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Time for another entry in my Facebook Photographers series. And like the previous entries, this one comes from the Hawaiian islands with a young and talented photographer, Makena Gadient.

(Photo Credit: Makena’s Flickr photostream)

I met Makena at the ‘09 Maui Photo Festival as one of the high school scholarship winners – all of which were pretty amazing for shooters their age.  Since the festival in September, I’ve been following along with her work on Twitter and the beginning of her 365 project on Flickr at the start of the year. It’s been great watching her experiment with a lot of different techniques and really starting to come into her own style this year.

Perhaps one of the things I envy the most about Makena (aside from living on Maui ) is that she’s coming into this hobby at such an ideal age. When you talk about teenagers getting into something with as much commitment and dedication to a craft that she is now, you can definitely tell that they have a bright future ahead of them and the sky is the limit with what they can, and will, accomplish.

Finding Makena’s Photos

In addition to posting the daily photos in her 365 project on her Facebook page, you can also find them and outtakes on her Flickr account.  It is certainly a lot easier to see the collective set on Flickr, and compare images from the beginning of the year to the recent weeks.

When you check out those photos on both sites, you’ll notice a reoccurring theme in both places – that is the support an encouragement of her friends and her family.  From acting as models to providing feedback and coming up with new ideas, there’s a lot of positive energy there that only fosters great things.

If you do have a Flickr or Facebook account, you’ll certainly want to follow along for the rest of this year and with where Makena’s work with photography may take her. If she follows her aspirations in photography in the future, I’m sure we’ll be hearing more from her.

Back to the Festival

Although I won’t be making the trip back to Maui for this year’s photography festival, I still will be following along with everyone.  In addition to Makena, I made so many connections last year that I still keep tabs on, and there will be more MPF alumni that will be featured in this series in the coming weeks and months.

Stay tuned.

– Kris

Photo: A de-saturated look at one of my previous beach photos.

Of all places to find inspiration for creative work in Photoshop, would you believe this one came from Windows XP?

I had this photo as my desktop background on my office machine – which unfortunately is still running the ancient operating system.  For those of you that might remember it, the Shut Down sequence fades your desktop to black and white in the background. And there you have it.

I couldn’t help but keep some of the color in the blue skies and a touch in the water, but always open to feedback.

– Kris

Back with another edition in the Facebook photographer series. This edition features the surfing snapshots of Clark Little.

Clark Little was one of the many cool photographers and instructors that I met at the Maui Photo Festival last September. However, you’d be hard to compare Clark on the same level as many of the other professional photographers holding workshops. You see, Clark isn’t your photography professional. In fact, he’s a surfer who, according to his bio page, only started his photography career in 2007.

So what’s so special about Clark?  As his website puts it:

Clark had a unique talent for taking off on hopeless closeout shorebreak waves and surviving in one piece.

Put a camera in Clark’s hands and you have some amazing works of art.

If you haven’t clicked on any of the links above yet, then check out his gallery on clarklittlephotography.com and you’ll see what I mean.

More Photos on Facebook

One of the reasons I wanted to feature Clark in this Facebook series is that just about every week, he’s posting new photos right to his page’s wall, which means right into your news feed. If there were ever photos as of late that you could share online without captions and have them constantly speak for themselves, these would be it.

Plus, if you want to meet Clark in person, pack your bags and come join the fun at the ‘10 Maui Photo Festival in August.

Stay Tuned

Be sure to check back for more editions of the Facebook photographer series, and if you’d like to request a fan page to be featured next, head over to my page on Facebook and leave your recommendation there.

– Kris

Is it August yet?

The latest promotional video for this year’s Maui Photo Festival has been posted on their website and on Facebook, and in the mix of all the photos from the great photographers I met at last year’s event are two of my own.

• Aerial view of Honolua Bay
• My Haleakala sunrise self-portrait

As if you really need any further convincing that Maui is a perfect destination for a photography workshop like this, check out my ‘09 festival review on Maui by Photo and my enlightening experience during the sunset hula photoshoot.

Hopefully we’ll see you out there for this year’s event.

Mahalo,
– Kris

Photo: Series of waves washing on the shores of Wailea Beach, with clouds over West Maui near the horizon.

Now that I’m sort of back in business with my laptop situation, I wanted to throw in a few paradise shots before getting back into all the hockey images from the last two Chicago Wolves games I shot.

First, The Composition

Before I get into the detail conundrum I’m in, I wanted to say I really liked how this composition came out. Not just with the waves and the trees, but the clouds over the mountain as well.

Contrast that with this similar shot that has a more wider feel to it, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, The Conundrum

This image made its way through my workflow with a stop in Topaz Adjust, the new Version 4.0.  I’ve been using TA for a few months, and this one is with one of the new presets named “Detail – Strong”.

Now, I also did this same image with Topaz Detail, which I’m just starting to experiment with.  You can view those results on Flickr here.

The Vote

Which one do you prefer?  I’ve added a call for input on both images on Flickr, but if you’re not part of the Flickrverse, please leave your thoughts here or on Facebook when the post is published there shortly.

Many thanks in advance,
- Kris