Hawaii Photos, Pictures, Prints

Puu Pehe Sunrise 5

Posted on March 24, 2015 February 6, 2018

I have spent a lot of time on Lanai the last few years. It is a beautiful and quiet island, but there is not a lot going on and only one real road. Even though I have explored most of the island in search of new landscape images, I often find myself down at Manele Bay for sunrise or sunset since it is so easy to get to and iconic. When I frequently return to the same location, I get to the point where I only break out my camera when something particularly dramatic happens. This was the case during this brief but intense sunrise. I was driving down the hill from town to the harbor to go out whale watching when I observed this ever so slim hole in the clouds on the horizon in the pre-dawn light. I have been skunked plenty of times trying to photograph Puu Pehe, but I felt that this morning was worth the chance. As walked over to the top of the cliff, climbed down to the beach, and set up my camera for the umpteenth time in the dark, I watched the clouds move further in the wrong direction potentially ruining my sunrise ambitions. Just as I was thinking that it was not going to happen, an ephemeral beam of golden light began to pierce the veil of clouds and bath the sky in fantastic light. Perseverance and down-right luck are what lead to exciting images like this.

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Humpback Whales Double Breach 1

Posted on March 23, 2015 February 6, 2018

I have been back home from my most recent trip to Lanai for a few weeks now and finally made some time to edit my photos. Over the years, I have witnessed double breaching humpback whales on the horizon, but never gotten close enough to justify pulling out my camera. So, when these two whales started repetitively breaching close by I became focused like a laser on creating this image. For about 30 minutes, these whales timed their dives together before spectacularly erupting above the waves in perfect choreography. It was incredibly windy and the waves were beating me up in my small inflatable boat, but I was not going to allow anything to stop me from photographing this amazing behavior. I was also able to line up the West Maui Mountains in the background, because why not make an already dramatic scene even more stunning?

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Humpback Whale Breach 220

Posted on February 12, 2015 February 6, 2018

For the last two years, my 12′ Achilles inflatable boat has been stored rolled up in my garage. I used it a ton in Alaska between 2007-2012, but not since. I decided last fall to ship it and my 15HP Honda outboard to Lanai in order to use it to photograph humpback whales this winter. When I visited Lanai in January, I assembled it and then spent a week out on the ocean using it. My main goal was to be out well before sunrise in order to photograph humpback whales breaching in golden light. I was unsuccessful, however, I did observe numerous breaches at that time of day, but they were all too far away. As the sun rose higher in the sky, I had better luck getting closer. This is a nice breach of a male during a heat run. Every five minutes or so, the entire group would pop back up to breath and this male would do a head throw or breach. That made it much easier to anticipate and with the aid of my polarized sunglasses I could see the whale about to launch above the waves a second before it happened.

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Mokolea Point Blowhole Sunrise 1

Posted on February 11, 2015 April 14, 2018

This past December, I attempted to photograph this spectacular location on the north shore of Kauai a half dozen times at sunrise. Most of the mornings that I visited the weather was uncooperative with pouring rain and strong winds. Fortunately, my best image which came from my first sunrise. Powerful storm waves crashed onto the rugged shoreline and washed over the lava rocks into the boiling surge cauldron as the sun illuminated the underside of the dramatic clouds. There was a ton of spray in the air, so I spent a lot of time just keeping my lens and grad filter dry. I would also like to point out to anyone that might ever consider visiting this spot that it is a very dicey location to photograph when the waves are big. I was vigilant against the larger wave sets and careful not to get knocked over by the surging waters as they completed my composition.

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Polihale Beach Sunset Aerial 1

Posted on February 10, 2015 February 6, 2018

Last summer, I flew my drone above Polihale Beach on Kauai but did not create the image that I was hoping for. When I returned in December to try again, I was pleased to experience the ideal conditions which lead to this photograph. Late in the afternoon, the wind was non-existent and the clouds boiled over the rugged cliffs of the Na Pali Coast. I prepared my hexacopter for its initial flight and was ready for takeoff when the sunlight began to penetrate beneath the clouds on the horizon. Though I flew as far as 300m offshore and as high as 100m in the air, this photo was created at about half that distance and elevation during my reconnaissance of the scene.

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Popular Photography February 2015 Nature By Drone Article

Posted on February 9, 2015 February 6, 2018

My most recent article “Nature by Drone” is published in this month’s issue of Popular Photography. In my article, I share what it takes to build and fly larger remote controlled multirotors that can lift cameras that are larger than a simple GoPro. My drone imagery is featured throughout the article, but there are also several images from other professional photographers who are incorporating drones into their work. I finish by discussing some of the legal and ethical considerations that every pilot needs to know before taking off. The double page opening image is an aerial that I created while flying my hexacopter over Puu Pehe on the south shore of Lanai last winter.

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Outdoor Photographer September 2014 Drone Article

Posted on August 22, 2014 February 6, 2018

My regular readers are probably aware that over the past year I have been building and flying remote controlled hexacopters in order to create dramatic aerial photos. In this month’s issue of Outdoor Photographer, I share some of my advice from the lessons I have learned from flying a drone capable of lifting a larger camera. The opening images showcase one of my aerial images of Lumahai Beach on Kauai, as well as my previous Canon EOS M camera mounted on my gimbal beneath my Tarot 690S hexacopter. After my crash in early May, I rebuilt using a Tarot 680Pro frame and am now flying a Sony NEX 5 camera body. I hope that readers will enjoy my latest article and find inspiration from what I have have been doing.

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Waipio Valley Rainbow 2

Posted on July 28, 2014 April 2, 2019

The Waipio Valley is one of my favorite places on the Big Island, plus it is also where my wife and I got married. I photographed a sunrise here when we planned out wedding 13 years ago using a 35mm film camera and my very first attempt at using graduated neutral density filters. It is a nice enough image, but I have always wanted to return to try shooting this scene again during the summer months when the sun comes up as far to the north as it will, but it took me until this summer to finally have the opportunity. I drove from Kona over to the valley four mornings in a row well before sunrise. My friend Chris Hirata met me for three of those mornings and was kind enough to drive me down into the valley in his four wheel drive truck, but we got skunked due to a lot of rain. On my fourth and final morning, CJ Kale and Don Hurzeler picked me up and the three of us drove over together. We almost did not drive down because the weather looked grim, but at the last second I talked them into turning around. I got down to the beach just in time to set up as the light illuminated the cliff and suddenly this rainbow magically appeared. Incredible! After a few minutes of shooting, CJ walked over to where I was standing and I asked him if he got a nice shot of the rainbow? He said, “What rainbow?” Apparently he could not see it where he was standing back near the river behind me. I don’t think that he is ever going to let me live it down, but of course all in good fun. I am quite pleased with this image, especially since it was many years in the making.

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Kalalau Valley Stream 1

Posted on July 25, 2014 February 6, 2018

It is difficult to adequately describe what it is like to visit the Kalalau Valley on Kauai. Most tourists only see this spectacular location from a boat or a helicopter, but they miss out on the authentic Kalalau experience by not camping on the beach or in the valley. I have been fortunate to be able to visit the Kalalau five times over the last 14 years, including four nights a little over a week ago. I tried to photograph this composition during my previous visit in May, but was thwarted by the afternoon clouds which obscured the ridges and blocked the sunlight. By returning again so soon, I was rewarded with the necessary conditions to create this dramatic image. I hope that viewers of this photo will take a few moments to appreciate the serene energy that is the Kalalau.

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Kalepa Ridge Sunset 4

Posted on July 24, 2014 February 6, 2018

I am often asked what is my favorite location that I have photographed. This is a difficult question to answer, but one of the places that I would consider to be towards the top of my list would be the Na Pali Coast of Kauai. This otherworldly landscape with its 4000′ jagged ridges emerging from the tropical Pacific is simply breathtaking to behold. During my recent visit, I returned to the top of the island for the first time in almost a decade with my friends Patrick and Marcus. We set out to hike Kalepa Ridge before sunset. I would like to point out that this is not a trail for anyone who is afraid of heights, since much of the trail hugs the knife edged ridge which drops straight down into the Kalalau Valley. Towards the end of the trail, I discovered this ethereal composition and set up my camera to shoot sunset. For my effort, I was rewarded with golden light, dramatic clouds, and a deep sense of satisfaction to be able to spend time in such an amazing place.

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