.

The streak to the left is a plane.

The meteor shower is supposed to be strong the next few days and I might try to go out, but we’ll see.

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Buzz’s Steakhouse

August 9, 2021 No Comments

To mark off another bucket list item we went to Buzz’s steakhouse, which is a quick 18 minute walk from our condo and (arguably) has an ocean view. We were too early for their dinner menu, but the small plates menu was satisfactory, and also nothing to write home about (but I guess still bloggable). The cocktails, on the other hand, were amazing. Brian and I started with Mai Tais. He had their original, which was essentially rum. I had the original with added pineapple juice to knock it down a bit.

I moved on to the coconut mojito (without mint. I know, defeats the essence of a mojito, but I don’t like mint in things). Brian had a beer.

I would 10/10 go again on a leisurely night with not much else to do, but I wouldn’t put it in my top restaurants to eat at. I do appreciate the laid back, beachy deco flare.

I almost forgot their other redeeming quality which was their key lime pie. It was amazing. Here are some pictures from the walk back.

I got the feeling someone was watching us…

Sign welcoming you to the neighborhood with an elderly lady enjoying the tradewinds, as she told us when we walked by

Surf boards are commonly used as mailbox stands

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Lanikai Pillbox Hike

August 8, 2021 No Comments

We live next to one of the most popular hikes in Oahu. In fact, we commonly encounter droves of people walking up our road to climb it. Imagine the sunrise view I get except ~1200 ft higher.

We haven’t gone on that hike… until today. I’ve still been having various health issues, but there’s a special occasion that pushed me to get this hike done (more on that in a later post).

The hike honestly wasn’t terrible. It has been really dry, so the biggest challenge is to not slip on loose soil.

There’s definitely some scrambling and it can get steep; but you have to slow down to scramble so you don’t really feel overly cardiovascularly challenged (except my poor lungs). I was more afraid about having to go back down and slipping. They do have ropes available at some (not all) dicey spots.

We of course couldn’t find our head lamps this morning *face palm* but managed to use our iPhones until enough first light was available. I am always practicing “composition”, and one really important component is leading lines. Leading lines are, if not already obvious, leading lines that direct your eye deeper into the photograph so it adds depth. I was trying to experiment with leading lines and the path. I did ok, but not like, WOW.

Here’s a photo dump.

Our condo is one of these.

“Three peaks” on the left (another popular hike) and enchanted lakes neighborhood in front.

The wind was doing something to my hair!

Overall, will I do it on my own, I think probably no. Would I do it if friends were out here or groups were doing it? Probably yes.

I got pretty nervous because it started to sprinkle and get really windy, and I let fear win and didn’t get up on the actual pillbox and started to go back down and sat on a ledge for a bit. I didn’t even grab a picture of it… Brian got on it. I am a little disappointed in myself, but the next time we do it I’ll have a little more confidence and hopefully get on it. It’s right on the edge of the cliff… so don’t judge.

Those are our condos in the background of this next photo. I actually think the first scramble isn’t that bad, and when I got at the top of that I almost chickened out, but I couldn’t do that to Brian today. Maybe I’ll just get there and take pictures to mix up my beach sunrise walks. I think for now my doggo greets, sea glass hunts, and low pressure morning walk is perfect.

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Family photo session 2

July 25, 2021 No Comments

I had another opportunity, which came to me via word of mouth, to photograph a family here on vacation. This time, it was twin sons aged 13, a 7 year old, and their parents. It was a TON of fun. They were a really great family to work with.

I’m still uneasy about posting pictures of children. Even if I get their consent, I feel like they don’t quite understand the impact of what it really means to have their picture on the internet. So until I get over it or feel more comfortable with it, you’ll just have to deal with imagining how some of these come out, seeing backs, and adults. I also tried using my software to blur faces, but it seems it’s missing that feature unfortunately.

I am really really enjoying this. I am not really sure where to take it from here, and I don’t have anything booked as of now.

I asked if she thought the value was equal or greater than what I was charging, and she said definitely yes. She mentioned that a lot of photographers will charge extra for the unedited versions. Personally, the editing isn’t my skillset or favorite, so by all means I’ll charge less to get that off my hands to be honest. At this point it’s really nice to not be doing it for the money and to not care.

I told them I’d remove people in the background in some photos, you can tell I didn’t make a huge effort for these. That’s honestly the most time consuming. Instead of spending a ton of time doing that on photos they may never print, I did it for a few and told them to pick a couple out they really wanted me to do it for when they had a chance to review and let me know.

I thought overall this was a huge improvement on my first on and I did a lot better getting everyone’s attention. I had to work a little harder with my instincts and own creativity, she didn’t come with any ideas this time and it went a bit quicker. It’s funny how some poses work better with some families than others. I didn’t have everyone sit somewhere, so I think if there was one takeaway, maybe I can start creating a list of my favorite poses until I get them more ingrained just to have on hand and refer to during the session.

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Sunrise 22JUL21

July 24, 2021 No Comments

I feel like I didn’t NAIL the framing for this and I’m pretty annoyed. This is when a wide angle lens really comes in handy. I’ll share some additional framing tries and vies. Or the sun needed to be closer to the Mokes!! Nonetheless, it was absolutely spectacular to catch.

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First paid family photo shoot

July 20, 2021 No Comments

Word gets out quickly about offering affordable photoshoots. A family was coming for vacation and wanted to get some for a Christmas card while they were here, and offered to pay me (ME? Me, a hobbyist photographer?) to grab some pictures of them. I charged them $150 for ~1.5 hours of photography on the beach and some editing. I figured that that’s reasonable for a rookie? I’m kinda winging it here.

I always ask people before I post their pictures on this blog. She kindly requested no faces of the kids, so you’ll miss out on some of the really fun ones, but I loved this session. (I have no idea what we’ll do about the picture and social media and kid thing… thankfully we’re not there yet) The boys were a ton of fun to interact with and the mom came with some specific posing requests, which was helpful.

I’m pretty sure I edited people our of these two pictures, but at this point I can’t remember.

The general flow was some casual walking down the beach to a quieter spot. Taking care of some specific poses in front of the Mokes, next to a boat, etc. Then we let the boys get a little dirty and play in the sand. Some things I learned this session:

Having the kids look into the sun can be tough, so counting down to eyes opening is helpful
Trying to encourage everyone to smile and look at the same time (it’s not as obvious as I’d expect!) I felt like there were a lot of missed shots because one person wasn’t smiling or looking at me.
Learn names earlier (Face palm! So obvious)

There were a lot of the blue jellies washed up, I think because of the wind and storm heading our way. One of the boys had been stung earlier, so they were super conscious about it and made it a bit tougher for relaxed beach walking.

I think the best part is I have a ton of fun doing it. I’m definitely a little nervous leading up to it, but keeping the price so low makes it feel really low pressure.

I ended up with ~600 pictures and edited ~94. I think that’s worth $150, right?

Hope so! I have another paid gig on Friday.

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Paddle boarding

July 18, 2021 No Comments

A few weeks ago I put a monetary hold on buying a paddle board from a very kind woman. I got the impression that this paddle board meant a lot to her so I offered to take pictures of her boarding with her dog before she moves. She took me up on that offer and came to Lanikai yesterday. Brian took his paddle board down with me (this was his second try, his first was way too windy).

It was still windy, but he managed to stand up momentarily and got some practice in. Shortly after the last picture he fell into the water. In fact that might be mid fall.

I then walked to find Megan and her dog. I captured some really great moments of them together, I’m really proud. It was dark and cloudy which was disappointing, it made for some high ISO settings (this makes images blurrier). I also used a lens that I LOVE but doesn’t have great zoom, so when I did edit and zoom in the photos get even blurrier. But I think the essence is captured and I’m still happy with how they turned out.

It was really challenging to get this next photo because the dog was very interested in a coconut and not very interest in posing. So I managed to get the coconut to Megan, which is behind her back, but the dog was not interested in looking at the camera… I’m also bummed about missing the framing by a bit and cropping the top of the board. Enough with the critiquing, though. She loved them, and in her generosity charged me $100 less for the board.

Glad to provide some memories and can’t wait to use the board myself. We went and picked it up later and she taught me how to get it on top of the car and strapped on.

This a picture of Brian using the straps we bought to help lighten the load. He found it very helpful. Hopefully I will, too.

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8JUL21 Sunrise + Sand Castle + Trash Pick up

July 9, 2021 No Comments

I snuck away from work for the sunrise today, big surprise no one missed me. I just got back for a walk around 4pm to pick up trash and made a mistake before leaving. Rule 1 of Hawaii: Always wear sunscreen Rule 2: If you think you don’t need sunscreen because it’s past 3pm, see Rule 1. Hopefully I have enough of a base layer that it won’t be too bad tomorrow.

I saw this lovely Sandcastle, the biggest I’ve seen yet.

And tried to grab a selfie with my full trash bag and plumeria tree to redeem the mood. Have you ever tried to take a selfie with a full trash bag and a plumeria tree in the background? If you haven’t because you would think it a crazy idea, you’re correct.

I get a few thank you’s and thumbs up when I’m doing this. Today, a lady said “It is both sad and heartwarming that I see you do that” and that’s a pretty good summation.

Dad had his hip surgery today and all went well. He was able to call me after surgery. Tomorrow he needs to be able to walk and walk up a step to go home. I am pretty confident with his ~~ego~~ will he will.

Last night I dreamt that I had another sub family visit us and as soon as they settled in I started balling to the wife about how hard it is to be a subwife and she basically said “Yup, suck it up”. Which is NOT her personality at all. It really truly isn’t all that awful right now, but still funny I dreamt it.