My husband Adam and I moved to Maui on the 2nd of July from Queensland Australia’s Sunshine Coast where we merged our surf and wedding photography businesses in to Love and Water Photography in September of 2014 (just about one year ago!) I am originally from Virginia but met Adam while studying abroad. I moved to Australia to be with him in 2008 and married him in 2011. We lived in Australia together travelling and shooting weddings then wanted to be a bit closer to my parents. Hawaii always seemed like a dream instead of somewhere we could actually live – then realized we only have one shot at life, picked an island and moved our lives away from our beautiful home, friends and family in Australia.

We decided Maui would not only be a dream destination for our lifestyle, but one that would allow us to pursue our underwater and wedding photography practically year ’round. It was an easy decision to make, but starting up from scratch hasn’t been! We have found however that fellow photographers, businesses and the community here have been overwhelmingly supportive and have never encountered such a welcoming vibe anywhere else we’ve been together. We moved over here with four suitcases (+ our golden retriever Marley) and have been spending the past two-and-a-bit-months trying to get the word out about our services and settle in to our new home. As with anything, the way to get the word out about your photos is to keep shooting!

Annie and Travis are boyfriend and girlfriend, and we noticed they were following a lot of our work on Instagram so we suggested they do a shoot with us as we wanted to try out some underwater concepts! We then found out Annie is a stylist at an awesome local salon which is how she’d heard about us in the first place, through a client of her’s for whom we’d done a maternity session a few weeks earlier.

After exchanging a few messages we spent a Sunday out with the two eating awesome food, drinking iced coffee, exploring some of Maui’s most beautiful coastline and of course sneaking in this underwater session! The two have such a connection to begin with, and underwater it really shines. Our business is seriously all about doing what we love, catering to fun and beach loving couples who appreciate the natural environment and the little things in life. We find with this attitude we are fortunate enough to attract and befriend the most kind hearted individuals who are deeply in love and not afraid to show it!

Combining Adam’s underwater photography with my wedding photogrpahy was the best thing we ever did. While life in paradise is in fact still life and has its hurdles, we are happy we made the decision to move to this beautiful location and never want to take a day for granted. Most days we’re enjoying either sunrise or sunset (or both). We shoot weddings together, portraits of women and water that we call “Mermaid Sessions”, and while Adam photographs clients under water – something I haven’t been able to master – I pick up trash on the beach we’re so lucky to enjoy that day. Maui has taught us in these few short weeks that you get what you give, and while we miss our friends and family back home, we feel we’ve been given the chance to turn over a new leaf on this beautiful Island.

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