Sunday, October 30, 2011

A Quantum Leap

Maui has recently been visited by a "drifter". On Thursday night a 48 foot sailboat named "Quantum Leap" drifted onto the reef at Baby Beach in Spreckelsville, after drifting on the open ocean for a couple of weeks.
Friday morning my good friend Suzie called me to tell me I should come down and take some pictures.

Apparently the crew had to be rescued due to generator problems, rough seas and an injured captain. It is amazing to me that you can just let a boat of that size drift along until it finds something to crash into.

Thursday morning. It still had a sail, a dirt bike, an outboard motor
and whatever was on the inside.
Can't help getting "artsy". Slow shutter speed and zooming in.


By Saturday morning, the tide and swell had pushed it into the bay where people like to swim and exercise and it had also been pretty striped of anything that could be removed including the dirt bike. Not sure how they took that off but where there is a will, there is a way I suppose.



No pot of gold under this rainbow!

I used 3 neutral density filters on this image to get a slow enough shutter
speed to slow the water down.

Quantum Leap has run its course.
A little pile of trash that people have collected.

Party Barge!
Looks like an accident waiting to happen to me.

At the end of the day, it makes for a nice subject matter.


For more information on this unfortunate journey, click on this link.
Watch the video on youtube:

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Camp out on Haleakala, photos from the crater.

I was on a recent camp out on Haleakala, Maui's eastern volcano, to partake in Scott Kelby's Worldwide Photowalk. Spending the night at Hosmer Grove, I was able to drive to the top of Haleakala and capture the sunset. The temps were about 40-50 degree F. with some windchill factor. One really needs to dress accordingly! Gloves, beanie, jacket, long pants and shoes. There are lots of other people up there doing the same thing, as well as sipping wine and eating cheese.
A tripod is a must, along with a cable release. Your hands get so cold, its hard not to shake the camera! Also a head lamp comes in handy to see your camera setting in the dark. It gets dark pretty fast here on maui.
Above the clouds, sunset at the top of Haleakala.

The moon over the observatory.
My friend Angela took this shot of me taking pictures.

Camping consisted of the back of my car, a sleeping bag, a log for the marshmallows and warm clothing.
Oh and maybe a little tequila to keep warmer. This was my first overnight excursion in my car and learned a few things such as: don't park at an angle! My sleeping bag and mattress were both nylon making me on a slippery slope! Mummy bags are not that great! Although I was plenty warm. I think I slept just enough to have a strange dream about strange people wanting to harm me. Must be because I kept the back doors open. 
 The alarm went off at 4:45am, although I was already awake! There seemed to be a steady stream of cars that drives up around 3 or 4 am to get to the top and grab a good spot to watch from. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but the fingerless gloves I bought at Ross the day before came in really handy.
There were some pretty spectacular views from the look out.
Sunrise, looking towards the Big Island of Hawaii.
House of the rising sun.
As the sun rose, lighting up the valley below.
 I used a little HDR processing on some of these to get all the detail my eyes saw.
I was reluctant to try HDR because a lot of the images I had seen looked so fake and surreal so I was pleasantly surprised at how natural my images looked after I processed them with Photomatix. They looked just as I saw them that morning.
A black and white conversion.

Morning light hitting the shrub where I was standing.

It was cold up there!
Some of the people in our group minus Angela who was taking the picture.