Hey y’all!

Wild Art is something all newspaper photojournalists have to shoot on a regular basis.  It provides the readers a light-hearted, slice-of-life moment amidst all of the headlines and hard lines of news stories and photographs.  All the Star-Bulletin photographers have to come up with Wild Art-an assignment known as the Wild Art Hunt.  

It’s not always fruitful, and there certainly have been times when I was struggling to find a great moment or a great picture and the light is fading fast.

A lot of the successful wild arts I’ve shot have been dependent on patience and waiting for the moment, as opposed to looking for it.

Monday, I decided to go to Kakaako Waterfront Park for my wild art.  I noticed several parasailors as it was a nice calm day on the ocean.  Even though Hawaii doesn’t really have seasons, it felt like one of the last days of summer.

I used this bike rack to make a graphically appealing shot of this parasailor. Using the environment to add compositional elements in photographs is something I'm always thinking about whenever I'm out shooting.

After several shots of this parasailor, I noticed that there was an iron signpost a few yards down from this bike rack, with the sign missing.  Hmm.  I stood back and photographed the parasailors through this signage.

The parasailors through that iron sign.

I then noticed several pedestrians and cyclists using the walkway and a lightbulb popped on above my head–framing THEM through this newly found piece of artistic dimension!

Here's a man passing through, and although visually and graphically appealing, I wanted something that was more of a moment--more human interest.

I also tried using elements OUTSIDE of the four walls of that sign to see how it would hold, compositionally, but ultimately dumped that idea.

After waiting for a while, I saw a man and his young son carrying fishing poles headed my way.  With my luck, they walked straight down the path towards the water and inside the four walls of that iron signpost. 

Father and son head for the water to cast their lines. Visually I thought it was okay, but I thought it would look better if their whole bodies were in the frame.

So I waited and hoped that they’d stand on the concrete wall for a better glance at the water…they did, and I was able to make a frame I was satisfied with.

I try to use environmental elements to make my images visually interesting. When the right kind of moment lines up within these elements, you score!

All images taken with a Canon EOS 1D Mark III, EF 70-200 f2.8L IS at 200mm (to compress the view), Manual exposure, ISO 400, 1/400 sec @ f20, daylight whitebalance.