Landscape, nature and underwater photographs, tutorials and workshops.
We were treated to a special evening at the Piliani Kope Farm yesterday. My wife Kathy and I dined under the stars on scrumptious, locally sourced cuisine prepared by our friends at Kupu Maui, a new popup restaurant. “Kupu” means to sprout or grow in Hawaiian, and emerged out of three friends’ simple desire to feed people, connect with their community, and grow. A truly magical experience.
I spent a couple of hours on Friday scouting locations around Ka‘anapali for a photo shoot I’m doing this week. I’ll say one thing for Maui. You never know what you’re going to get, but you’re bound to get something good, even on an aimless, impromptu photo walk.
Busy week coming up, so I thought I’d wrap up the weekend with a sunset. It actually fizzled, but I got some HDR out of it. I tried it with a 3-stop ND grad mounted this time.
The clouds were all set up to flare nicely during sunset this evening, but it didn’t really take off the way I imagined. Still, it’s hard to beat a Maui sunset, and it gave me a chance to do some experimenting. Comments are welcome. Enjoy…
Traditional technique, 3-stop hard ND grad.
HDR, no filters, 8 exposures, artistically rendered.
A great evening to all the dads out there. Aloha…
When my friends Kim and Craig invited me to their house for the Premiere Party celebrating Season Two of Self Made in Hawaii, in which our Social Media Users Group was featured, I couldn’t resist asking if I could come early to shoot the sunset from their roof. When they built the second story addition to their home, they included a spiral starway leading to their rooftop so they could enjoy their South Maui vistas from a higher elevation.
As always, I was hoping for a lightshow in the clouds, but there was too much moisture (as usual) and it didn’t happen. However, the softbox effect on the horizon did allow me to get great shots of the fireball that powers our world from 93 million miles away, and follow it down to the slopes of Lana‘i on the horizon.
After living on Maui for a few years, you do tend to take these sunsets for granted, but I try not to. There aren’t many places in the world that offer views like this.
No matter what I tried with the earlier shots, I couldn’t get rid of the lens flares, so I decided to do some artistic renderings of the scene in HDR. This one consisted of six frames processed in Photomatix Pro 4.0, and finished in Lighroom 3.4.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not your typical dinner guest. If I know I’m going to be at a location with superb views, I’ll show up with a car full of gear. It’s a good thing I have understanding friends.
Last night, my wife and I had a lovely pizza making party with our friends from Kula Fields, who do actually live in Kula, on the slopes of Maui’s Haleakalā volcano. We were headed for a pretty clear sunset, but the clouds started rolling in just as the sun neared the horizon.
A mentor of mine once told me that a sunset isn’t over until all the light is gone, so I kept watching. Turned out, the clouds added a wistful, mysterious feel to the scene.
From the beach near our house in Kihei. Consolation prize for not being able to get a supermoon-rise. Haleakala is all socked in.
You know, iPhoneography is cool. It’s a lot of fun and you can do some pretty amazing things. Having followed digital photography from the beginning, I have to admit I’m hooked.
But nothing beats taking my DSLR out, putting it on a tripod, setting it up with an ND grad to get shots like this. I’m still a big camera guy at heart.
Aloha Sunday. Hope you have a great week.
Winner of the 2009 Monterey Bay Aquarium World Oceans Day Photo Contest
We were treated to a special evening at the Piliani Kope Farm yesterday. My wife … [Read More...]
The first camera I ever brought underwater was a 3MP Olympus C-3040Z in 2002, … [Read More...]
