Shot Stories: Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice

I’ll admit, when I found out I was going to Hawaii for work, my first thought was not, “Oh awesome, they have volcanoes there…” Naturally, my mind immediately drifted to my ever-present passion—shooting waves. I am a big fan of the photographer Clark Little and many of his shots are of the giant shorebreak in O’ahu along the North Shore. Next, I thought about pictures of sea turtles. Then, I thought about coffee. And then I thought about 100 other things—none of them volcanoes.

When I told my mom, I was going to Hawaii, she told me to make a point of getting over to Volcano National Park. Honestly, I dismissed that idea at first but after a little coercing, I looked into it. Turns out there was an active lava flow at the same time I was going to be there but it’s hard to see during the day. At night however, its sulfur cloud casts a red glow that extends to the sky from the rim of the crater. Hmmm that could be interesting I thought. I’ve always loved astrophotography and as you’ll learn in subsequent stories, I’m not above pulling an all nighter to catch the Northern Lights or the Milky Way.

Is it starting to come together yet?

There are tools out there to help photographers plan shots. Good photography requires ample planning (and a lot of luck). Where is the Milky Way? Where will it be tonight? If you go to a location, you can use your phone’s augmented reality to line things up perfectly and you’ll know exactly where to be and when to be there. Then this math problem started to become a geography problem...

I only had one more night on the Big Island and wanted to see sunset at Mauna Kea (more on that later). There is a good distance between them and my hotel was back in Kona (the complete opposite side of the island). Even if I could pull it off, would I be back in time? Would I be able to stay awake long for the drive? And even if I made it back, would I miss my checkout and early morning flight to O’ahu? Well, I was gonna find out.

Once I got to the park, I had to drive all the way around the rim to the backside of the active lava flow in order to put the Milky Way in the frame. That side of the mountain rim was both pitch black and deathly quiet. You can’t be scared of the dark or scared of being alone if you’re planning to pursue astrophotography because both of those conditions end up being true more often than not.

Wrapping up, when I finally hiked out to the rim, the “stars aligned” (pun intended); the bright amber glow from the lava beautifully complimented the purple hue of the Milky Way Core and a few long exposure shots later… I give you “Fire and Ice.”

Thanks mom.

-007