Preface
I am really sorry now that I delayed writing about our May 2023 trip to Maui (because I was busy trying to complete a different and more time-sensitive project). At the time, I knew I would get to this post eventually later this year. But then, in August, that unexpected and terrible wildfire tragedy struck the island, destroying the historic town of Lahaina. Aside from our horror at the enormous loss of life and the property loss of so much for so many (not only on West Maui, but also elsewhere on the island), I was left wondering how to even begin to write about our enjoyable and restful May visit.
Regular readers of this blog know that when we visit Maui, we stay at the Napili Kai Beach Resort, located on Napili Bay several miles north of Lahaina town. Because of the additional loss of much of West Maui infrastructure (especially electricity and communications) as a result of the fire, we didn’t learn for many days whether or not the disaster had reached that part of the island. Then after about a week we began to learn that even though they were suffering huge secondary effects of the crisis, the area was not directly touched by the fire. Recently, as communications were partially re-established, they posted a special announcement at the top of their website (and repeated at the top of this post) just to let people know their status.
It felt to me that anything I posted now about our May trip might seem insensitive. On the other hand, if I had managed to write a post in June as I normally would have, no one would think anything about it, one way or the other. And, of course, if we had actually been there during the event, nothing would have prevented me from writing about our experiences (although that post would certainly be different from this one).
I finally decided (hoped?) that most of my readers would understand that I was just writing a normal post, or, if they were offended, would not bother to read it (or would let me know how they felt).
Vacation on Maui in May
So, here it is. We did spend some very relaxing time for a few weeks in May, and I did bring along all my photo gear and even managed to take a few pictures while we were there (which, honestly, is why I’m writing this post). But, I may have over-done the relaxing bit since nearly a week went by and I hadn’t taken any photos. In fact, I still had not even taken my camera out of the bag.
One evening, Billie and I were driving back from a dinner a few miles away when we noticed an unusual sunset coming to an end. I call it unusual because at this time of the year, and at this location, instead of the sun “dropping” directly into the ocean, it always sets behind the island of Molokai. That means that what would often be a very picturesque sunset seen from other locations just a little further south of us can be spoiled by too many clouds gathering about that island and, between those two issues (too many clouds and the island of Molokai), preventing the sun from lighting up the sky. and the ocean, just as it is disappearing.
Once we were back on the Napili Kai property, I raced up to our room, grabbed my camera and headed down to try to grab a shot before it completely faded away. Here’s what I managed to get:
Photo Tip: I used the phrase. “managed to get” in the previous sentence because when I grabbed my camera, I did not grab my tripod as well. As you can see, this scene is fairly dark and I belatedly realized that the best way to capture it would have been to mount my camera on the tripod and use a long exposure. Not wanting to waste time running back to get the tripod (and allow the sunset to fade away) I decided to try to capture the image by applying other photo techniques (that is, other photo tricks) to maximize gathering of available light and still get a sharp image.
Realizing that there was nothing in the immediate foreground (closest to me) that I wanted to include in my composition, I set the aperture of the lens to its maximum (light-gathering) opening of f/4.0 and the ISO to 6400 (6 stops more sensitive than its base setting of 100). The camera then calculated that it would still need a relatively slow shutter speed of 1/20 second (a small fraction of a second may not seem “slow” but it is definitely slow enough to make it very difficult to hand-hold the camera steady enough to prevent even a small amount of camera movement — which would cause an obvious amount of motion-blur in the photo).
Then, focusing on the trees in the distance (which I knew would produce enough depth-of-field to keep my intended composition in focus), and also, leaning against a nearby building to increase my steadiness, I used the “burst mode” on my camera to take a few seconds worth of versions of the scene in rapid succession with a single press-and-hold of the shutter button (six or seven images). When I checked the result of all this by reviewing enlarged portions of the images on the camera’s screen, I could see that the first two or three shots still showed blur caused by slight camera movement. But the last two or three of the series showed that I’d captured at least one or more sharp images. Later, during post processing, I cropped the selected image into this planned panoramic format to remove a mostly very dark (and probably out-of-focus) close foreground; I also reduced the moderate amount of electronic noise introduced by the use of the much higher ISO setting. [End of Tip]
But at least now I had my camera out of the bag and had stirred myself enough to think about looking for other shots. When we’re at home, I often walk a couple of miles or more in the morning just to make sure I’m getting a bit of cardio in my life. I continued that habit while we were vacationing either walking on the roads around us or by taking advantage of the Kapalua Coastal Trail that begins near the beach just north of us. The fun thing about that trail (other than the great views that never seem to get old) is that we are very close to the north end of West Maui and, as you can see in the Google Map image below, it doesn’t take long before a walk that begins by heading north, is soon heading east.
One morning a couple of days later, I thought, why not take my camera along on this walk. I took a longer walk first away from the shore, up Kapalua Drive (and it is “up” a fairly steep grade) and then “down” Office Road to Lower Honoapiilani Road. Near that point, there is a walkway connection to the Trail at the east end of Oneloa Beach. I walked the Trail heading west and near the other end of the beach there is way down to the beach itself, where I took this photo at around 6:40 AM.
Then I climbed onto the rocks and searched around for some other compositions. I think I spent a bit more time than I realized since the next photo I got was almost 30 minutes later when I finally decided on this close up image showing how the ocean and the wind shape these rocks over time.
I climbed back up to the Trail and headed closer to the area called Ironwood Cliffs and caught some waves crashing against the rock (again, with Molokai in the background).
Photo Tip: Note that I had zoomed this lens out to its maximum telephoto strength to pull in the crashing waves — that also ‘compressed’ the apparent distance between me and Molokai (compared to the image taken on the beach using a much wider angle which tended to make it look further away). This is a topic I covered in more depth in a tutorial blog post written in June of 2022. [End of Tip]
That expedition satisfied my need to shoot photos for a couple of days when I began to realize that we would be heading home soon. So, I grabbed all my gear early one morning a couple of days later (my camera bag is a backpack) and headed down to Napili Bay (Napili Kai is located on the north end of the bay) and then hiked down to the south end to see if I could catch a sunrise. I thought this scene, captured at 6:20 AM, illustrated the wonderful solitude of the beach as the day was just beginning.
I didn’t walk miles that morning but, at least for me, walking down that beach and back, carrying my full pack of gear, gave me enough cardio at that time. Before I headed back to our room, I took this shot of Napili Kai’s daily weather report which is posted on this otherwise whimsical weather-reporting device.
The next day, when I was taking my normal daily cardio walk on the Kapalua Trail, again at around 6:30 AM, I came across a scene of a family taking an early morning walk together on Oneloa Beach, while the clouds over Molokai were allowing a better view of the island.
Photo Tip (Sorta): There’s a standard response known among photographers to the question, “What’s the best camera for any shot?” where the response is, “The camera you have with you.”
I did not have my ‘big boy’ camera with me that morning but I did have my smart phone and it has a camera. In fact, it has more than one camera (in terms of the software that controls the physical camera). And one of those cameras allows me to take pictures in RAW format (as I do for all of my photos on my regular camera). As I think you may know, shooting photos in RAW format allows the photographer a better base for post processing since it avoids ‘baking in’ all the changes that most modern cameras do to the images captured in the more ubiquitous JPG format. So, I pulled out my phone, brought up my alternative camera, and shot the photo you see here. [End of Tip]
On our last night on Maui, we’d gone to dinner at a restaurant a few miles away, and on our way back it looked like the heavy cloud cover would prevent a pretty sunset. But when we got to our room, I looked outside and realized that the clouds had moved somewhat to create a hole that provided another lovely sunset. I grabbed my camera, and stepping out onto our lanai on the second floor (top floor) and using the same technique described in an earlier Photo Tip (above), I shot a series of images that produced the last photo that I took on this trip.
Thank you for reading this far. I especially hope you enjoyed the photos. I’ve noticed that the images with bright colors, particularly the sunsets are not quite as “punchy” as they seem when displayed on sites more focused on photography so I encourage you to take a look at some of them either on my CedBennett.Photography site (on the Menu, go to Places > United States > Maui) or on my Flickr site (on the Menu, go to Albums > 2023). In either site, click on the first image thumbnail (which will then show that photo by itself, much larger on the screen). Then use the arrow keys on the keyboard or the arrows on the screen to navigate to other photos. Not all the images that appear in this blog are posted to CedBennett.Photography (the blog-only photos are all included on my Flickr site).
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