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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
He seems like a really good friend, Chris. It's so great to have someone like that to shoot with. Maybe next year, when I make it out there for my brother's wedding, you'll take me along on one of your sunrise shoots.:) These images are so beautiful and I miss the ocean every single day. It's really very hard for me sometimes so when you guys post these images, I just linger over them. They bring me peace.
ReplyDeleteI struggle with sunrise and sunset shots. I'm just not very good at them. I hope sometime you'll do a post about how to actually best set up to get a good shot, where everything is properly exposed. I think my biggest problem is blowing out the sun, and losing a ton of detail in the shadows. I haven't figured out how to get it truly right.
I'm really relating to your last post about feeling lost in some respects. I have been doing so much editing of old photographs that I have not been shooting much and when I do, it isn't coming as naturally. I tried some reverse lens the other day and they were truly awful..I mean baaaad. I guess it is important to practice those skills often, isn't it?