The plan was go up the mountain… but they didn’t let us… so we went around.

They closed the mountain because of snow and ice, so we decided to take a small dirt road accessible by 4wd only.
This is the same road we played on, on a previous day. So thus we were back on the road.

Probably one of my favorite places on the island and for sure one of the least traveled areas of the island.

You’ll also see some pictures of the north east coast of the island where we went later in the day.
You’ll recognize it as the places with water, ocean, waterfalls etc.

Full gallery of this recap is available here

yes that’s snow… yes it’s hawaii

Let’s just say that a rental jeep can go more places than a regular jeep can go.

So what’s the deal with the loner cow?

This is the Nene, the state bird of Hawaii.
They don’t fly, well at least they didn’t feel like flying away from me.

Look at this feller just posing for me!

Up on the road

Your’s truly

Waipio valley is spectacular. It’s a gorgeous area and I’m sure there is so much to be seen and discovered there.
A 4wd is a must.
Oh did I mention that the people that claimed the land after a tidal wave took out the previous residents are not nice people.
In fact they really don’t want people there.

It really should be a national park kick out all those people that squatted on the land and are jerks to all the visitors.

I titled this recap post “Just across the street”
Because that’s where these pictures were taken.

By the time I flew in, rented the car, went to the condo, went and got some late lunch/dinner and bought some groceries It was now to late to travel somewhere to do sunset pictures… so I went accross the street!
What I’m trying to say is for less than the cost of a hotel room there are nice condos for rent in super nice locations.
The search for a good place paid off.

But I thought about calling it “Be ready and Wait for it” because that’s what happened.

To see all the pictures from the small Day 1 Recap go here

I had a great moment when with about 30 seconds notice I noticed something that was going to happen.
I quickly got ready and waited for it. When it happened it happened fast and there were no do-overs.
In those 5 seconds you had to hope all those years of learning how your camera functions best pays off.

The thing is you fire off a dozen or more pictures and then you can’t really decide which one is the best, because the subtle differences offer something good for each.

But when this moment is happening in a flash (pardon the pun) it’s this weird rush of excitement.
Subdued and peaceful, you feel like you want to shout out Yes! but no one is around, and well you don’t want to jinx the pictures anyway.
So it’s a quite victory. Plus you know you didn’t make the event happen, you just happened to be there.

Yes indeed Thanksgiving Day is already upon us in Hawaii!

As the sun disappears.

Looking back I wouldn’t have minded if the boat had passed about 30-70 seconds later when the sun was just dipping.
I wouldn’t have minded a nice 400mm lens to zoom in a bit more and make that sun bigger in comparison.
Getting down a bit lower to bring them right in front of the sun.

Just goes to show that there’s usually always something you can do

I’m sure these pictures will be very representative of many pictures I’ll be working on.

Beach scapes – wide angles showing the shoreline.
And then the lower shutter speeds (under 1/30th of a second like this 1/20th to get the motion of the water coming in.

So I’m glad I had some practice on day 1

A couple of other sunset attractions… Almost anything as a silohuette. And then a post sunset silohuette of someone off in the distance.

This is how the night ended a good 20 minutes after sunset. Taken at 3200 ISO with rather low settings 1/50 2.8
I didn’t bother with the tripod tonight.

As for the weather, this is what I wrote:

When i say the weather is perfect, I don’t mean it’s hot, that’s not perfect for me.
It means I can wear shorts and have the window down in the car and not want to use AC or the Heater.
So yeah… not to shabby so far!

I look forward to not only having the windows down… but taking the top off this nice Jeep

Oh yeah and this is the house and accross the street is the beach where the pics were.

To see all the pictures from the small Day 1 Recap go here