Bellows Sunrise - February 25, 2012

After enjoying myself so much the last two weekends I asked Kenway if I could join him again for another sunrise shoot. This time we went to the public beach at Bellows Air Force Station in Waimanalo.

The weather report said it was supposed to rain that day, but we got lucky...it was dry and there was hardly any wind. There were quite a few clouds in the sky when we walked out to the beach so we weren't sure how the morning would progress.


First shot of the morning.



















We found a spot to shoot from and set up our tripods. I was really glad it wasn't windy that morning...Bellows beach has really fine sand and I imagine it can get really interesting when the wind is blowing, especially if you have photography equipment. I also learned the hard way that it's a good idea to bring some rags along with you when shooting on a sandy beach...the sand tends to get everywhere.

While we were waiting the clouds started to thin out and it looked like we would be able to get our sunrise shots after all. The sky was starting to lighten and we got ready for the sun to make it's appearance on the horizon. A few minutes later the sun showed up and we got our sunrise shots.

The sunrise that morning was pretty amazing.

The colors in the sky were changing pretty quickly and at one point the sky was pink and blue with some nice golds. I managed to take a few quick shots of what was happening above us before it faded.


This really caught my eye...color split in the morning sky.



A few minutes later, the colors in the sky changed again and we saw some nice deep yellow, red, orange, lavender, pink and blue. Mother nature was putting on quite a show for us and we got busy trying to capture the scene before us. 



One of the last shots before we left to go to have breakfast.



It was still dark when we arrived at the beach and I noticed a large shape on the sand. At first I thought it was someone sitting on the beach waiting for the sunrise, but as the sky grew lighter I saw that it was just a pile of old rope that seems to have washed up on the beach. I wondered if this was part of the tsunami debris from Japan that was making it's way across the Pacific.

 

Tsunami debris from Japan?





After I took my official "sunrise" pictures, I took my camera off my tripod and tried to take some candid shots of Kenway in action. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take too many pictures of Kenway this time. The sun had come up quickly and the colors faded just as quickly. We took a few more shots and then started to pack up our things and talked about having breakfast somewhere.

Meister Kenway in action.

  

After I got home I started looking through the shots from the morning and picked a few to edit. I wasn't real happy with my editing from the previous week (I was much happier with the editing I had done 2 weeks before) and tried to pay more attention to what I was doing. I think the editing on these pictures are a lot better, but I'm much happier with the editing from the Kualoa Sunrise Shoot. Something to ponder as I wait for the next sunrise shoot.

 

Halona Blow Hole Sunrise - February 18, 2012

I asked Kenway Kua if I could join him again for another sunrise shoot this past Saturday and this time we went to the Halona Blow Hole lookout. The weather in Kaneohe wasn't too good that morning but we kept our hopes up that the weather on the east side of the island would be a little better.

The roads were dry in Waimanalo and the weather was actually pretty good as we drove past Sandy Beach. The sky was starting to lighten by the time we parked at the Halona Blow Hole lookout parking lot and we could see there were a lot of heavy clouds in the sky, but we could see patches of sky poking through near the horizon. It looked promising.


Thick dark clouds above, but the horizon wasn't totally blocked.



















It was pretty windy at the lookout and that made things a little interesting as we setup our tripods with our cameras on top, but the winds helped to blow the clouds away and the morning was starting to look pretty good...but there were more clouds gathering on the horizon, but there were also some nice stuff happening up high.

Clouds on the horizon but nice wispy clouds up high.

We watched and waited as the wind continued to blow and eventually the sun popped up over the horizon. I had my 24-70mm lens on my 5D but was wishing I had something a little wider to take in more of the view. Kenway recently got a 17-40mm zoom lens and has been shooting a lot with it. I'll have to wait till next year to get something similar.

Sunrise from the Halona Blow Hole lookout.

After getting my sunrise shots I took my camera off the tripod and started taking candid shots of Kenway while he continued shooting. I'm beginning to realize that taking candid shots of other photographers is probably the type of shooting I enjoy the most. I know I enjoy it more than I do shooting the sunrise because I can't wait to take my camera off the tripod to shoot the other photographer(s).

Kenway always has a smile on his face.

Since we were at the Halona Blow Hole lookout I did try to get a picture of the blow hole blowing, but that wasn't didn't work out too well. So I started taking pictures of Kenway trying to capture the blow hole in action. We were trying to figure out how to time the shots for the blow hole but couldn't figure out when it would blow...we would watch the waves come in and crash on the rocks, but that didn't necessarily mean the blow hole would blow.

I think Kenway put his hood up to keep his hat from flying away.

Eventually we gave up on the blow hole and Kenway suggested we go down to Eternity Beach so he could try to do some long exposure shots of the waves coming up and going down the beach. Kenway said that this is the beach they filmed that famous rolling in the waves scene from the movie "From Here to Eternity" with Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr. I was surprised at how small this beach really is...it seems much bigger in the movie.

Kenway framing a long exposure shot at Eternity Beach.

It was another great early morning sunrise shoot with Kenway. I really enjoyed myself and found myself getting excited about photography again. Kenway's enthusiasm and energy is very contagious and you can't help but enjoy yourself when you're out with him. I decided to try and join him every weekend as he takes his sunrise shots and hopefully my excitement for photography will keep growing and I'll keep shooting.

Kualoa Sunrise - February 11, 2012

Last year there were a number of things going on in my life that took up a lot of my free time and killed my spirit. One of the first causalties was my blog...I didn't want to post to it anymore and I deleted the original "Lost In Kaneohe" blog from Blogger. Luckily I was able to use the same title again when I re-activated my Blogger account.

Another thing that really suffered from the events of last year was my photography. I didn't feel like shooting last year and didn't go out to many photo meets. Although things are not that much better this year, I do know I need to relax and unwind more...a lot more...and getting re-involved in this hobby is a top priority for me.   

The year started out on a sad note with the death of my maternal Grandmother. That event really got me thinking about how short life really is and I decided I get in touch with myself and re-evaluate things. I realized I needed to invest more time in my photography and try to keep this blog going.

So I got in touch with Kenway Kua, a friend and fellow amateur photographer who lives near me and asked if I could join him one morning to shoot the sunrise. Kenway is in the process of doing his third 365 project this year and has been a good role model for me because he really loves to go out and shoot.  

"The Meister" enjoying the morning.

The sun peeking through the clouds by Chinaman's Hat.

 I had a great time shooting the sunrise with Kenway and it made me realize how much I miss shooting with others. I also found out I almost forgot how my camera works...I forgot to focus for the first few shots and I forgot to check the camera settings to be sure they we set right for the conditions we were shooting in...the ISO and White Balance were all out of whack. But eventually things came back to me and I managed to do okay for the rest of the morning. 

Chinaman's Hat is also known as Mokoli'i.

We had a nice breakfast at the Times Coffee Shop in the Temple Valley Shopping Center. It was great to talk photography with someone again...I haven't done that in a long time. And it was nice to catch up with Kenway again. After breakfast I went home to start processing my photos.

I noticed my processing is really different from before.

It had been a while since I did any editing with Lightroom 2 and Photoshop CS3 and I felt kinda lost at first...I even had to look in a few manuals to reacquaint myself with some of the controls. After a few false starts I found my processing rythym and started to come up with some decent, if not different looking, images. For some reason my images kept coming out greener and greener and I thought they looked pretty cool. I used to try to make my images look as realistic as possible, but now it seems I just go for a look that I feel is right for the image. Am I finally beginning to find my own personal vision?

I kept trying different things as I processed this set of photos.

I want to keep shooting as much as possible this year...but wanting to do something and actually doing it are two completely different things. I did reactivate my facebook account so I can keep in touch with the other local photographers I've met over the years and I do hope to make it to a few photo meets this year. I know that I do want to go and shoot with Kenway again real soon. We'll see.