A little slice of paradise

JonaBeth Russell

Aloha group!

Yesterday I had a project in the town of Haikū, which is located on the edge of the rainforest. The client decided to add sunset/twilight to the session, and this is the hero shot of the main home. Enjoy!

black mamba

I tell you, JonaBeth, you've got a real handle on stuff like this. Where's the drone....must be flying around inside.

JonaBeth Russell

@black mamba said:
I tell you, JonaBeth, you've got a real handle on stuff like this. Where's the drone....must be flying around inside.

Mahalo for this! I truly love what I do for work, and feel so incredibly fortunate to live this life. The drone was around moments before this. The wind was about 5-7kts, so keeping stable was tough, but I managed to get a decent frame. I'm now shopping for a heavy lift UAV to carry the Sony A7R3 for this high-end type work.

JonaBeth Russell

And here's another from the pool area, ground shot.

JonaBeth Russell

One more from above...

WernerG

That OP shot is gorgeoous. Makes me want to buy... until I check the accounts.

Stumblebum

JBR, the light incandescent light is hitting areas around it unevenly. That is the nature of that light, so hard to control. It invariably creates hot spots and areas of super brightness and super harsh darks. Blue hour long exposures are best as surrounding can be lit bit evenly and you still get some incandescent lighting. Cheers.

JonaBeth Russell

@Stumblebum said:
JBR, the light incandescent light is hitting areas around it unevenly. That is the nature of that light, so hard to control. It invariably creates hot spots and areas of super brightness and super harsh darks. Blue hour long exposures are best as surrounding can be lit bit evenly and you still get some incandescent lighting. Cheers.

Mahalo for the feedback, Taz! You're absolutely right, a blue hour shot would've worked a little better, although we'd have lost the stars. I had no choice in the matter for this one, as blue hour was for the low light aerials (because after dark the drone cam is pretty worthless). For the house shot, I had to use a little compositing to help with the bright white lights. They were annoyingly bright, and there was an odd yellow light on the big banyan tree, making a weird green tint, even to my naked eye. Personally, I'd rather have turned out the tree light altogether, but that's just me. Or maybe hang some outdoor string lights in the tree...that would be pretty cool I think.

Anyhow, thanks again, and I'll watch for the lightfall a little closer on the next one!

@WernerG said:
That OP shot is gorgeoous. Makes me want to buy... until I check the accounts.

You and me both, my friend. You and me both.

Juano

Great shots as always. The first one is a winner.

Who are these people the 0.5%?

JonaBeth Russell

@Juano said:
Great shots as always. The first one is a winner.

Who are these people the 0.5%?

Mahalo Cristóbal! Indeed, much of the population of this island is in the 0.5% club. It's been ranked #1 island in the world by Condé Nast Traveler for over 20yrs straight, which tends to draw the elite crowd of property ownership. Many high profile people have homes here -corporate billionaires, musicians, designers, actors, artists of all sorts...all of whom make a chit-load of money doing whatever it is they do, and blow it on multi-million dollar homes on a little island, thousands of miles from anything.

I'm grateful to be so fortunate to live and work here, making a living on helping these rich people buy & sell things they don't really need. The fact that I have only one job here is amazing, and I make sure to never forget it. The rapid growth caused by huge ramps in tourism (because people visit, fall in love with the place, and stay) has definitely had a negative impact on the community, in terms of housing. We're currently in a housing deficit of over 12,000 homes. The average home mortgage on Maui is $819,500 (USD), and that pretty much covers a large condo or small to medium sized single family home. A place like the one above is well over $2M, and some of these range up into the $30M range.

Living here has totally ruined my understanding of money around the rest of the world, and though I dream of one day owning some sort of home here, I'm not entirely certain how I'll actually swing it. For now, the biz is growing, my projects are becoming more profitable, and I'm breaking a lot less gear these days, so there's hope!

Juano

Thanks for the explanation. Good luck your with your projects.

Cornflake

I don't feel even a twinge of envy of the homebuyers but your photography is terrific.