This shot of the main stretch of Waikiki Beach in Hawaii started out life as a series of brackets to be used for an HDR. I had set my tripod up on a breakwater and shot back at the beach area about 20 minutes after sunset.

The shot above shows a portion of the north east coast of Oahu, Hawaii. My family and I recently visited Hawaii and one day while the rest of the family was off on a kayaking trip, I rented a car and took a drive around the island. It’s hard to get good landscape images when you are on vacation with others simply because schedules don’t always allow you to be in the right place at the right time to capture the best light. Instead, you just have to shoot what you are given. On my drive around the island I stopped at this small beach park. It was very windy that day and it made for some really nice surf. I took several pictures at this beach and when I was leaving I walked over to this area which was located underneath some trees. I liked the way the foreground plants and the tree framed the surf and the distant hills. Unfortunately the light was rather strong and created some haze in the distance, but I still liked the view so I took the picture.

This picture was taken in Hawaii on the island of Oahu at a place called the Pali Lookout. The site overlooks the 985 foot cliffs of the Koolau Mountain Range and has a special place in Hawaiian history. It was here in 1795 that King Kamehameha and his warriors defeated the Oahu armies by sending them over cliffs to claim victor and ultimately unite the Hawaiian Islands. The site does provide an incredible view off to the north on Oahu’s windward side. The lookout sits in a gap in the volcanic mountains and channels the trade winds which blow across the islands, turning the area into something akin to a wind tunnel. The wind was so strong the day I was there that I was afraid that the wind would rip the glasses off of my face and send them into the valley below.