A golden weekend

I had a quick trip over to Oahu this weekend and was able to shoot a few shots. It turned out to be quite a golden opportunity. The sunrises were golden and beautiful on all three days and made for waves that looked like liquid gold.

The first day there was a north and a west swell hitting the island at the same time. This caused the surf at sandies to be a bit of a jobbled mess. So in a last ditch effort I headed to to Makapu'u to check the conditions. Well the surf might not have been cooperating the sunrise was spectacular. I quickly removed my camera from it's water housing and shot a few of my first hand held sunrise landscapes in years. With no grads to balance the light or tripod to shoot off of I was limited in my creativity but I still got a few keepers. Mainly because the sunrise was so beautiful it was almost impossible to take a bad shot.

The images above were some my favorite from the next day in the water. The north swell was dropping and as the north decreased in size the south shore cleaned up beautifully. In the series above you can see the progression of light as the sun rises on Sandies beach.

In the shot above you see my friend Kimo holding his ground as a wave comes his way. Unfortunately I have no shots of my buddy Jon who was behind me in the line up as we shot. He has a great shot of Kimo and I as were were right in his shot as he got the shot of the day. If you check my Facebook page you can see Jon's amazing image as I was tagged in it with Kimo. It was by far the shot of the day. I was stoked to get to be out with friends in the water on this day.  It turned out to be Kimo's birthday.  What a way to start it off.

The images above and the first image that started this blog are from my last day in the water. I was all alone in the water for about 45 minutes as the sun came up. The conditions were perfect. The sunrise was amazing and the waves were gorgeous. I got one of my personal favorite wave photos on this weekend so it was truly a golden weekend.

Dolphin Days

After a couple of weeks of getting skunked on every attempt to get a new shot, I was blessed with this amazing day. I was invited to head out and snorkel this morning with my good friends Don and Linda Herzeler. When we arrived to the beach the conditions were a little rough. I was figuring that it was par for the course for my last couple of weeks. Thats when I saw the first dolphin jump and knew that my luck had changed. 

We decided to swim out and see if the dolphins would get curious and come check us out.  Not only did they come by us once but they circled us for about 2 hours. The water wasn't the clearest but the dolphins were swimming so close it didn't matter.

There were so many dolphins swimming around us. Some stayed away but quite a few of them would come by and check us out. Some times one or two would swim by and other times a huge group would just buzz by out of nowhere. The neat thing was the they were by us in about 30 ft of water so the sand and reef was often visible in each shot.

Don and Linda got their first day at this location with the dolphins. So we had both had our luck turn around on the same day. I'm sure they both got some good shots. I know that Don got a few shots as I saw him diving deep on many occasions. You will see Don in the background of he next few images.

The final shot in this series of shots was taken by my buddy Don Hurzeler. It was probably taken at the same time that I was capturing the shots of him. I think he got a better shot of me then I got of him. So thanks Don for this great shot of me hard at work. All and all it was a great morning and hopefully my luck has changed so I might posting a little more often then I have been for the last few weeks.

   

CJ Kale & Nick Selway Finalist

This years finalist for the Windland Smith Rice awards have been notified. From the thousands of entries they have chosen 250 finalist. Between Nick and I our gallery Lava light galleries Kona Hawaii has gotten 7 of our images selected for the finals. 3 of Nick Selway's and 4 of CJ Kale's images are in for final judging.

Nick Selway "Vibrant explosion" (Power of Nature) .

CJ Kale "Epic drip" (Art in Nature)

Nick Selway "Purple River" (Landscape)

CJ Kale "Lava on Fire" (Art in Nature)

CJ Kale "Morning Curl" (Art in Nature)

Nick Selway "Cliff Face Explosion" (Power of Nature)

CJ Kale "Artistic Edge" (Art in Nature)

They chose some really great images this year. Any of which we would be proud to have on display in the Smithsonian exhibit. With any Luck Nick and I both will be on display this year. I just hope that Nick wins a category this year. Then Nick and I can take a trip to the east coast for the awards and some great photographic stops on the east coast. I hope to see Nick pictured like this or even better to have the two of us pictured together this year at the awards.