Posts Tagged ‘Place of Refuge’
The Big Kahuna
Today’s image was inspired by Jon Cornforth during our recent trip to the Big Island of Hawai’i. We were at Place of Refuge for a sunset shoot, but the vog was so bad that we never even pulled out our cameras. On our way out, I wanted to snap a picture of the Place of Refuge sign for my trip memory. While I was doing this, Jon snapped a similar portrait of this head using his iPhone. I loved how it looked – so I turned my Lensbaby Composer-equipped Canon 5D Mark II up at the totem and took this image. This guy was part of the park entrance sign along with a few other totems.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Lensbaby Composer – ISO 800, 1/200 sec.
One Last Evening in Paradise
On my last evening in Hawaii, Jon and I made our third trek out to Place of Refuge (known locally as Pu’uhonua O Honaunau). The conditions and satellite predicted that we might not get the daily onslaught of vog, so we made a point of being in position if the light conditions materialized. As we did our 1.5 mile hike across the rough lava to get to this location, a large cloud filled the sky blocking any sun. Our hope was that it was still clear on the horizon.. so we might get a narrow window of golden light from the sun before it set.
I’m set up a little farther up the coast than I was on previous nights. If you look carefully in previous pictures, you can actually see this rock formation in the background. What appealed to me about this spot is a couple of things – the interesting shelves on the rock that water would cascade off after each wave and the very random way water would stream off the big rock in the foreground.
As predicted, the sun popped out from the clouds 15 minutes before the sun sank below the horizon bathing everything in a deep orange glow. Since it was so low in the sky, things were very dim requiring some long exposures. I knew this would do great things for the water patterns – but I honestly didn’t know how great until I got home and downloaded these pictures.
Vital Stats: Canon 5D Mark II w/Canon 17-40 f/4L @ 17mm ISO 200, f/22, 2.0 sec.