Slickrock and Shadow

Pipiwai Trail through the Idyllic Bamboo Forest Waimoku Waterfall At the end of the road to Hana is Haleakala National Park, it's "seven sacred pools" (Oheo Gulch) and the Pipiwai Trail.  In my opinion, the Pipiwai trail is a much greater attraction than the seven sacred pools. It goes from the seashore up the canyon until ending at a 400 foot waterfall. Along the way there are two other major waterfalls, a picturesque banyan tree and a thick bamboo forest unlike anything else I have ever seen. The bamboo goes on for nearly 1 mile. I had previously seen several pictures of this beautiful trail. It is truly enchanting, peaceful and filled with sounds of the bamboo gently swaying in the wind. In reality it is also very dark . The bamboo comes together so tightly that most of the light is filtered out. Although the pupil can dilate to allow more light to see, the camera is not so complicated. To get a similar amount of light in, the camera has to have an open shut...

Koki Beach and Alau Island Hana is not just the location for waterfalls.  Because it is on the east side of the island of Maui, it is a great location for seeing the sunrise over the ocean.  Just south of Hana, Koki beach has gorgeous sand and the Alau Island off shore makes for a sight at sunrise. On the top of this jagged island, there are a few ragged palm trees. This is actually a bird sanctuary and cannot be visited by tourists.  Like most sunrise locations, I arrived in darkness and set up my equipment. Slowly the light started to come through the clouds and reflected off the water.  The stormy clouds gathered before dawn, but enough orange light came through to make my day. This is my favorite sunrise of the trip to Maui.

Macro shot of the smooth and highly tangible rocks and pebbles of Waianapanapa State Park (Black Sand Beach), Maui. These lovely rocks make an excellent fine art subject.  Black Sand Beach (a.k.a. Waianapanapa State Park) is a location that I was hoping to visit. I had seen some very good as well as some very bad photographs from this location. I was not sure what I would find. Getting to Black Sand Beach was much easier than Red Sand Beach because a road goes right to it and there is no hiking in the dark on the side of a cliff required.  I was surprised to discover there was no one at this highly accessible and very beautiful location. I had the entire place to myself for two hours until I decided to leave. One of the most delightful things about the beach is the rocks themselves. They are smooth, black. When they are wet, they reflect the light from the sky. It's really a beautiful sight. Normally reflections are things you want to remove in a photograph with a polari...

Red Sand Beach, Maui at sunrise Red sand beach near Hana, Maui is a great location for sunrise. It faces east so that the rising sun's for strays will strike it. On my recent trip to Maui, this was my first landscape location. I had driven the road to Hana the night before in darkness. The next morning I woke up and drove in darkness to the trailhead for Red Sand Beach. I then walked down the trail in darkness using my headlamp. It wasn't until the sun came up several minutes later that I saw sunlight on the island of Maui for the first time. The clouds were illuminated for about 20 minutes before the actual sunrise. During this time I took several pictures from the beach looking east. My favorite one I have titled "Red Sand Beach:  Watercolor" because the beautiful color in the clouds is reflected in the water. Red Sand Beach:  Watercolor, taken at dawn Although it is not legal, I found two couples had camped out overnight on the beach. One woman had h...

Zebra Hoodoo  Zebra hoodoo in southwest Utah was a delightful find I had recently. I had been exploring a fairly remote canyon hoping to find some interesting formations. I was rewarded with this. I had a very fun time photographing this lovely hoodoo and enjoying the desert silence.  It actually snowed lightly while I was there. House of Hoodoo For scale, here is Zebra Hoodoo's partner along with the photographer

Green, brown and white stripes cover everything in Sidestep Canyon Sidestep Canyon is often overlooked because so many other world-class features are located between Page, Arizona and Kanab, Utah. However, taking time to explore this area is certainly rewarding. It's a fairly simple drive to the rim of Sidestep Canyon. Climbing down into the canyon is more of an adventure. There are no trails. Many of the rocks are rounded like the ones pictured above and jumping from one rock to another is not only the best way to travel but it is also quite fun. As you can see in the bigger picture above, Sidestep Canyon is quite deep and there is a lot to explore. Many impressive hoodoos are located on the north and south canyon walls. Within the canyon itself on are beautiful colored rocks, some with green, brown, red and white of course. On this particular day, the sun was out and beautiful to begin the day. At the end of the day the class came in and it was snowing lightly. It did not ...

Poomau Ditch Trail Views are awesome! The island of Kauai sees innumerable tourists every year. Trying to find some solitude was very difficult on my first trip to Kauai. Five years later, I went again but I had a plan. After doing more preparatory reading, I selected several locations which I thought would provide beauty and solitude. One such location was the Poomau Ditch Trail as described in the Kauai Revealed travel book.  This is located deep within the Kauai jungle in Kokee State Park.  Our adventure began at the ranger station. I walked up to the ranger and asked her what she could tell me about the Poomau Ditch Trail.  She paused, gave me a strange look and then asked the question "Where did you hear about that trail?" in a very accusing manner. I calmly said that I had heard good things about it. She looked at me like I was crazy and told me "the trail was overgrown and was not in any passable condition."  Normally that would discourage me from goin...