After spending 2 adventurous weeks in American Samoa at the beginning of December, I flew back to Hawaii to meet my family for our winter vacation. The first island that we visited was Lanai. I had camped at Manele Bay several years ago and had always wanted to return. It is a fantastic campground for anyone interested in visiting Lanai, but doesn’t feel up to spending the money to stay at the nearby Four Seasons resort. I spent most of my day relaxing at the beach, but set out to photograph the surreal landscape of the Garden of the Gods in the late afternoon. These unusual rock formations are located high in the center of the island down a winding 4wd road. This is one of my favorite images after several visits. Every afternoon, the clouds built up over the center of the island, but the horizon was mostly clear to the west. This weather combination allowed me to photograph this scene with dramatic light. I created this image with my Canon 5DmkII, Carl Zeiss 28mm f2 ZE lens, and 3-stop Hard Graduated Neutral Density filter. This image is a single-exposure which required a minimal amount of processing using Aperture 3 and Photoshop CS5.
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Jon, great image and it reminds me of the moon landing back in 1969! However, if you want to see (and photograph) the REAL Garden of the Gods, you need to come to Colorado Springs! But then, you probably have already been here.
James-You visited the moon in 1969? That is incredible! Seriously, thank you for your kind words. I have not visited the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, but perhaps someday? These eroded rocks on Lanai are a perfect landscape photography destination. The only thing that I struggle with, is that this area looks more like the Desert Southwest than Hawaii. We’ll see if I ever widely publish this image, however, it was an enjoyable place to shoot. There are no crowds. Put it on your bucket list. Mahalo.