A selection of images from a three week stay in Hawaii. It didn’t matter if it was cloudy, raining or sunny there always seemed to be a new angle to explore. 
A view from the top of The Stairway to Heaven. The H3 highway running through the Windward side of Oahu. The frequent cloud cover on this side made for some beautiful and varied sunrises.
When it rains hard enough each one of these ridges becomes it’s own waterfall. When viewed from the highway it is absolutely breath taking.
This is a close up shot of the stairwell mentioned above.
More than 3,900 stairs compose the “Stairway to Heaven” The stairs were originally installed to service a huge navy radar dish at the summit. The stairs are currently closed but jumping the fences isn’t hard. 
Sunrise over the windward side of Oahu
A long exposure, 30 seconds, of post sunset twilight. 
Downtown Honolulu 
Big Island Hawaii. Artificial shore breaks made for an interesting subject as the sun rose behind them.
The variety that can be found on the Big Island is incredible, from volcanic wasteland to impossibly green fields overlooking the ocean. The island really is surprising.
Akaka Falls. Big Island Hawaii. 
It’s fascinating to see rain forest right next to baren lava flows. The contrast makes it all the more beautiful
Natural Volcanic Arch found on the south east coast of the Big Island. It was raining here and the swells were large. Watching the waves cash against the rock was mesmerizing.
A wave comes rushing in on the relatively quiet Waikiki beach. 
The Moke Islands have the wonderful coincidence of framing the sunrise of quite beautifully. 
Beautiful North Shore of Oahu. Waves were regularly 10-25′ here. I stuck to attempting to surf the 3 footers
Rain makes the approach to this climbing area extremely interesting. Local climbing guides have installed ropes to help ascend the waterfall above.
Unlike the waterfall above there are no ropes here and instead you use the roots of the tree to climb the wall.
A tour van drives above the cloud cover to the summit of Mona Kea at 13.8 thousand feet.
One of 13 observatories on the summit of Mona Kea. 
Sunset From the Summet of Mona Kea
This was such a cool shoot. Evan & Christine live up on this hill and if you walk up to the top of it you can see almost the entire city of SF. As soon as I walked up there I knew that I wanted to shoot there, and what makes it even better is that its a dog park! Thank you Evan and Christine for letting me stay!
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So many things are just a matter of probability, if you run into enough people you are bound to meeting some really interesting ones eventually, and by interesting I mean crazy.
I have been a little out of practice when it comes to approaching strangers for their portrait. So I did a little confidence building exercise where I attempted to get 5 portraits as quickly as possible. I decided I was just going to ask anyone and everyone in order prove to myself that I could do it. I have this habit of coming up with all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn’t takes someones portrait when really I should just take the portrait and decide later. Learning from actually doing will trump any other sort of learning experience and the beauty of it is that is worked out really well this time.
This guy has to be the most surprising stranger I have ever photographed, one second I am taking his picture and the next moment he is stripping in the middle of Union Square in Downtown San Francisco which was packed with tourist and street performers.
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I was so happy to be able to do shoot #11 of the BIG family project in Tampa Florida. I was only in town for a total of 36hours, flight in to flight out, so we were extremely lucky to be blessed with perfect weather and an amazing sunset. I think It was the perfect match for Barbara and Larry’s 31st wedding anniversary . It’s almost hard to believe it was only a day and a half, I think we used every single hour of those 36
After Tampa I flew straight to San Francisco to shoot my cousins Christine & Evan so expect another blog post here shortly which will be all about SF!
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Motorcycling to Mexico ended up being a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I learned during the course of 2,500 miles and 15days that I actually didn’t know anything about motorcycle maintenance or how to ride a bike in difficult conditions as you can see from the first picture on this blog!
November 14th 2010 marked the start of my first real motorcycle trip. The goal was to ride from Overland Park Kansas to Hidalgo, Nuevo Leon, Mexico, which lies about 140miles over the border from Laredo Tx. Attached to Hidalgo is a park name El Potrero Chico, in this park are limestone mountains like I have never seen before and climbing to match. My route took me down through Missouri and into Arkansas where I got on the so called “Trans Arkansas Trail” which is a mix of asphalt, dirt roads and technical track through National Forest.
This low speed crash happened in Ouachita National Forest AR, which I am absolutely in love with, there is a simple and quiet beauty to this place that I throughly enjoyed riding and camping through. Not having a whole lot of experience on motos in general it was inevitable that I was going to wipe out after spending the whole day in gooey mud that felt more like ice than dirt. Only damage was a broken mirror when I went over the handle bars. 
More of Ouachita at Sunrise
These two guys, Rocky and Robert were an incredible help when my chain broke and locked up my rear tire in Benton AR. Rocky helped me get a tow truck and Robert gave me a whole rundown on how to do proper bike maintenance and install a new chain properly. Without Robert using his lunch break to help me I would have installed the chain dangerously wrong. So the lesson here is if you ever have a break down make sure it happens in a small Arkansasian town
My route took me through Louisiana next which I found to be different from what I expected. It felt much older and seemed to have a lot of character and beautiful old neighborhoods to explore. looking forward to a currently unscheduled return trip which will spend time photographing people from places like Baton Rouge, Shreveport and New Orleans.
The Gulf! It was just my luck that beach was covered with birds instead of oil. 
El Potrero Chico illuminated by a full moon and a sky full of stars! Absolutely incredible destination for rock climbing I can not recommend it high enough or the place I stayed, http://www.elpotrerochico.com.mx/
This is another climbing area about 40miles south of El Potrero named El Salto. If I thought El Potrero was amazing El Sato is even more impressive. I have nothing to compare this place to. El Salto blew my mind. I had no idea that Mexico had this kind of experience to offer. It literally changed my entire perception of Mexico irrevocably for the better.
This waterfall was one of the most beautiful I have seen. The volume alone was impressive but as you can see near the top of the frame, the water had carved out a natural bridge under which the water falls and creates a wake when it hits the pool in which my friends are standing. 
This is what El Salto climbing looks like. You are climb inside of caves and through tunnels, pulling on ‘tufas’ and stalagmites. All from place with breathe taking views. 
This is Ryan, the most talented rock climber of our group and a big part of why the El Salto experience was so much fun. 
Ryan and Arandeni pulling on so really cool climbs.
Attempting to speak spanish was always an adventure and perhaps a bit humbling when the most common thing I said was ‘No entiendo, perdon!’
After two days in El Salto we returned to El Potrero and finished up with a rest day and one day of climbing that just whetted my appetite for a return trip. There is so much rock here that you could spend months and not hit it all. After those 2 day I packed everything up and headed for the Columbia International Bridge early Sunday morning. Columbia is a great option for missing all the US bound traffic that clogs Nuevo Laredo crossing. I made it back home after 2 days of intensely exhaustive riding. The last day of riding involved getting up at 2:30 am near Austin Texas and riding all the way back to Kansas city, stopping only to nap on a wooden pallet behind a liquor store and eat.
What I learned:
Imperfection is inherent in everything we do. Inescapable so.
Imperfection meaning, annoyance, failures, pain, suffering and set backs. It’s by accepting that baseline and working through it in spite of everything that allows us to accomplish and enjoy the goals we set. I think this realization is right in line with the old cliche of “It’s about the journey not the destination.” You have to learn to love the process and everything it entails in order to find happiness and succeed.
Family is everything.
The only things in our lives that really have true value are the people we love. All our plans, efforts and possessions can be rendered meaningless by an injury or catastrophe. In that light the only thing that has any value are the connections we’ve formed with the people that will be there for us through the successes and the failures.
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