FiaFia Night in American Samoa

Fiafia night in American Samoa. A chance to eat great Samoan food and watch dancers. Reminds me of a Luau in Hawaii. This is one of my favorite photos from a fiafia night at Sadies by the Sea (hotel in American Samoa). To me, this photo shows so much freedom and happiness. American Samoa is a great place to visit, although they need to develop tourism. A person recently remarked to me how slow things are here and the more I thought about it, the more he is right. But, that is what makes it a great place to raise a family. You don't have to worry about your kids like you do in the U.S. Violent crime is low and I can send my kids to school on the public transportation (aiga bus) without worrying. They have also seen a very unique culture during our five years here.

Now for this photo I wanted a little bit of a different look. Not color, but not black and white. To achieve this look, I opened my photo in photoshop. I then created a new layer and adjusted the saturation of the Red (and to a much lesser extent the yellow) channels negative. This had the effect of desaturation the photo, but not all the way. I just goofed with it until I got something I like.

There are times when American Samoa (like every other place) gets you down and looking at my photos remind me at how unique the place is and how lucky we are to be here.

Hula

Normally I like when people are making eye contact with the camera. But some photos work well without the eye contact. The photo on the left has no eye contact, yet I really liked the photo as it really conveys her happiness and being lost in the moment. I used focal point to add some blur around her and draw attention to where I wanted to. Of course, this was taken at night and I had to use a high ISO, despite the lights. If you can't get a fast enough shutter speed, Anticipate a moment when dancers are not moving as fast and then shoot. I hope you enjoy this photo.

Thanks to Mike Wong of onOne software for the nice comments about my Samoan black and white photo I previously posted. I use and recommend a number of their products, including focalpoint, genuine fractals, mask pro (which is so easy to use to cut out backgrounds etc.) and photo tools. I'm not going to lie, the software isn't cheap, but it is well worth the price and I was never disappointed. The amount of time I have saved using their products and some of the results have made the investment well worth it. check out the blog at http://www.ononesoftware.com/blog/ to see more.