Sunrise in Maui

On our trip to Maui, Hawaii in August, it was pretty much my first trip shooting with a new Nikon D610. I’d gotten it just a week earlier and had only taken photos around Chicago before we left. In that week it was proving to be a really great upgrade from my Nikon D90. We stayed in Wailea, and were naturally up pretty early the first morning after the time change being so far west of Chicago. The beauty of this sunrise was really amazing to see. It’s very different looking west over the ocean as the sun is rising in the east; the clouds, sky, and ocean were painted in a soft orange that seemed to be constantly shifting in color. It made for some beautiful views.

The solitude of this moment and the fun of enjoying a new camera was unfortunately spoiled by some random guy who felt the need to walk up to me – a total stranger to him – and proclaim “tripods are for sissies.” Yeah. That happened. I still have regrets of not immediately challenging this guy to handhold a long exposure – in some of these photos I was using a neutral density filter and exposure times of around 2-3 seconds, so obviously the tripod served a purpose. I guess I can laugh about it now, but I’m probably not the only one who wishes people would just keep quiet when they have nothing intelligent to say.

I’m pleased with how these photos turned out, and there are few things more enjoyable to shoot than waves that are constantly changing shape and texture. All photos edited with VSCO Film Fuji Superia 1600++.

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