The wind hits you before the view does.
The trail to the lookout is short and paved, but the wind coming through the Koʻlau gap makes it feel earned. Sustained gusts at the pali are some of the strongest anywhere on the island, the kind that slow you down and make you brace against the railing.
Watching the shadows from the clouds roll over the mountains means you see something new every few minutes. There’s a constantly changing depth here that’s hard to capture.
The light here is borrowed from somewhere further up the mountain.
Taken along the trail towards the falls in the botanical gardens. We had been getting on-and-off rain all morning, but venturing down to the water revealed this wonderful glow upstream.
The valley has this cathedral-like echo which amplified the smallest movements while I was setting up. Roosters and chickens are everywhere on the island, and I could hear the loudest roosters around the bend.
Everything here is competing to reach the light.
At 58mm and f/20 the depth of field becomes almost irrelevant. You’re using the long exposure to record motion, not to isolate a subject. The ferns in the foreground blurred slightly over 2.5 seconds.
There’s a kind of patience the forest asks for that most places don’t.
The forest floor was covered in roots that looked like they were trying to walk.
Crown shyness is an interesting phenomenon with a lot of the tree species here in the island’s valleys. The crowns of the trees grow in a way where they become natural mosaics, often thought to manage light competition and reduce abrasion.
The crater from the inside is nothing like the crater from the outside.
Most people see Diamond Head from Waikīkī, just the silhouette against the afternoon sky. The inside is a different thing: scrub brush, steep switchbacks, and at the summit a 360-degree view that puts the whole south shore in proper scale.
I shot into the morning sun and let the ridge line do the compositional work. The haze over the city softened everything.
I carry a compact camera in my pocket for moments exactly like this.
I switched to my pocket camera (point-and-shoot Ricoh GR3) on the way down the mountain. The trail narrows in places and eventually you just don’t want to deal with large equipment and a tripod!
There was nothing extraordinary about this, just wonderful morning light playing with nature.
The best meal of the trip was also the only one I photographed.
NaTure is a small, chef-driven restaurant in Honolulu that does things with local ingredients I hadn’t expected. The lighting is low and warm and the room is quiet in a way that good restaurants sometimes are.
We sat at the bar and watched every part of our meal being made. There was an "ode to Poi" dish that I thought was incredible! This was my wife and I’s anniversary meal.
The trail out to the point doesn’t allow vehicles. That’s the whole point.
The 4WD tracks end at a locked gate. From there it’s a walk on foot, mostly flat, along the coast. We went towards the end of the day to capture parts of the more isolated coast with nothing else but the birds and the sound of the ocean working against the lava.
Rainbows everywhere. This was one of the double rainbows that appeared during my walk and I had to stop and take advantage of it while the sun was going down.
A tide pool as a landscape in miniature.
I got nearly flat to the ground for this one. At that angle the pool becomes its own contained world: the barnacles, the reflection of sky, the whole miniature landscape of it.
The lava here is young enough that the edges are still sharp.
Walking the coast at Kaʻena you cross old flows that haven’t softened yet. The surface is rough enough that you keep your eyes down as much as up. The edges remind you this rock was molten not long ago.
The foam line moves faster than you think.
I’d been watching the waves work the shore for about twenty minutes before I realized the foreground foam was the actual subject. The water was pulling back fast between sets, leaving thin sheets of white across the dark sand.
The North Shore in fall has bigger swells and a lot fewer people than the south shore. Worth the drive.
On the last day, the light finally did exactly what I’d been waiting for.
Last afternoon on the island. Set up at the water’s edge while the light was still low and got a few frames before packing up.
The drive back to Honolulu cuts through the middle of the island. About two hours.