Saturday, Jan. 20, 2008

Today was another georgeous day, sunny, breezy and around 80. I went to Waikiki to go to the Art Fest in Kapiolani Park. In order to participate in the Art Fest, you have to be a vendor who crafts his/her products in Hawaii using Hawaiian goods. It was quite large and the items for sale were very nice.

Then I went across the street to the beach, sat in the sun for a while for the first time since I got here, and then drove up along the east coast a way to a beach called, get this, Sandy Beach. One of the guide books says that it's kind of like calling a forest, Tree Forest.

Anyway, it was really beautiful, but probably better for sunrise than sunset. There were a lot of people there and it was almost sunset by then. The waves were pretty good for the boogie boards and the surf was full of boarders trying their luck.

But to back up a little. Yesterday I decided to go to Sunset Beach on the North Shore to photograph, yup you've got it...sunset. Another beautiful beach--well I haven't found one here that isn't.

I arrived there early enough to get some shots with full light but the sun at a low angle.

It so beautiful at time of day.

Even the sand looks better than usual with all the shadows and the beautiful yellow light.

Most of the swimmers and surfers are completely oblivious to cameras because almost everyone has one and you can't tell exactly where they're pointing. So it's easy to get this kind of image, especially with a long lens.

Once the sun gets this low, it's only a matter of seconds till it's gone, so you have to be ready. There were at least a dozen people lined up to catch this sunset. I wish I could have gotten a picture of that, but everyone was so spread out it wouldn't have been very effective.

I changed my position quickly and was able to include these palm tree trunks with the setting sun. There weren't many clouds, so once the sun was down, it was done. But...

when I turned around, there was the moon--not a full one, but impressive none-the-less. When it is this high in the sky, you can't make it look large without a super long telephoto. So actually, it was one of those days when the sun and the moon were in the sky at the same time.