I am bad – like, really bad – at promoting myself.

When I was a kid, I always wanted to sit alone, make a cool drawing or build something with Lego, and then immediately hide my creation away. I’d stow the drawings. I’d take apart my Lego builds. If an adult saw what I’d made and tried to congratulate me, a wall would come up inside my brain and their words of kindness would bounce off. Any praise I received would be meaningless because I myself would always find something to dislike in what I made.

And I made a ton of drawings, and Lego builds, and eventually I’d make music and photos and such. None of it was good enough. None of it was noteworthy for me. I wasn’t the happiest kid, and in fact I was downright sullen a lot of the time. Even my Mom will tell you: she worried about me.

Well, don’t worry, Mom! I’m still exactly the same.

Eh, maybe I’m not sullen anymore. But I am still perpetually unsatisfied. And it sucks – like, really sucks – because it just makes it so hard for me to believe in myself. Logically, I know with conviction and fire and every fiber I have, that I am good at things. And that the things I’ve made and done have made others happy. I have proof of this in my inbox – clients telling me that they’ve framed and hung the photo I made with them. It’s actual proof that I am good at this.

But I just can’t let that sink in. There’s still that wall inside of me that blocks the kind words of others. And I’m always asking, “Where does this wall come from?”. Is it from my upbringing? Is it from a singular event in my life that I can’t recall? Is it genetic? Is this just who I am?

At this point I think it’s a personality trait that has been reinforced through years (decades!) of cognitive bias. And it’ll probably take just as long to break that reinforcement down.

BUT. Like I said. I’m not sullen. I’m just accepting. I’ve accepted this, and over the years I’ve learned to use it to my advantage. Because at least I’m not just perpetually unsatisfied, but also chronically hungry… to improve. I’m aware that there is much still to learn, and that I just might be capable of learning it, because I’ve learned a lot already. I am capable, and good at things, and I will take that to heart.

…

SYKE! I won’t take those things to heart.

But I’ll keep them in mind.

And one day, I won’t be grasping for a truth that’s just out of reach. I’ll wrap a fist around that truth and punch a hole through the wall inside me.

I’ll unfurl this truth inside me and let it grow. Because the truth is that I am worthy, and good, and skilled. I am capable of more than I know.

I will get there, and when I do, maybe – just maybe…

I will promote myself.

A huge thank you to the Roberts Family for letting me be who I am on this beautiful morning at Waialea Bay, an area of immense history and power. And thank you to you, for reading!

Aloha,
Jim

Here are a few photos from a very sunny session with the friendly Switzer family.

Thanks for being here on my blog!

– Jim

I’m pretty bad at sports. The single time I tried it competitively, doing track and field in elementary school, a kid cut into my lane and kicked a ton of dust and gravel into my face in front of a hundred people. Was he faster than me? You bet he was. But I literally ate his dust and that wasn’t cool.

I remember losing the race, but also losing it. I stopped mid-race and stumbled into the restroom, washing my eyes over the sink, fuming that this kid broke the rules right in front of everyone and seemingly got away with it.

What was crazy is that he actually wasn’t the only one cheating, either. Before the race, my coach told me that there were a bunch of rules to follow – where to put your hands at the starting line, how to use the push block, how to stay in your lane, and the fact that you “must wear shoes”. Well I got something to tell you, buddy — Half the kids were barefoot. Some of them weren’t even using the push block. A couple dangled their hands in the air before the starting pistol fired. Not a single referee seemed to care. Where are you, Coach!? I was only 10 years old and so far had been unaccustomed to seeing this kind of blatant rule-breaking. I hadn’t yet learned to drive in Hilo town traffic, for example. And so to my innocent young eyes, the fabric of society had been torn apart and thrown in my face.

I guess you could say that from then on I’d lost faith in all things athletic and organized. Cheaters won, my coach was wrong, and I had the opposite of a good time. It just seemed like a whole lot of drama for zero reward, and I couldn’t in good faith take part in something that required cheating to win — because I wasn’t the fasted kid, so I knew I’d have to cheat in order to win. So I stuck to my videogames and astronomy, certain that I had the moral high ground.

But I’ll say one thing. I marveled at the kids that stuck with sports.  To this day I respect them, and I regret my dismissiveness of it all. Dare I say I could’ve done some damage at Air Riflery in High School. I could have been one of those kids who made it their passion. Kids who YOLO’d the heck out of the school experience. I didn’t do  that, and I wish I had.

Instead, I took photography classes, and, well, here we are!

So I guess it wasn’t a total loss. And I will definitely teach my own kids to pursue their interests with all of their might. Because you never know where it could take you, and you never know what you may regret when you’re older.

-Jim

It has been something though. To whoever is reading this, I truly hope that you’ve been safe and healthy. My heart goes out to everyone who has lost someone, or who have lost a part of themselves in all of this. I’m thankful no-one close to me suffered much from Covid-19, and it was actually a decent year for my family, all things considered… but I know I’ve changed inside. Something about the isolation, the sudden end to my business, the continued presence of the virus, the proliferation of bizarre social media opinions-paraded-as-facts, and the lack of cohesion in the US government changed me. Like a tree whose bark had been torn off, by the start of 2021, I felt raw, emotionally vulnerable, and weary.

So I have to admit, it has been difficult returning to the old ways. July was a busy month for me, and I’m thrilled that I still find a visceral joy seeing a shot and capturing it with my camera – I still really enjoy finding that feeling with families. But it has been tough to adjust to. I’m more tired these days, and less of a dreamer than I was. I’d gotten used to a Hawaii with no visitors, and it was so nice. Now they’re back, and I’m back with them in a sense, and everything is stressful and busy. I don’t blame people for wanting to come here at all, and for the most part I welcome the relief, but I can’t help but feel lost and found at the same time.

No sweat, though! I am certain all of this is temporary. The deluge of folks wanting to get some R&R here will wain, and I do think my sense of misplacement will wain with it. There’ll be a balance. Equilibrium will come. A bit of normalcy.

But even that will be temporary. Because if the past year has taught me something, it’s that the world can and will change. It isn’t all just good. It isn’t entirely stable. But It isn’t all just bad, either, and I believe that so long as we remember to be selfless, and open, and empathetic to everything around us, it will be okay. There will be change and we’ll be forced to change with it, but through that we’ll become stronger. Resilient. Wiser. And reflective. We might not be able to travel back to warn our past selves, but we can take note to learn for the future.

So now that my sabbatical has ended, what am I to do?

To quote a favorite movie of mine – “Never give up. Never surrender!”

And to that end, here’s one of my fave families, the Adams Ohana.

-Jim

I have to admit that I always try to take advantage of that brief moment, when you’re driving by a house in darkness, and you try to figure out what they’re watching on TV just by the tiny glimpse you get through their living room window.

Anyone else do this?

It never fails to fascinate me. Every one of us has two powerful stories — the one we broadcast to the world, and the private one we leave at home. What we watch on TV can be an intersection of those. A gateway for others to peer into. I feel a little creepy doing it but my curiosity makes it too hard to resist.

I try to imagine what their lives might be like; a stressed middle-aged father sipping on a beer during ESPN commercial breaks. A grandmother, relaxing after watching the grand-kids all day, seeing another case solved by the Special Victims Unit.

Or perhaps someone might drive by my house, and see a computer screen illuminating a slightly ragged photographer every night near midnight. Although truthfully I look ragged all day (thank you stay-at-home-parenting life).

Who are these people? What can be inflected from the screens they observe?

I like to think of family photos as a similar window into people, but for each other to look into. One day, the photos from your session will let future generations ask those same questions about you. I love seeing faded B&W photos of my great-grandparents, whom I’ve never met. On my Mom’s side, they were born in Okinawa, in the 1800’s. A completely different, much tougher world than the one I inhabit today.

Photos are a gateway — an intersection in time — that lets us cross from our lives to another.

I guess that makes me the guy that controls the Bifrost of Asgard, from Thor? Or perhaps I’m just a lucky guy illuminated by a computer screen at midnight.

In any case, here are a few photos from a wonderful session I did with the Porter Family from California. They wanted a smattering of posed photos to be used as a grand display in their home, as well as some playful candids that show a bit of who they are individually and collectively. Pretty sure we nailed it, thanks much in part to how easy they were to work with!

A huge thanks to the Porters for allowing me to photograph — no — for allowing me to summon a gateway so their future grand kids can look back into the past!

I sometimes feel that, in today’s world of constant social connections, hustling & bustling, and always feeling like you have to “keep up appearances” or make your voice heard, being an introvert is something of a guilty pleasure. To be yourself becomes an outlier of an experience, and sometimes even detrimental to one’s own success. It was absolutely detrimental to today’s success, because I fully intended to buy an oil filter for our car, but just didn’t have it in me to be around the other patrons at O’Reilly’s. I did try to buy it off of Amazon, bypassing all human contact, but it kept saying that they couldn’t ship it to my address. What’s the deal, Amazon, why won’t you let me be introverted? For crying out loud, Amazon!

Anyway, what’s really strange is that, during sessions, I am actually very happy to stow my introverted side away and become the outgoing dude needed to make awesome photos with other people. After all these years it is effortless and enjoyable. I think what it is, is that I don’t really like talking to strangers, but by default everyone who invites me for a session aren’t strangers at all, but instead friends. I think that’s what the Cheung family felt like. Old friends.

Here are a few photos from their session!

1. In January I started a big DIY home renovation project with only a tiniest idea of how to make it all happen. I guess it could be called Operation Mother-In-Law, since it’s essentially a 320 sq ft house for her to move into. Today I jack-hammered concrete! And tomorrow I’ll wake up very sore.
2. In April my wife and I had a son, who is now 4 months old and is quite the handsome handful. And by handful, I mean that he likes everything in short bursts. Carrying positions, nap times, meal times, and “baby is sleeping so Daddy can do stuff” times. Everything is as short as he is, and since he’s a baby, he is pretty short.
3. Earlier this month, our 3-year-old daughter FINALLY finished toilet training!! This could possibly be the most important thing to happen since the advent of agriculture. She also started pre-school, which has already increased her social skills beyond my own, and she’s also started watching Peppa Pig like there’s no tomorrow, so now she sometimes speaks in a vaguely British accent.

I have to say that it goes without saying that I love my kids. In contrast, it does not go without saying that parenting is really hard, so I’ll say it. Parenting is really hard. It’ll make or break you, and often in the same day (or same hour (and the same minute)). But what is life without challenges? Or love?

Which I think is a good segue to the lovely session I had with Heather & Jesse down at Kukio. I should stop writing now. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope you find this wonderful couple as perfect as I do.

the wind blown grill glows
loved ones cooking at sunset
the smell fills our tents

Gosh I miss camping. Been so long. Okay, I feel like that haiku was good. Here’s one more. I swear I’m making these up as I go along!

racing down the snow
brother and cousins watching
breathless climbs uphill

Gosh I miss Mauna Kea during the snow. Tends to happen every year but I haven’t gone lately. Okay, one more…?

hilo walmart trip
hungry crowds fill the aisle ways
more grief than it’s worth

I should write a book about being born and raised here, but the entire thing could just be a series of haikus — hundreds of them! — and all super specific yet incredibly vague, like basically every haiku I’ve ever read.

And with that bit of randomness out of the way, the Lake family made for awesome company at the Four Seasons Hualalai! An ohana with Hawaii roots, they had a blast returning to the islands and enjoying a bit of home, and I was grateful to be there too.

Their wedding day went by brisk and beautiful. The clouds had shifted overnight and now hung low in the sky. Rain seemed all but certain, but we remained dry the entire afternoon, save for a good vaporwave in the steam vents.

Weddings are always a big deal, but I had no idea of the poignancy that their wedding would have on a personal level. The Park has forever changed since they eloped. One of my favorite places in the world is different, a part of it turned off and much of it closed off and destroyed. It’s as if Old Faithful suddenly became totally unreliable, and then just called it quits, and since you’ve visited it many times a year, every year, you’ve grown to love it and almost be friends with it. And now it’s kind of just… gone.

So when I look at these photos, I see a beautiful wedding, and a wonderful couple, but I also feel a tremendous wave of bittersweet nostalgia. It passes through me like a rock sinking into the sea. Sinking slowly to the seabed. And I’m both happy for the memories made, and sad for those left unwritten. A seabed of a million memories being cast by everyone who has been affected by the eruption, building underwater until a new mountain is born, and from these memories, a new island in our hearts.

And it’ll be… okay. Because the Park is still there, and we are still here. The island is still beautiful, as is the Park, and the spirit of aloha continues across this island that we love so much.

Thank you so much to Rachel & Philipp for sharing these awesome moments with me, and for allowing me to show you some of my favorite places in the world. And thank you, for reading. Until next time!

But the biggest thing to happen on the island at large was, of course, the rivers of lava flowing through neighborhoods and farmland.

I doubt there’s a single person on the island who hasn’t been affected by it in some way, whether it was the increased vog in Kona and Hilo, the tiring, daily earthquakes where I’m at in Volcano town, or, of course, the actual flow. It was heartbreaking to watch, and to know that not that far from home, people were losing their own land and livelihood, and all of us were losing some of the most beautiful places on the island.

I’m thankful to live over 20 miles from where the flow was, but I am only a few miles from the summit of Kilauea and the rest of the National Park. The big earthquake, at 6.9, rocked my house so hard that I could see the rafters of my carport straining and bending as I stumbled out of the house holding my daughter. It was the first, and hopefully only time, I’ve ever actually feared for Sharlotte’s safety.

Soon after that a giant plume appeared over the national park, marking the crater’s collapse. The magma that was held beneath broke free, traveled underground, and exploded onto the residential streets of Leilani estates. It was “the nicest place in Puna, the place where the richer people live” to us locals when I was growing up. It was still “the nicer spot in Puna”. And then it became a geological war zone. I didn’t think it would happen in my lifetime — because, nah, that kind of stuff only happened in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s… not today.

It felt as if the island was under siege; as if our home was deep in pain, gasping for air, and struggling, all the while we were doing the same. But at the same time, through the pain we all felt as residents here, I think most of us respected this process. I can’t even imagine what the residents of Leilani and Kapoho must have felt, but from the social media postings I saw, it seemed as if we all admired it deeply and watched it in strange awe. This incredible growth. History in the making. It was a time of beauty and sadness.

And then, it stopped. The National Park reopened with bittersweet fanfare. Christmas came and went and the trees are beginning to fill the waste dumps. Life has been normal, at least for myself and most of the people I know.

But a lingering lesson still burrows into my head, born from the eruption of 2018. That my wife and I might own our house, but we’ll never own the land under it — not really. We’re okay with that, because this is our home. This is our heart. This is life on our amazing, beautiful, little Big Island of ours.

And on that note, I wanted to share a few photos of Rachel & Philipp’s amazing two day adventure in the park, before the eruption, back when Halema’uma’u was still pumping out it’s glowing plume. Rachel & Philipp are such gracious people and I was thankful that they chose me to be their engagement and elopement photographer… but now the gratitude blooms brighter simply because I was able to capture one of my favorite places in the world, now changed forever.

First, the engagement session.