Pictures at the beach are always on high demand – as it was with these two friends. What is a more magical place for portrait photography than on a beautiful island of Hawaii?
We visited Kona, Hawaii, in the early spring of last year. The weather was beautiful, and the fresh breeze was filling the air. With palm trees everywhere, gorgeous tropical greenery, Hawaiian flowers, and lava rock beaches, this was an excellent way for us to spend my birthday week.
The trip to Big Island, Hawaii, was a great start for a work season for the Bidun Studio Photography team. It was a perfect time to re-energize, recharge, and get more creative in our field of work.
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ABOUT THE SESSION
To better prepare for the two friends’ lifestyle portrait session at the beach, we had to do some planning. We scouted the area for best-looking location spots with the beautiful sunset light. Natural light portraits are the most sought after, for outdoor lifestyle photos.
We share more photoshoot preparation tips and ideas in this article.
The hotel where we were staying had quite a few gorgeous spots. Public areas with beautiful little pathways, bridge, unique trees and flowers, and the fantastic black lava rock shoreline were available for us.
It was our first time staying at a hotel where the whole shoreline area was lava rocks. Our goal was to document everything in our Hawaiian lifestyle portrait photography session.
CALIFORNIA GIRLS ON BIG ISLAND, HAWAII
Karina and Tasia also flew to Big Island, Hawaii, from California and were staying there with their friends. For their girl portrait photo session, we agreed to meet up by our hotel a few hours before sunset time.
Girls arrived by the trolley, and we immediately sensed that they are in a great mood and ready for some creative portraits to be taken.
USING NATURAL BACKDROPS
We started the Hawaiian photo session with some pictures at this beautiful secluded pathway with rails. The trees grew in a tunnel-like shape, which made the perfect photography backdrop for our portraits.
A big puddle from a tropical rain the previous day served as a creative touch for our portrait photography as well. There was so much energy coming from the two friends and the surrounding nature, that we were photographing nonstop.
PICTURES ON THE LAVA ROCKS
We slowly started changing locations and moving closer to the ocean shore, as the time was getting closer to sunset hour.
It was pretty impossible to get all the way down to the water, due to the size and texture of lava rock shoreline. However, using creativity, we managed to get pretty epic shots on the lava rocks.
Both Karina and Tasia were so excited and full of ideas on how they wanted their pictures to come out.
With the sunset entirely over the horizon, we managed to take the most striking lifestyle photos of the day! Both girls loved the images on the lava rocks the most, and it’s pretty obvious why.
The dark lava rocks washed off by bright blue ocean waters was the most beautiful background for these portraits. It’s pretty obvious that the lava rocks made the girls stand out and be the highlight of the image. This type of location would be ideal for a girl senior photoshoot as well.
LONG EXPOSURE SHOTS WITH SPLASHING WAVES
We noticed how the big waves were crashing against the lava rocks and the big splash they were making. We immediately knew for sure that we had to get that shot with the girls in the picture as well.
Karina was the more brave friend, and she went first for the big splash pictures. As this had to be a long exposure photo (only long exposure shots can show the water splash that well), we had to set up the camera and the models in a specific way.
The camera got mounted to a tripod, which would eliminate the possibility of camera shake and getting a blurry image. The person in front of the camera had to sit very very still and not move, not even blink (which is super hard when you see a huge wave coming at you.)
PICTURES TO REMEMBER
After a couple of tries and a few failed attempts, we got the portraits that we were looking for. Then Tasia’s turn came, we got some pretty epic shots with her as well. Although ladies both got a little soaked for these creative portraits.
But who would mind such a small sacrifice when you have the most authentic and memorable pictures in Hawaii to enjoy for a lifetime?
PORTRAITS OF A LIFETIME
Bidun Studio Photography is a boutique fine art portrait photography studio. We serve as a Sacramento portrait photography studio, but we also love traveling! During our recent stay in Big Island, Hawaii, we got not only to enjoy the most beautiful island but take some incredible female portraits of two best friends.
If you are looking for Big Island portrait photographer and fell in love with our work, we would love to fly in and create portraits that you will enjoy as art at your home.
