Muddy Reward

Whenever I tell someone that Im going to the beautiful island of Kauai they usually ask me Are you hiking the Na Pali coast On my first trip to Kauai I ran out of time and never got to do the hike along the Na Pali coast. Going back a second time, I made sure to do all the things I didnt have time for before, and hiking to Hanakapiai Falls was towards the top of the list

The Kalalau Trail starts at the end of the road at Kee Beach and goes up-hill and then down hill for 2 miles until you hit Hanakapiai Beach. This is the point at which if you want to keep hiking the Na Pali coast you need to get a permit and backpacking is recommended. From the beach its 2 miles inland to the waterfalls. Once you hit the falls, you turn back and retrace your steps until you get back to Kee Beach.

Originally we wanted to plan our hike along the Kalalau Trail so that it would coincide with a dry day before, giving enough time for the wet trail to dry out a bit. Unfortunately we packed to much in and had to do the hike on a specific day. We set out early and immediately began wondering what we were getting ourselves into: the very beginning of the hike was already slippery. About a mile into the hike it started to POUR on us. Luckily my ClikElite camera bag had a rain cover or my gear might have been completely soaked/ruined. For a couple minutes we thought about taking cover under some trees but realized quickly it was useless and we kept hiking in the rain. In typical Hawaii fashion the rain stopped about 15 minutes later and eventually we made our way across the river and down to Hanakapiai Beach. After a short break we started the 2 mile trek inland.

We hadnt gone more than 200 feet when the trail turned from hard packed dirt to wet slushy mud. At one point we gave up trying to find dry land and just started trudging through the mud. The rest of the trail includes crossing a stream another half a dozen times and eventually my friends gave up completely on trying to keep their feet dry and just trudged through everything (I might add that my feet stayed completely dry on this hike)

Tired, wet, cold, and frustrated we finally made it to Hanakapiai Falls And man is it a beauty The waterfall drops 300 feet down, and bounced off numerous cliff rocks as it falls — some of which you can see here. I took a few quick photos, took a group shot of us, and then scarfed down some lunch before we hit the trail to return home.

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
70mm, f/20, 0.4 sec, ISO 100
BW Circular Polarizer

Purchase at Aaron M Photography

Narrow Beauty

One of the most amazing hikes in Zion National Park is The Narrows. Once Willie, Yan and I donned on our drysuit pants, neoprene socks and canyoneering shoes we trudged 9 miles up and down the Virgin River through this beautiful slot canyon. In the morning the suns rays bounce off the red rock walls, causing them to glow with beautiful color.

One of the first spots we found with glowing walls was here in the middle of Wall Street. This is only a small section of the rock wall that was lit with a beautiful orange and yellow but I really loved how the water was also reflecting the color. I decided to use a less traditional landscape (horizontal) orientation so that I could include the glow of the water in this photo.

We set out fairly early in the morning with the goal of being at the end of Wall Street by 10:30am. We stopped a couple times along the way and made it to Wall Street around that time but apparently missed the light show at one of the more popular spots. We back-tracked to find the light and stopped here around 10:45am with the light just blazing! Such an awesome place!

Nikon D800 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
24mm, f/11, 1.3 sec, ISO 320
B+W Circular Polarizer

Purchase at Aaron M Photography

Marshall’s Sunset

Willie and I went to Marshall Beach a couple months ago hoping to catch a nice sunset above the Golden Gate Bridge (GGB) but came home with nothing. Willie went back and although there was a nice sunset along the coast, again, the GGB stayed gray. Hoping that the 3rd time one of us visited this beach would be the charm I grabbed my gear on Easter Sunday and drove up to Marshall Beach. I arrived about an hour early and was pretty excited. The entire drive up to SF had some beautiful looking clouds and I was hoping it would stay that way.

Of course as the sun began to set the fog started to roll in … sorta. There was just a wispy patch here and there. Some bigger clouds rolled in with some boring texture (see the photo above), but nothing too awful. Along the horizon a couple clouds rolled in and I sat there praying that they wouldn’t block the sunset. To my horror, some thickish clouds perched right in front of the sun and blocked most of the sun from getting through. Enough light made it to give a slight glow to the clouds and a little bit of recovery in Lightroom brought out the purple and pinks that you see above (I only brought saturation up +5 in this).

Trying to figure out a composition for this shot was a little difficult. The area that I had scouted previously and really liked was under water. Low tide was finishing up just as I arrived sunset would be on its way towards high(er) tide. The problem was I didn’t know how high it would rise before sunset. There were a couple options for compositions and I ran the risk of choosing some rocks that would either be completely underwater or perhaps completely void of water. Fortunately I chose wisely and the waves covered these 4 sets of rocks just as the sun was setting. I liked that they made a little semi-circular shape, with the rock in the back left getting some spray from the incoming waves. Overall I was pretty pleased with how the photo came out!

On my way out I was approached by another photographer, Tran Mai, and we had a nice chat about photography, photo-outings, and places to shoot. Apparently there’s a big SF crowd that gets together often and she mentioned she’d include me in the future. I’m excited to meet the crew!

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
28mm, f/14, 1/5 sec, ISO 200
Lee Filter Holder + 0.9 HiTech Soft ND Grad

Purchase at Aaron M Photography

Skyrocket

Yesterday I checked the weather forecast and it looked like there were some nice clouds rolling in. I asked Willie if I should head home, grab my gear, and then hit the coast. Willie had been watching the weather satellite all day and it looked like the clouds disappeared as they hit Santa Cruz and he thought it wouldn’t be a good day to go shoot. Instead of grabbing my gear I went to the gym and when I walked out of the gym at 5:30pm and looked up at the sky it was *on fire* with some amazing/blazing color. I banged my head against my car for a couple minutes as I watched the beautiful sunset die out.

Today, determined not to make the same mistake again I packed up all my camera gear and threw it in the car … just in case the weather would hold out today and we’d get a nice sunset. Sure enough, at 2:30pm Willie tells me ”I’m meeting James Wang at 2:50. Come if you want!” Of course! So I ditch work, hop in my car, and the 3 of us drive down to Santa Cruz.

It was supposed to be high tide and James recommends we head on over to Cripps Beach (popular name because Joshua Cripps/Jim Patterson seem to be the first to photograph it). After parking, walking to the beach, and then climbing down the cliff (there was a rope attached to help out) we scouted around for a while. We walked along the beach for a while and Willie and I eventually found a nice little cove that had some interesting water currents rolling over the rocks. We setup and waited. Unfortunately the tide came in quicker than the sun set and our composition quickly became under water! Doh! Willie and I both left our spot and began to scout new locations. Willie stopped along a beach, and not wanting to take the same photo as Willie, I kept going.

I had seen this little inlet earlier and now that the tide had risen a bit the composition looked much nicer than 30 minutes earlier. I noticed that there were some clouds further to the west so I moved south to face them. Sure enough 10 minutes after the sun had set the sky lit up! I wished the clouds had been a little bit closer to give us more color but there was some beautiful stuff going on along the horizon and for a minute or two the sky above me lit up as well.

While snapping away I noticed a small plume of smoke rising out of the ocean. As I kept watching the sea I noticed that the plume was rising, and rising, and rising, until it eventually pitched and rolled and continued on an upward trajectory. A rocket!!! I just witnessed a rocket launch! I was pretty excited … especially since I work in a similar industry. When I got home I tried to look up what the launch was (I assumed it was from Vandenburg Airforce Base) but I couldn’t find any rocket launches scheduled. Must have been some kind of missile test? Who knows. You can see the rocket in the photo, about ⅔ of the way to the right in this image, just above the horizon.

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8 ED-IF AF-S:
19mm, f/13, 3 sec, ISO 200
HiTech 0.9 Reverse ND Grad + HiTech 0.6 Soft Grad ND

Purchase at Aaron M Photography

Ring of Fire

One of the coolest shots along the CA coast-line occurs during December/January every year: the sun just happens to set at just the right spot that a light-beam peeks through Pfeiffer Arch at Pfeiffer State Beach in Big Sur, CA. If the light beam happens to hit a splash of water it can also light up the spray. Willie, Celina, and I arrived about 2.5 hours prior to sunset to get the prime location. We heard a rumor that a workshop would be there and we wanted to beat them to the good spots. We were the firsts to arrive, picked the best composition that we could find and waited.

About 45 minutes before sunset the light beam started to show up. At first it was just a faint beam but about 20 minutes before sunset it really started to glow orange and red. We waited for a large wave to come through the arch and create a lot of mist and spray which would catch in the light and make the beam visible. Luckily for us there was a strong surf and about 15 minutes before sunset the light beam just lit up like crazy. I snapped away as fast as I could to make sure I captured it. About 15 seconds later this large beam was gone. There continued to be beams all the way until about sunset but they were never as big as this one.

Despite the fact that the D700 is supposed to have slightly better dynamic range than the Canon 5D Mark II, Willie kept getting great exposures all in 1 shot while I couldnt seem to avoid clipping if I exposed the rocks properly. In order to get this shot I had to expose one photo for the light beam and then a much darker exposure to capture the suns reflection off the splashes. I also blended a 3rd image in to keep the foreground rocks a bit sharper than the f/9 original exposure produced.

My apologies to the people behind us who were hoping to get a shot of the entire Pfeiffer Arch (wide angle). We setup early so we could get our shot and we knew that the light would only get better and didnt want to lose our spot by moving. I guess it worked out because a bunch of other photographers ended up moving close to us and at that point there was no way the guy who wanted to shoot wide was going to get his shot Sorry again

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
62mm, f/9, 1/10 sec, ISO 160, Tripod
No filters, NOT an HDR

Purchase at Aaron M Photography

The Watchman Crowded Sunset

My buddy and I decided to take a mini photo-vacation to Southern Utah/Northern Arizona with 2 goals in mind: shoot The Wave (Coyote Buttes) and The Subway (Zion). After spending Saturday at Bryce National Park in a blizzard we left and headed to Page, AZ. From there we hiked The Wave, drove to Zion National Park, and hiked The Subway on Monday. We got a little bit of a late start to The Subway, took our time getting there (it took us about 4 hours to hike to The Subway) and then spent a while taking photos. At 2:30pm we decided we should prob. head back before it got dark. At this point we realized we prob. wouldnt make it back to our car in time to drive to The Watchman for sunset. Oh well.

My buddy and I are young, both in good shape, and both have been training for the upcoming ski-season. I tell you this because we BOOKED IT back from The Subway. After taking 4 hours to get to The Subway, we got back to our car in 2 hours and that includes the grueling 400ft climb up the canyon. We made it back to our car at 4:30, sped back to town, parked at the bridge for The Watchman and attempted to setup.

Little did I realize but the entire bridge for The Watchman was completely filled with photographers Willie happened to be at Zion too and had claimed his spot since 2:30pm Luckily for me two very very VERY nice photographers made a little bit of room (in the best spot on the bridge I might add) for me to squeeze in as long as I didnt bump their tripods. The sunset ended up being less than spectacular with very little color in the sky. The Watchman never lit up as we had hoped.

Nikon D700 w/Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED AF-S:
52mm, f/16, 2.5 sec, ISO 160
Slow shutter for smoothness in the water
Exposure blend from 2 bracketed images (one for sky and one for foreground – filters werent enough)

Available for Purchase at Aaron M Photography