Let's Happy Time Scuba Diving Okinawa! 8)

I had been putting it off and saying I always wanted to do it and now finally thanks to my good friend Keith Smith of ScubaTKS I now have my certification, yayy! For the last 4 days I have been diving everyday and today was the first with my Ikalite underwater housing for my Canon 5DmkII and 8-15mm f4L fisheye lens.

Keith was a fantastic instructor, very patient and clear when teaching me all the skills needed to dive safely while still having lots of fun. Huge thanks Keith!

Visit Keith's Scuba in Okinawa facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/pages/Scubatks

Here are a few practice shots on my first actual open water dive since I did my introduction to diving on Rota island a few years back while on assignment there for Outdoor Japan Magazine. (See image above taken on Canon G9 also got a double page spread in a Chinese island travel magazine.


These shots were taken with the Canon S95 and Canon housing.

First shot of a cute little nudibranch

With Keith sensei at Kadena North

Here's a few from today on my 5th dive and first time diving with good friend +David Orr and with the Ikelite Canon 5DII housing at Cape Maeda.
 Although the visibility wasn't that great it was a great feeling to be able to shoot the fish from their level and not be in a rush to get back to the surface for air every few seconds as I always have done when snorkeling with the housing. I feel pretty much like a total beginner photographer still right now while shooting underwater but having a blast exploring the amazing underwater compositions and watching all the sea life around me. An amazing feeling once I learned to relax a bit more down there.

Thanks Dave!

Georgie & Nick's wedding in Australia

So I recently returned to my home country of Australia to photograph the wedding of my 2nd cousin Georgina & the love of her life Nick. The ceremony was set up on my cousin Donna's beautiful 5 acres or so of country land with the wedding alter built by my uncle Tony.
There was a bit of rain on the day but luckily it held out for the outdoor ceremony unfortunately the helicopter that was planned to pick up the couple and myself after the ceremony finished got stuck in Brisbane airport due to the bad weather. We did however have some pretty sweet classic cars to shoot with. It was a long fun but tiring day and I had wet soggy feet most of the day but all in all a fantastic day. Congrats to you both and thank you for having me to photograph your special day!

Check out the slideshow video here or below for photos.




And some photos from the day...

Whats in my Destination Wedding camera bag (Canon version)

As have started doing a few overseas destination weddings this year I thought I would make a little video showing the kind of gear that travels along with me on these kinds of wedding shoots.

You may have seen my Nikon version of Whats in my camera bag I did a year or so back when I was working as a photographer for Watabe Wedding. If you haven't and would like to check it out you can find it at this link http://youtu.be/dFPpscwisAU.

Back from Australia, and The Epic Storm Cloud

You can click the image to see it bigger. To see it in all it's 10,000+ pixel epicness click here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/peteleongphotography/8659280539/sizes/o/in/photostream/

(Warning: This image is BIG so don't bother if your internet is slow)

So its been about 13 years since I'd visited my home country of Australia and I finally went back there this month to shoot a wedding for my darling cousin Georgina as she was marrying the man of her dreams Nick. But more on that and photos to come shortly.

I wanted to share something pretty special that I was lucky enough to see on my last day visiting Australia from my Mums house in Redcliffe, Queensland. Unusual clouds have always fascinated me and whenever I see a cool looking sky I have to grab my camera and capture it. I've been wanting to see something like this for as long as I can remember but have never had the good fortune even after living in Redcliffe throughout my childhood.

As the massive super cell storm made its way closer to Redcliffe my Dad and I were just watching it from the window but as it came closer and continued to take this crazy shape I ran to grab my 5DmkIII and 17-40mm lens and raced across the road to the beach to snap off a few shots. Lightning was starting to crack all around so I didn't want to stick around too long. I managed to keep myself steady enough to fire off all 10 shots that made up this panorama of the storm cloud.

Once I got back to my imac here in Okinawa I stitched it all together in Photoshop and put the finishing touches on it in Lightroom.

Into The Storm

Another on of the storm cloud with a couple of guys taking off into the storm on their jetski. Why, I have no idea. Maybe they wanted to get a photo from under it. In that case I salute you!

More photos from the Australia trip to come and samples from Georgina & Nicks wedding. 

My next overseas trip will be to Carmel, California in June for a wedding shoot. 

Back from wedding in Hawaii

Aloha everyone! Just back from shooting an amazing wedding for Brad and Sonoko on the amazingly beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii. Right into the busy wedding photography season here on Okinawa now and I leave for another overseas wedding in Australia in a few days.
Not much time to scratch myself right now as its shoot, edit, shoot again until I leave. But I really wanted to share just a few panorama shots and other fun stuff I managed to photograph while in Hawaii. Although officially I was there for work I couldn't leave with out catching a few seascapes and some panoramas of the stunning landscape.

I will post the wedding photos in a separate post coming soon. But for now here are a few of the other scenes I shot. Some of these panoramas are crazy huge! Made up of multiple images and stitched back together in Photoshop. I plan to get some of these printed shortly and get them up on the wall.

Pipeline, North Shore surfing

Reflections of palm trees on our limo

One insanely crazy street!

Kailua beach. Just beautiful

Early morning pink clouds

Long exposure sunrise

This is one huge panorama. We climbed the mountain behind our rental house to some old WWII pillboxes just in time to catch the sunrise. 

Sailing in Waikiki for Brad's bux party

Another early morning panorama

Looking out to one of the islands from our balcony. What a beautiful sight!

Sun rings. I've only ever seen these in Okinawa before. They are pretty amazing to see. 

Another panorama this time from our home for the week. 

As you can probably tell I totally fell in love with Hawaii. I just wish I had more time to explore Oahu. But I've already had inquires about going back to Hawaii later this year for more weddings so hopefully it will pan out ok. Well back to editing now. Thanks for dropping by. Aloha!