Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Sharks Cove minus the Sharks

Today was awesome. Woke up... ate breakfast... talked to Jo for a while. Went to Sharks Cove with my good friend Eric Minugh. We used his Canon 30D, Canon EF-S 10-22mm wide angle lens, all sealed up in a SPL waterhousing.

At first we just jumped in the water and hung out on the right side of the cove. There is a little cave about 15ft or so down.

Here I am diving down to it.
sharks cove dive 2

and here I am exiting
Me coming through the puka
It's a pretty good feeling to get to the floor and cruise under the reef and come up through it. Visibility wasn't too bad today too. Made for a pretty good summer underwater session. I have always wanted to get in the water here with a good camera and housing and see what I could come up with. Thanks Eric for letting me use your stuff today!

Here is a shot of Eric on the opposite side of the reef formation that has the small cave. I like to call it the Wave because of the curl towards the top.
Eric next to the Wave reef

another shot of me close to where Eric is in the last shot.

sharks cove dive

After we checked out things we moved to the outside far right of the cove where there is a underwater cave that everyone calls the "Blue Room." The first time I went through I was a kid and it freaked me out so I didn't do it again probably until I was in High School. I was going to hold the camera the first time through but I had no idea what to set the exposure to so I went through just to see what the light conditions were going to be. Turns out I was way underexposed.

What it really looks like going into the underwater cave

All the images I shot just came out black so I adjusted to make it work. We went through and this is what you see when you get to the other side.

Blue Room

Its just a tight space that you can sit up in. The view out of the cave back out to sea is much better so I made sure to get it right on the way out.

Eric in the "blue room"

I was so happy with this shot. Eric cruised just at the right speed for me to follow him with the camera.

Good fun. And then to make the day even better we had a friendly visitor. He/she let me get right up next to him/her ;-) I think this is my best turtle shot to date :-) Up until now I've used friends little point and shoots underwater.
Hawaiian green sea turtle at Sharks Cove

The turtle kept swimming where I didn't want to follow. The surge was a little to strong for me to want to follow it through the crack. There was sea urchins lining the walls.

the secret passage

overall great shoot. Thanks Eric again for cruising today.

Anyone wanna go here with me? Im willing to go again!
sharks cove rinse
aloha

Thursday, July 3, 2008

One of the reasons I love to be home...

So the horns finished up pretty much everything that will be on the album excluding our little solos here and there. Those should be quick to finish up.

Here is the lighting and mood that we were working in. It was groovy. Next time we'll have Lava lamps :-) This image is composed of twelve 5 second exposures.
The mood is set...

We were in the studio well into the night pounding away the final tracks. I think we finally left around 1am. I hope Tim did well on his exam that he had the following day. I know that I was out of commission. Lately every time I play my horn I have pretty intense headaches that I have never had in previous years. I wonder if the years of blowing my guts out are finally catching up with me. Maybe one of these days I'll just collapse on stage... knock on wood.

Another night in the studio/ the hours go too quick

So because I have been recording in Kailua and Adam lives in Kahalu'u which is just a 10 or 15min drive away I've been crashing at his place. Only this time I took my camera with me so that I would be able to catch the sunrise off the East side of the island. It was raining and Ava had been wide awake from 3am so needless to say I was a little hesitant in getting up and out to do this. But I am glad I did.

I was greeted with one of the most wonderful sunrises to date.
Morning firmament

although it was a little moist from the rain just subsiding. The neat overcast clouds and rain added a beautiful atmosphere for my early morning shoot.

View of the Ko'olaus and China Man's Hat from Kahalu'u

The tide was out so I was able to walk a pretty good distance out on the soft ocean bed without even getting my feet wet. Even the boats were taking a break from swimming.

Low tide

The passing showers caused some of the boats to take on water so this man was there bailing his out.

Bail the boat...

What a truly beautiful morning it was. My only wish is that I had a Hasselblad. The only reason I say that is because there was a man that showed up to the same spot after me with one. :-) I was envious. Lucky I live Hawaii ah?

check out a few more photos at www.flickr.com/photos/hynpoloboy or click on one of the photos here to be directed there.

Aloha