An amazing sunset

 

A friend and I went to the north shore to see the big waves and it turned into an amazing sunset and one of the best nights I've had in a long time. It was a beautiful sunset with amazing waves and colors.

I am so lucky to be living here!

Still shooting the Milky Way

 

The core of the Milky Way is just about to disappear below the horizon until next summer. We've been out shooting a few nights just to get those last images and because we really like shooting the stars!

Sunset on the water with a cold drink and then wait for the stars to come out. It's a great way to end a day!

Nikon D5 Pictures.

Well, it's a little late for me to get this camera since they've released three years ago.  The reason for me to upgrade because my D3 have been acting weird lately, sometime the shutter got stuck during the burst mode.  Since, I have played around with this camera couple weeks ago at the airshow here in Dallas, I should have got the D5 long time ago.  In the past three years, I do have a few opportunities get my hand on the D5 from my friend on landscape photography, not in sports shooting.  I have to say this camera is a lot faster than my D3 on focusing.  I loved the focus tracking on this camera, and the noise level on the high ISO.  These pictures are shooting in Manual mode with auto ISO, and 24 points focus tracking.   Also, in JPEG files straight out from the camera, and I have using Lightroom for cropping.

 

A sunset splash on the north shore. We've had some pretty spectacular sunsets lately so I've been trying to get out more with the camera.

That great big heavy DSLR. LOL

Cleaning the net...

The "Dragger" in this picture is about 2 miles / 3.2 km from where I was but I managed to get a couple of good handheld shots with the Nikon Coolpix.

Lately I've been leaving the DSLR at home and using either my cell phone or the Coolpix S9700 as my everyday cameras. I find myself far more likely to take pictures with these small lightweight cameras than with the DSLR.

Beer-Thirty

 

Not quite night time but a good time none the less.

This was taken in Wailea on the south side of Maui. I really do love the sunsets here!

My version of night photography!

So tonight well after sunset I took this smoked Sockeye Salmon out of the smoker and glazed it with honey while it was still nice and warm then I took this picture...

Does that count as night photography :)

More stars

 

Still out playing in the dark. The core of the milky way will be gone soon so I'm trying to get a few shots in before it drops below the horizon.

I took this one along the beach in Kihei, Maui.

NIght skies

 

I have been doing some reading on techniques for shooting the night skies lately so I decided to try some different settings just to see what would happen. 

This is a three second shot. Yes, 3 seconds. The ISO was 25600! The green flashing light on the lighthouse was on for maybe a half second of the exposure.

In retrospect I think I like a little bit longer exposure at a lower ISO but it was fun to see what the camera would do.

The Cave

A cave man with a small fire looking out into the Cosmos.

I

 

I love this time of year! The Milky Way is high in the sky and by 8:00 p.m. I canb be taking photos!

This is another shot from the Hana trip a couple of weeks ago. I will be heading back before the end of August for some more milky way shots.

The stars in Hana

 

We spent a couple of days camping in an area called Kipahula this weekend, about ten miles past the town of Hana. We got rained on a couple of times at night and shooting the stars was a little hit and miss because of the clouds but if you're up long enough the clouds would go away for a while. 

It also makes you very tired!

Nighttime on the volcano

 

I went out last night for about an hour just to see some stars. I was not dissappointed!

This is from upcountry Maui near Kula, just about 10 minutes from my house.

Bumble Bee macro...

Found this fuzzy Bumble Bee working over a thistle blossom and got a few pictures before it flew off.

Selective hearing. It's a Maremma thing...

What I said was: "I'll be right back, keep an eye out for Bears and don't touch my sandwich".

What he heard was: Bla bla bla, bla bla bla, bla bla bla, SANDWICH!

Colorful roadside wildflowers...

It's that time of year, wildflowers are everywhere.

Top picture is Fireweed and Elder Berry

Bottom picture is a wild Daisy and Asters?

Quatse River reflections...

All that is left of the old Quatse River logging bridge

are the pilings that used to hold it up.

The dog days of summer...

A couple of panoramas from Quatse Lake this morning.

The clouds were just right and the lake was calm.

The rice shaker mystery...

What I'd like to know is this...

How are you sopposed to sprinkle

a bit of rice on your food

without getting salt all over everything?

Seagate Squall...

Suddenly with little warning the day went from opressivly warm and humid to a squall of big wet raindrops, lots of them! Within  a few minutes the squall was over and everything began to steam when the sun came out again.

Where's there's smoke....

 

Yep, you guessed it. There's fire!

We had a major brush fire on the island yesterday. It burned over 10,000 acres and is still burning today. Roads were closed and you couldn't get into or out of the Kihei area for several hours.

This photo is not of a full moon. Although I've been told my entire life you should never look directly into the sun, yesterday was an exception. This was taken at 3:00 in the afternoon here from 3600 feet above sea level. The fire was at sea level. At times the smoke was so thick that the sun was completely blocked and you couldn't see it. The whole island smelled like a great big BBQ. Satellites even photographed the smoke since it was so big and thick.

They closed the airport, evacuated people from their homes in Kihei and rerouted planes to other islands or returned them to their original starting point. My friend and photography partner was on a plane from Los Angeles to Maui and even though they were two thirds the way through their flight they were told to return to L.A. She lives in Kihei and thankfully her home did not go up in flames. It was almost midnight before I could get to her home to check on the condition and the worst that was there was black ash on everything outside. Today will be a cleaning day!

Thankfully no one has been hurt and as far as I know this morning no structures were lost. This was all from bush. The fire is still burning this morning and they think they will have it out by the end of the day. 

I have found myself wanting to be a little more prepared here in paradise lately. Island life is fantastic and I wouldn't want to be any where else but you do have to plan ahead for certain things that you never think of on the mainland.

Port Hardy Coast Guard

A view from the Seagate Wharf of the Cape St. James at the Coast Guard float with the Port Hardy Coast Guard Base in the background.

Rust In Peace...

Here is another fixture in Coal Harbour.

I've driven past this old truck thousands of times.

Finally it dawned on me...

"I should take a picture of it!"

Downtown Coal Harbour...

A couple of panorama pictures from "Downtown Coal Harbour".

I think the overcast skies this morning add a bit of character to both scenes.

Sign here...

Just some of the many carvings on the dock at Quatse Lake.

Not an eagle video

 

Normally I would be very jealous of Paul's eagle video however...

when I can step out onto my lanai for a view like this, I'm not so jealous anymore!

Especially when winter comes!! LOL

A short Eagle video...

I took this short 10 second video of Eagles on

the beach in Hardy Bay with my cell phone...

Here is a link to the same video on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGhdT5im9T8

Campbell River Bridge...

The old Campbell River Bridge 67 years old and still going strong!

A quick look on the Internet would suggest that this is a "Pratt" style steel truss bridge.

Quiet morning scene...

Nice quiet morning in Coal Harbour. View of Stephens Bay with Stuart Point in the background.

Before and after...

Still having fun with the "Snapseed" app and it's more capable cousin the "NIK" Photoshop plugin. 

This scene is of the "Tsulquati River" where it flows into "Hardy Bay". 

Private tours guided from Port Hardy.

Just want to give a rating 10 out of  10 stars on my 3 days private tours in Port Hardy.  He’s always booked throughout the year.  So, good luck to find a spot open for you!  Oh, if you’re a good customer, he would let you try some of his delicious smoked salmon.

Old car pictures...

A couple of months ago this old car showed up in Coal Harbour. I finally got around to snapping a couple of pictures of it.

I couldn't resist, I just had to play around with the post processing and gave the pictures an old as the car look.

Modern day Graffiti

Although most visitors to Hawaii think these stacks of pohaku (stones) are a Hawaiian ritual and have a special meaning, in reality, this is looked at as graffiti and disrespectful. The stacking of rocks in the National parks can get you up to six months in jail and a $5000 fine.

“Pohaku are considered as much of the conscious universe as any other part of the Hawaiian universe would be. So you wouldn’t be messing with stones unless you had a real good reason to do so."

"When you move and displace Pele's "MANA" or spiritual energy (Volcanic Rocks) in an UNNATURAL WAY across the landscape you are disrespecting Pele. If Pele herself would not create such piles in Nature it is not Pono (right) for you to do so. This is Kapu, (Taboo) unless for worshiping reasons to the Gods in such forms as Heiau's or Ahu's.

I took a hike back into the jungle to check out a waterfall I just heard about this past Friday. Unfortunately there was only a small trickle of water when I got there but I found multiple stacks of the stones at the base of the waterfall. Which is in a National park I might add.

Although it made for an interesting photo I was disappointed to see so many of the stacks there.

The old RCAF Coal Harbour "Bomb Dock"

Back during The Second World War Coal Harbour was an RCAF (Royal Canaidan Air Force) Seaplane Base, one of several on the West Coast of Canada.

This is a picture of the old "Bomb Dock" where anything of an explosive nature (bombs, bullets, etc) were unloaded and stored a safe distance away from the operations area of the base. Today (70 years later) only the pilings remain.

Eagle's sushi smorgasbord

Eagles chowing down on salmon scraps at Port Hardy beach.

Quynh here are the Eagles we were looking for last week... 

Just a quick swim

 

I found a spot where the octopus seem to be plentiful however, they don't want to cooperate when it comes to taking their photo.

After spending an hour trying to get a shot I would like I gave up, took some photos of the turtles and then went back to the beach and a cold beer!