Posts Tagged ‘hawaii photography’

Therapeutic Hawaiian Lava Massage Anyone?

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010

new page added for my camera gear

I get a lot of questions regarding what gear I use. Sometimes I welcome this, sometimes I go about it differently. I decided to add a gear page that goes over all of the gear I use on a day to day basis. I also blurb on my thoughts on gear and its importance. I think you’ll like it, I even added links to purchase the items if your interested, along with short descriptions of each item.

Therapeutic Hawaiian lava Massage  :-)

Life is tough when you live on an active volcanic lava field. The locals have to get creative to attract customers to their businesses, and who knows if their business will be there tomorrow? The image below is literally an active lava field on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can see the steam rising from beneath the dried lava in the distance, forming clouds above. About a mile up the road there was fresh lava flowing over the road and barriers keeping tourists away. What amazes me is that this used to be lush, tropical rain forest. The locals refused to move away because they still own the land. It’s just covered in lava now. So a select few decided to simply rebuild their places and keep living as usual. I can’t imagine how much that would suck. It’s like building your house in the middle of a huge asphalt parking lot. The black color causes heat to radiate all around, and to make matters worse there is lava underneath causing heat to rise from the ground as well.

While I didn’t meet the lady with all these signs, I knew I liked her. Not sure if you can read that second sign from the right, but it says, “(this land) NOT FOR SALE – But if you are a great, single, fit, middle aged man, buy one of the places across the road. MAAHALO!” After reading this I couldn’t help but set up my tripod and fire off some exposures. She also offers a variety of other services, from lava beds (?) to massages, to accupressure (?), lymphatic drainage (?) and more. I have no idea what any of that is but it sounds interesting!

For this shot, I reached for my 70-200mm lens. The steam in the background adds a lot to the image and I wanted to bring that into the frame as much as I could. These longer lenses add something called compression to the image which brings the background into the frame more. With a wide angle lens, that steam would be tiny and irrelevant in the image.

Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III, Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L, 75mm, f/13, ISO 125, 1/60th



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The Royal Pond at Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau | Hawaii Travel Photography

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

Update for Gallery Night

If you read this blog regularly, or know me personally, you have probably heard that I am going to be featured in a gallery at Main and Vine Art Gallery on Saturday, June 5th. What I failed to mention in my last post was the time and it was brought to my attention several times :-) . The gallery night will be from 6-9pm and is being held in conjunction with another gallery in Keller for young artists, the YAT Gallery. I guess I’m old now :-( . If you live in the area, make sure to drop by and say hello. There will be live music, food and drinks available and I will probably be there the entire time to answer any questions about my work. I will have ten pieces on display and seeing them on canvas and high quality paper is amazing! Seeing these images on a screen is one thing, but there is just something completely different about viewing them up close and personal. Hope to see you there!

I Need Your Help!

Here in a week or so I will be leaving to beautiful Cancun, Mexico to shoot the much anticipated wedding of Lauren and Daniel. They are an amazing couple and I cannot wait to share this awesome day with them! Since the wedding is only a day, I am going to have another day (maybe two), to explore Cancun in search of beautiful landscapes and images. Have any of you been to Cancun before? I haven’t. I need suggestions on what to do and where to go. I have heard there are some Mayan ruins there, but how are they? Is it worth it? What else is there to do? Can’t wait to see your responses/suggestions!

The Royal Pond at Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau

This is my second image from Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau. The first was an image of the tiki gods who guarded this sanctuary. A few hundred years ago this was a place of refuge for island dwellers who broke the law. If they could evade their pursuers and make it to Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau, they would have a chance at getting a pardon from a priest and would be free to go. Warriors also took refuge here during times of battle and war.

The image below is a “royal pond” from the site. I believe they were used for fishing by the priests and nobody else could use them. I may be wrong but that’s all the information I could find. I didn’t feel like standing and listening to the dramatic reenactment on cassette tape they had available.

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Snapshots Beneath a Mysterious Giant

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

Hawaii has some of the biggest plant life I’ve ever seen. While walking through the rain forests, there were enormous ferns, elephant ears the size of a Volkswagen, and vines that seemed hundreds of feet long. But nothing compared to the enormous Banyan Trees that you can find in many random places on the island. This beast of a tree was located at Rainbow Falls State Park, the same place I shot The Secluded Pool on the Wailuku River. These massive trees left me in awe every time I saw one. By looking at one, it looks like one big massive tree. Or maybe hundreds or even thousands of trees bunched up together. I could never decide. It turns out it’s only one tree, and that one tree is only one trunk. You see, hundreds of years ago this was just a normal tree, like any other. When a Banyan tree gets formed it’s because fruit-eating birds germinate the cracked in a trees bark with figs. The figs then blossom and send roots down to the ground which fight for water. Over time, hundreds of roots are sent down from multiple figs and they eventually surround and choke out the original tree. What’s even more interesting is that the roots sometimes jump trees. You can tell by the image below how the root on the bottom left of the tree is stretching out to another, Avatar style. Everything is connected!

Anyways, I chose to leave these tourists in the scene to give some kind of scale to the magnificence of this tree. Every couple walking through had to get a snapshot of themselves standing next to this giant. I could have waiting and let them pass by but I kind of liked them in this shot.



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The Tiki Men of Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010

Well, I’m back from Hawaii. Yesterday was a solid day of plane rides and layovers and I am now in recovery mode. I have a lot to do before gearing up for Cancun next month!

Pu’uhonua o Hōnaunau National Historic Park was one of many parks we stopped at on our tip to Hawaii. I’ve got to be honest, this park left much to be desired. I think we stuck around for all but 15 minutes before bailing. The entire park was supposed to be this historic village that was beautifully preserved when actually most of it was just recreations of what the park staff thought the village would have looked like. Most of the potential shots were ruined by aluminum ladders, construction equipment, caution tape, and just bad backdrops. To my knowledge, the only thing that was actually preserved were the barrier walls, which were from the 1500′s. But…it was just a wall. It was made of lava rocks and could have just as easily been built last week, it didn’t look old or anything os it didn’t really warrant a photograph.

To their defense, the history of this place really was interesting. Pu’uhonua o Honaunau National Historical Park preserves the site where, up until the early 19th century, Hawaiians who broke a kapu or one of the ancient laws against the gods could avoid an otherwise certain death by fleeing to this place of refuge or “pu’uhonua.” They could then be absolved by a priest and free to go. Defeated warriors and non-combatants could also find refuge here during times of battle. The grounds just outside the great wall that encloses the pu’uhonua was home to several generations of powerful chiefs. The 182 acre park was established in 1961 and includes not only the pu’uhonua, but a complex of archeological sites including temple platforms, royal fishponds, sledding tracks, and some coastal village sites.

For the image below I had to step over a line of barrier string meant to keep tourists away from the coast line. I do believe these tiki men were actually found at the site and not recreated, however the thatched roof structure in the background was a recreation. Can you tell?



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Mount Kilauea from the Rim | Volcano National Park

Saturday, May 8th, 2010

Our Last Day On The Big Island

Well, today is our last full day in Hawaii. It amazes me every time I go on a trip how fast the time flies by, and how there’s nothing you can do about it, except try and soak up every moment. This week I’ve been everywhere from the waterfalls of Akaka State Park, to the rain forests of Waipio Valley. From the barren fields of Waimea, to the black sand beaches in Punaluu. I even got to play golf on top of a mountain, where it seemed like you could see the entire island, with Maui in the far distance. Hawaii is a magnificent place, and I always get so down about going home to Fort Worth. I try and love it, but I am always looking to for a chance to get away. If I was going to relocate, I will definitely come here. The land and real estate market is incredibly low right now. Who knows what’s in God’s plan for us, but if Hawaii is part of it, that will be fine with me :-) .

Mount Kilauea from the Rim

Yesterday we made a loong drive across the island to Volcanoes National Park on the east coast of the island. To be honest the trip was a little dissapointing. I talked to a local photographer who went the day before and he got shots of active lava eating up a road that the department of defense had to shut down completely. By the time we made it out the lava had stopped flowing and dried up over the road. It was still incredibly hot and glowing a bit through the cracks, but nothing was on fire. The park itself was all but closed as well because of poisonous sulfuric gasses in the air. We couldn’t get close to the volcano at all so I had to rely on my zoom lenses for any shots. At the very top of Mount Kilauea the volcano was putting out huge clouds of sulfur and smoke. While it was really cool to watch, I really wanted to walk down there! Here’s an image I got from the rim. You’ll notice what looks like mist or fog on the right side of the image around the rim. That’s actually steam coming up through little cracks in the ground. The steam was incredible hot and would burn your skin if you were around it for too long.



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My New Office | Kailua Kona Hawaii Photography

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

We made it to Hawaii safe and sound! We got here about 5 hours ago and haven’t had a chance to do much exploring yet. We traveled over to market to load up on food for the week and now we have to stay up super late to help our bodies adjust to the local time zone. It’s 10:15 at home but only 5:15 here :-/. God has had his hand over this entire trip so far! We are doing this entire trip standby which doesn’t work out all the time! Last night the flight to LA filled up completely and we didn’t know if we’d make it. We ended up making the first flight and got first class! We sat across the aisle from Toby Mac! Then we made our first flight from LA to Kona Hawaii and the flight attendants gave us free food since Dana (my father-in-law) works for the airline. And to top it off we got a free upgrade on our car rental to a jeep! How cool is that!?

We might go down to the beach now but I just wanted to post a quick image of my office for the week :-) . Have a great week everyone and check in often for new images! We have plans to visit the rain forest, the volcanoes, plenty of beaches, maybe a helicopter ride. Should be an incredible week with incredible images. God bless!

My New Office :-)

wyndham kona resort



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