Laurence
Balter
Photographer. Pilot. Husband. Father. Founder of Wailea Photo and a student of Maui’s changing light for more than 25 years.
A life shaped by light.
Laurence founded Wailea Photo more than 25 years ago. Since then, he has personally photographed thousands of families, couples and weddings across Wailea, Makena and South Maui.
His work begins before the camera comes out. It begins with the weather, the tide, the direction of the wind and the way light moves across a particular stretch of beach. That accumulated local knowledge is what allows a session to feel relaxed while every detail is being quietly considered.
What began with one photographer has become a family studio. Today Laurence works alongside his wife, Jude, and their sons, Max and Solomon.
His portrait lighting draws on the Renaissance painters, and his motion work on the Impressionists — the same thinking behind the studio’s Impressionism add-on. One of his prints, of the Molokai sea cliffs, is held in the Leica Archives, and he is an ambassador for Oberwerth, the German camera bag maker, and for House of 35, a film lab in California. He publishes interviews and craft notes to more than 11,000 subscribers on YouTube as Artist with Cameras.
Away from the camera, Laurence is owner and chief flight instructor at Maui Flight Academy, with more than 14,000 hours of flight experience. Sessions are photographed across South Maui, and the family travels worldwide by request.
The horizon teaches patience.
Photography and aviation share a discipline: conditions matter, preparation matters, and small decisions shape the outcome.
Laurence’s experience as a flight instructor informs the calm, observant way he approaches each session, with patience and precision. Maui’s weather can shift quickly. Reading clouds, wind and changing light is not a complication—it is part of the craft.
Leica is more than a camera.
For a photographer devoted to Leica, Wetzlar represents an enduring philosophy: precision should serve the photograph, never distract from it.
Laurence’s preference for Leica cameras and APO optics comes from the same belief that guides every Wailea Photo session—beautiful color, honest skin tones and equipment quiet enough to leave room for real connection.
Every session starts the same way—with light, and with time to let a moment happen.The way Laurence works
The work is personal.
Laurence and Jude built Wailea Photo as a family—and the families they photograph are treated with the same care they would want for their own.
That perspective changes the purpose of a portrait. It is not simply an image for today. It becomes part of a family’s visual history: a record of who was there, how they held one another and what it felt like to be together in Maui.