Photography by Randy Hanna

A visit to Kauai is not really a complete visit unless you see the Na Pali coast.  From air or water, the views of this coastline are simply breath taking.  In all of my trips to Kauai, including numerous trips out the the Na Pali coast, I have always been greeted with fog and low clouds.  My recent trip was the exception with high clouds and near perfect lighting early in the morning.

Fingers of the Na Pali Coast

Coast Line Close-Up

Stacked Coast Line

If you get a chance, visit Kauai.  You might just fall in love with all that it has to offer, just as I have.

Cheers and happy photo’ing

Randy

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There are basically two roads to take up to the Waimea Canyon, the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”.  I prefer the Waimea Canyon Drive on the way down, but you should always look in your rear-view mirror or you will miss photo opportunities such as this one below.  Be cautious on your selection of pull-outs, as traffic seems to come out of nowhere on this road.

Our attempt to visit the Kalalau Lookout at Kokee to get a clear view of the Na Pali’s Kalalau Valley was unsuccessful due to land fog.  This fog is formed not long after sunrise when the sun starts heating up the ground surface near the ocean.  The warming along with the cool moist conditions at altitude, generates a moving bank of fog that gently rises and falls up and down the valley.  Best times for clear viewing are first thing in the morning, and late afternoon.  In our case, all I photographed was fog.  Next year…..

At the bottom of the lookout, assuming you can see through the fog, you would see just beyond the very end of the bluff below, the true beginning of the Na Pali Coast.  Park your car, kick off your shoes and go for a stroll along the seldom populated Barking Sands beach.  Once of the longest stretches of  beach in Hawaii, be sure to bring plenty of sunscreen – it’s hot and totally exposed.

Walking to to the end of the beach, you will soon see a mariners cross which serves as a reminder that the loss of life is often just a wave away.  Please note,  Barking Sands is frequent to serious undertows.  Please proceed with caution when playing in the water.

Barking Sands, End of the Beach

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Below are the final photos in the beach series of Coogan and Paul shot in the Poupou Beach area near the Beach House Restaurant.  All images were shot with a Nikon D300 with a 17-55mm or a 70-200mm lens and a Nikon SB900 mounted in a Lastolite 24×24 EZbox off camera left.  Basic exposure was a -1/3  to  -2/3 EV in the camera to increase background saturation with a +2 to +2.5 EV push in the strobe to offset the daylight, all controlled with the Nikon CLS from the camera.  Lastolite Trigrip was camera right and low bouncing upward to fill shadows underneath the eyes.  Limited processing was done in Lightroom including grayscale conversion. Once I got through the craziness with Coogan and Paul (they sort of had enough of the photo stuff early on), they were a blast to work with.  I certainly hope they enjoy these photos as much as I had producing them.

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Funny thing on Kauai, the golden light for photography fades very very fast in the evening.  In this case, I had about 10 minutes to get set up and get Paul and Coogan in place.  Once in place and a short discussion about angles and where to look, I had less than 15 minutes to do this shoot before the sun went from horrible to perfect to totally lost.  It still amazes me just how fast the light falls.  I placed Coogan in about 4 inches of water in a small bed of sand with the SUN directly to her back creating a nice rim light on her hair.  To her right (camera left), off about 30 degrees was a Nikon SB900 (in swimming mode) in a Lastolite 24″ EZ Hotshoe Soft Box on a light stand.  The stand was pushed hard into the sand to avoid accidental activation of the swimming mode on the SB900.  SB900 was used remotely and set from +1.3 EV to +3 EV and uniform coverage with no diffuser.  SB900 was controlled from the CLS manager within the Nikon D300.  D300 with 70-200 or 17-55 was used for all images.  D300 was set to -0.3 to -0.7 EV to increase the background saturation.  For those images with both Paul and Coogan, an additional 30″ reflector was used mid to high camera right alternating between the sliver and gold sides.  The reflector allows a small amount of fill light to be bounced back onto Paul or the side of Coogan depending upon its position.  Throughout this shoot, my goal was to use the light shaping tools to create some dramatic shots that they could use for their anniversary celebration.  All processing was done in lightroom, what little there was.

Here is a general shot of the beach area with Paul and Coogan kicking around while I started putting  things together.

This shot is using only direct sunlight and was done for the sole purposes of demonstrating what unfiltered and unmanaged sunlight will provide.  In this particular shot, I have them facing directly into the sun.  The harshness is mitigated only be the warmth of the evening light.

OK, now on with the light show using the light shaping tools previously mentioned.  BTW, I also had a SB800 at the ready just in case I needed additional fill light.  Enjoy

Nikon D300, 17-55mm @55, 1/400 sec, f9.0

Nikon D300, 17-55mm @55, 1/250 sec, f9

Nikon D300, 17-55mm @ 38mm, 1/200 sec f9

I’ll post additional images in a couple of days.  Meanwhile, enjoy and happy photo’ing

Randy

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