Sunrise Plus Island Tour

Chris was our tour guide. He was terrific and made the 5 hours we spent together relaxing, fun and educational. We had a great day and will definitely book again with Chris.

We consider ourselves so fortunate to have booked the Sunrise + Island Tour. Hands down it was the best exploration activity we did while on the island. Marie is very knowledgeable about the island and its history and took us to some show stopping sites that would have been hard to find on our own. Marie is also an accomplished photographer herself and provided plenty of helpful tips when capturing certain situations. I can hardly wait to sift through the 100s of photos I took with my DSLR camera. Thank you so much Blue Hawaii Photo Tours. You're the best!

Having always been a want to be photographer, the chance to take pictures in one of the most beautiful places on the planet was too much for me to pass up. I visited Oahu during the Covid pandemic from 12/4/2020 through 12/14/2020 and while many businesses were closed due to lack of visitors. I found a photo tour with Blue Hawaii was available. I booked it and based on other tours I had booked was not certain it would even run due to not enough guests to make it worthwhile. To my surprise the evening before my tour, I got a text confirming the tour. It was from the owner, Marie, who said I was the only passenger that day, I immediately offered to reschedule so she would not have to do a full tour with only one person and likely lose money. But she insisted as she did not want to disappoint me. I added the sunrise photo tour to my island tour so that we could get a full day in and start early. Remember me saying I am a 'want to be' photographer. Well, that is true. I have a Nikon D5300 that I basically use as a point and shoot with all auto settings. I have always wanted to have someone show me how to get the most out of it. This seemed like a good time, and it was. Marie picked me up right on time and gave me some background about where we would be going and photographing. She was incredibly patient and I struggled getting walking on the 'lava rocks' at the beach and helped me understand timing of the photo for the best ocean 'splash'. She walked me through the settings on the camera, not once or twice but many times as I would forget how to coordinate the aperture and the ISO and speed. She even helped me understand what white balance is and when and how to set it for the best dramatic pictures. By the time the day was done, I felt like I had been through a masters class in photography. Through the day as we drove she gave great little tidbits of information not just about photography but also about the island and its history. Pointing out not just historic locations but stumbling onto the taping of a current TV show where they made us sit for 5 minutes while they were preparing to shoot. That gave us a chance to get pictures of a certain red Ferrari. While some of this was just fortunate timing and certainly not something you can expect on a typical tour. I hope it shows that there is much more to the tours from Blue Hawaii Photo tours than just taking pictures. If you are in Oahu, do yourself a favor and book a day with these folks. Whether you are an experienced photographer, a want to be (like me), use your phone camera or even just want to see some great local venues and learn a little about the island, Blue Hawaii Photo Tours will not disappoint. Aloha, I look forward to another trip someday soon.