Solomon Balter
Photographer, Wailea Photo
A cinematic eye, shaped on Maui.
Solomon Balter is a second-generation Wailea Photo photographer, born and raised on Maui, known among the family team for a cinematic style. He studied cinematic lighting under the international award-winning wedding photographer Zhuoya. He learned the craft directly from his father, founder Laurence Balter, and alongside his mother Jude and brother Max.
Solomon photographs family portraits, couples sessions and weddings across Wailea, Makena and South Maui as part of the family-run Wailea Photo team.
Outside the family business, Solomon's personal automotive photography has been recognized internationally: his portfolio shoot of the McLaren Artura, staged on location in Monaco, was featured in BPM Exclusive Owners magazine.
View Sessions & Pricing"I look for the frame that feels like a scene from your story, not just a photo of it."
Monaco, a McLaren, and a first trip to Europe.
A meeting with the director of BPM Exclusive turned into a commission. The shoot was planned for Paris and moved to Monaco, and at nineteen Solomon staged his own vision of the McLaren Artura along the principality’s harbor — his first time in Europe.
The instinct behind those frames is the same one he brings to a beach at golden hour: light shaped deliberately, in the manner of the painters he studies, until a mechanical object — or a couple standing in the surf — reads like a scene rather than a snapshot.
Student of the Zhuoya Master Class in Photography.
Solomon’s cinematic style is influenced in part by Zhuoya, the internationally acclaimed wedding photographer — also published as Ya Zhuo — whose work has been recognised in contests including WPPI, WPA, AsiaWPA, NZIPP and One Eyeland, and whose Masterclasses are studies in works of art. The family travelled to meet Zhuoya in Christchurch, New Zealand on 2 January 2024 (shown here). Known for dramatic, editorial wedding imagery, Zhuoya’s work helped sharpen Solomon’s eye for lighting, atmosphere, pacing, and the quiet in-between moments that make a photograph a masterpiece — unlike anything in Maui.
It reflects the way Wailea Photo hones the craft, from the people who work at the highest level.
Photographs by Solomon Balter — lighting, atmosphere, pacing and the quiet in-between.
The Monaco portfolio.
Two frames from the McLaren Artura series, shot on location in Monaco.
Local roots, cinematic style.
Solomon was raised on Maui and trained by his parents in the same approach that has defined Wailea Photo for more than 25 years, with an added focus on movement, atmosphere and cinematic composition.
Like every Wailea Photo session, Solomon's sessions are shot personally — never handed off to an outside contractor.