Aloha!

I hope you all are having a great start of the Christmas week :) The year 2020 has been passing through so quickly, especially for me these past months. I have been shooting more sessions compared to earlier this year, and I am glad that more people are coming back to have photo shoots on our beautiful island!

Rencently, my wedding vendor friend Taryn of A Touch of You has mentioned that she will be organizing a food drive for wedding vendors, and if anyone needs food. When I saw her post, I wanted to do something. Actually, I wanted to do something to help the community for a long time, but didn’t know what I could do. When I saw that, I thought that maybe I could photograph the BTS (behind the scenes) photos of her action because photography is the strongest communication tool I can offer.

I approached Taryn and she said, “YEAH! Please come!! It will be awesome!”. I had an elopement shoot that morning in Waimanalo, so I drove to Chinatown after my morning shoot. There are familiar faces from the weddings besides Taryn’s team, including Kris of Kris Labang Photography and Keoni of Keoni Michael Wedding Photography. It was nice to reconnect the familiar faces at the food drive, and we served the amazing box full of food that Aloha Harvest prepared. It was nice to see people’s connections and people helping each other when in need - and I captured the moments through my lens. If I didn’t become a wedding photographer, I wanted to be a news photographer, because I like documentaries. Raw moments. Real stories. This is the moment I saw the beauty of human connection, and I liked that people are doing this with joy, smiles, and with warm aloha.

It’s been almost a decade since I met Taryn for the first time. She is an amazing local wedding and event planner. Whenever I meet her at our shoots, she is always there with big smiles. I am always amazed how she prosecutes the plans almost effortlessly (… to my eyes: I am sure this is possible since she is great at planning and preparation, and also loves what she does!!) and her team is always happily creating the day together. On this day as well, thanks to her organization, our experience helping with food distribution was a huge success :)

A few days after, Taryn was on the local news channel Hawaii News Now and shared the experience as a wedding/event coordinator in Oahu in 2020, and also the news talked about her action with Aloha Harvest. It was great that she let me be a part of the team on that morning, and also see the photos were introduced on the news segment. I am so proud of her action and enthusiasm to give hands to society and share the voice for our wedding industry.

Thank you Taryn!

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