bigenergy

It's AMA time. 

Sorry, just a few minutes late getting myself settled in here. I've got a nice cold compression cycle running on my knee for the next 30 minutes, so I'm here for any questions you might have about the images I've shared today, or photography in general.

Wildlife and landscape photographer from Hawaii. All photos copyrighted. More images on my website: www.jasonorourke.com

https://foundation.app/collection/honu

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Damn, I have been trying to make sure I don't miss any questions but this one seems to have slipped by. My favorite lens is definitely my Nikkor 200-500mm lens, which I use for everything from my waves and lava shots to my monk seals and Honu.

I tend to shoot freehand, especially when things are moving, but when I'm on Kauai and lined up on those crazy collisions, I often do use a tripod to help stay focused on that area for hours at a time.

Jason I would love to know what is your favourite lens and if you use a tripod to take your awesome wave shots

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Cameras are all about comfort and feel, so the best recommendation I can make is to visit a local shop and get the camera in your hand to see what you like. The menus and the features will be overwhelming, but you can always start on the basic settings and continue to learn by getting out there and shooting.

With the focus today on mirrorless cameras, if you're starting from scratch and don't already own lenses, I think that's the best place to start. The cameras are lighter, and they continue to develop them at an amazing rate.

What camera u recommend for professional photography? Btw nice to have u here 😊

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That's an interesting question... I think I've always been fascinated by nature, which is why I used to take pictures of frogs and toads and turtles when I got my first camera at five or six. I love being outdoors, and Hawaii certainly provides a beautiful landscape to work with.

However, I think the number of hours spent on the beaches and observing several of our endangered species in Hawaii, I've become more appreciative of how delicate the balance is between human interaction and the natural world, and also recognized that we can still impact a positive change. Both the Hawaiian monk seal population and the Hawaiian green sea turtle population have seen significant rebounds once better protections were put in place, and more education and outreach were done.

how has your journey been since you started photography, did it bring you closer to nature and did you come to understand the world better, i’d just like to know how it changed your life.

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Oh, good tip, Fer... they should be my most recent casts on my profile, I think, but I can do something along those lines.

Yes, I would absolutely love to be a photographer full-time if I can figure out how to make the math work on the financial side of things.

You know I am a fan of your photography. I was wondering if you were ever able to do this as a job or if you even want to be a photographer full-time. I am trying to find all the casts you did today, but I can't. I hope you compile them all in one after the AMA.

I've actually always taken photos, going back to that first hand-me-down camera my mother gave me when I was 5 or 6. Back then, I would use my allowance to buy film and print them when I shot a roll.

After college, I traveled across the U.S. and I shot film, and I still had my 35mm when I moved to Hawaii in 2005. However, I didn't frequenly scan my images or get the CD-ROM when I printed the film, so I wasn't sharing them.

What happened at first was simply that I got a DSLR, and I started sharing my photos on my personal social media. It wasn't until I had friends in Hawaii that started asking me for prints, or places that they could visit and photograph themselves, that I realized my photography was different.

From that point on, I started selling my work in galleries and building the business by sharing my work online.

What inspired you to start sharing your photos online initially?

For me, that was where my interest always was... as a kid, I photographed the frogs and toads and turtles in the backyard, and i was much more interested in the wildlife than I was the sunsets or landscapes or flowers.

As I grew up and traveled, I certainly photographed the amazing places I went, but I always kept an eye out for the local wildlife. Someday, I'll get some of my 35mm negatives scanned, and share some of the wildlife I managed to capture in those years as well!

AMA time what made you venture into wildlife photography it’s a niche I see most photography don’t venture into

Ha ha ha... well, there's always a story. To be honest, I was attending an event in Waikiki, and I was running late. I knew there was a chance for a sunset from the venue, so I brought my camera and when I stepped outside, I saw how cloudy it was and almost ran the camera back upstairs. But I was late, so I didn't and that's the only reason I had the camera with me.

When this sunset started, I didn't have enough time to get anywhere. I was at the Sheraton Waikiki, which has a big infinity pool, but I couldn't get even a palm tree or some sand in my foreground, so as the sky lit up, all I could think was that I'd have this great image of water and sky. The musician performing stopped in the middle of his song to say: I grew up here, and this doesn't happen very often... you should go out and watch.

Right as the color hit the peak, this outrigger canoe team paddled into the frame... they did a sprint, and were lined up perfectly for this single shot. Right place, right time.

Outrigger Sunset seems like a really special piece. Is there a special story behind the photo or the process of creating it?

When I started my NFT journey, minting my first NFT in April 2021, there was little doubt that I would start with a wildlife shot.

Hawaii has one of the most endangered marine mammals on the planet, the Hawaiian monk seal, with roughy 1600 of them left. For more than a decade, I have done volunteer outreach with these seals on Hawaii’s beaches, and a weekly Monk Seal Monday post to raise awareness of these amazing animals.

My first NFT was The Survivor, and she is part of my Monk Seal Monday collection. Link 👇🏼.

So, the Hawaiian monk seals weren't something I came across often when I first arrived in Hawaii in 2005. I saw one on a trip with my parents to Maui, and another when I was showing a friend around the island of Oahu, but they were not something you saw very often, and like most people, I wasn't even aware that they were unique to Hawaii. 

Really, it was my experience with RK30 in August of 2012 that prompted me to start learning more about them (the image below, which I shared earlier today), and when I was laid off at the end of 2012, I had more time on my hands and spent more time out on the beaches with these amazing animals.

In July 2013, I saw my first Hawaiian monk seal pup and I overheard the volunteers saying that there was no one signed up to watch over the mother and pup pair later that week. I asked what I needed to do to become a volunteer, and it was a life changing experience!

Multidisciplinary photographer.
Areas of interest - long exposure, minimalist, fine art architecture,  architectural street and landscape photography.

So, the Hawaiian monk seals weren't something I came across often when I first arrived in Hawaii in 2005. I saw one on a trip with my parents to Maui, and another when I was showing a friend around the island of Oahu, but they were not something you saw very often, and like most people, I wasn't even aware that they were unique to Hawaii. 

Really, it was my experience with RK30 in August of 2012 that prompted me to start learning more about them (the image below, which I shared earlier today), and when I was laid off at the end of 2012, I had more time on my hands and spent more time out on the beaches with these amazing animals.

In July 2013, I saw my first Hawaiian monk seal pup and I overheard the volunteers saying that there was no one signed up to watch over the mother and pup pair later that week. I asked what I needed to do to become a volunteer, and it was a life changing experience!

https://warpcast.com/jasonophoto/0xda8be5c8

What led you to volunteer for monk seals? And what was the most challenging part of photographing them?

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Well, that's going to be subjective, I think... certainly, I am proud of my Monk Seal Monday collection, and the images I have documenting these amazing endangered seals. 

My Hawaiian green sea turtle (Honu) images are very popular in the galleries and I have always loved turtles.

I've lived on the ocean my entire life, but the water in Hawaii is different somehow. It almost seems heavier. The waves from Oahu's North Shore or the collisions off the coast of Kauai are absolutely epic.

There's also nothing quite like the experience of seeing new earth being formed, and the Big Island volcanoes give you a chance to see that up close and in person. 

So my best work would have to pick an image from each of these groups, and that's part of what I hope I shared in here today!

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It feels like I've always had a camera in my hand... my mother handed down her Minolta 110 film camera when I was 5 or 6, and I started taking wildlife photos right away, so that's always been my focus. Waves, lava, landscapes always catch my attention, but wildlife is my true love.

I will say, I often go out of my way to take photos without any people, or man-made objects, so I definitely prefer to photograph the natural world.

Glad you're here for the AMA.
When did you get into photography and what subjects do you like?

This is definitely a tough industry, and a lot of the galleries I have worked with since 2011 (when that little place in Haleiwa first started carrying my work) have closed or gone out of business.

I was really making some progress back in 2019, but the global pandemic was brutal for the gallery business, so none of the galleries carrying my work today were open when that hit. I lost mulitple galleries within a few months.

The biggest challenge is definitely consistent revenue from my photography, without a doubt. Definitely some great months, and definitely some very lean months.

What’s the biggest challenge you’ve face so far in your career ?

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Oh wow... kind of a running joke of mine that my list keeps getting longer because I never cross any off.

Right now, as I'm sitting here recoverying from my knee surgery, my buddy @mattwalch is up in Churchill photographing polar bears, and I would probably put that experience at the top of my list as a wildlife photographer.

At the same point, my wife would love to see aurora so I know Iceland is at the top of her list, and it is near the top of mine too.

Do you have a place or subject at the top of your own wish list that you haven’t had a chance to photograph?

So, the waves on Kauai get pretty massive in the winter and this spot offers a place where they crash into the cliffs and bounce out, so what you're watching for is that moment when two waves collide.

Typically, this creates a horizontal fan, and those fans are easily 20'-30' tall at their peak. Since I was expecting a horizontal wave, I was set up with a horizontal frame. When this collision happened, I immediately realized that it was climbing straight up, probably 40'-50', if not taller. Thankfully, it just squeaked under the top of the frame on my shot, and I cropped out the two sides to create a vertical print.

Here are the two waves side by side: Ke'e Tower, and then a more traditional fan wave, so you have a sense for the frame and scale.

How high was the wave in Kee Tower? And do you get to see such big ones often in Hawaii?

We are Kathryn and Dave life partners & photographers with many interests. Storm chasing & storm spotting is one of our passions. https://linktr.ee/phos3.com

Ha ha ha... I'm trying to make sure I don't miss any!

Bookmarked to read as this thread grows! 💖

Man with big dreams📍Bodybuilder💪your kind friend🎈🍓meme master 👀👅 artist 🎨 love photography 📸

Another running joke... when I got laid off at the end of 2012, I took some time to focus on my photography (with a six month severance package behind me), and people would ask me if I was a professional photographer.

I would always answer: "Well, I haven't quit my day job, but my day job just quit me."

When I moved to NYC last summer, I started a new job as a marketing director, but I was recently laid off and I had my knee surgery pending, so I'm currently in between jobs and focusing on my photography at the moment. I'd love to make it a full-time thing!

so happy to have you here.
Do you have any job except photography?

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Oh, that's an easy one... I've dabbled a little bit in astrophotography, but I'd really like to learn more and continue to work on that. I'm not looking for the deep space experiences @aydinmustafa brings us through the telescopes, but I'd love to capture the Milky Way in some of the remote corners I love on Oahu.

Hi Jason !
Which Genre of photography would you want explore that you already haven’t ?

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Oh man… that’s a tough one. Probably not a single photograph, to be honest. 

As much as I love taking photos and sharing these beautiful places and creatures, I probably feel closest to nature in those still moments, of almost absolute silence, like watching the fog roll across the lake on a fall morning.

What’s the moment you felt the closest connection with nature? 

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