I think some of our best spots for sunrise and sunset on oahu were at random, non-popular parks on the south of the island.
Probably not having a ton of sand and with waves braking way off in the distance this made it so.
But we seemed to be in a bay with land jetting out, right to where the sun was rising (in this case)

At sunrise and sunset there will be surfers either entering or exiting for the day.
It’s fun to shoot both.

We then went to one of our favorite beaches and that was Sandy Beach.
Skim borders (or whatever they’re called) are great to photograph because they ride the shore breaks… and that means they’re close.

Palm trees are Hawaii Iconic … we often added them into the shots.
Seems like we took so many pictures of the sun coming up or going down adding a great foreground became the search.
Having an extra wide 14-24 was nice because these trees were practically straight above me.

Again changing up the foreground can help spice up something that everyone takes pictures of.

More of Oahu and the PCC after the jump

Some pictures look better in black and white than others.

We ended the day at the Polynesian Cultural Center.
And this is part of the show at the end.
Pump up the ISO, lower the shutter speed and hope from the best from the farthest away seats in the house.

The south and east side of the island has some great coastline.
Shooting along the coastline is often much better than shooting straight out into the water.

Our day pretty much included a sunrise driving around the east side of the island and then the PCC

I’m pretty impressed this turned out… this was hand held from a long long way away.

Another slower shutter as to catch the motion of the hula.

A couple more scenes around the PCC park (above and below and below that)

I guess the theme of the post might have been “foregrounds”