Spit Fire

I uploaded a large version for your viewing pleasure!

The highlight of my trip to the big island was seeing the lava flow. It's fascinating, beautiful, scary, eery, and any other adjective you can possibly think of. You just can't fathom what it's like to experience this in person until you actually SEE it in person. This is a shot of the ocean entry where the lava flows from the tube straight into the water. As the lava hits the water, it gives off toxic fumes that are deadly to breath. I visited the flow twice, and this shot was from the first trip. The second trip I was guided by Bruce Omori of Extreme Exposures who is very experienced at getting you as close as possible to the entry. Haven't processed those shots yet The first trip I went with a regular hiking guide, and we stayed further back and shot from an established cliff. The rock at the edge of the water is constantly breaking off and falling into the ocean. When pieces around the entry fall in they explode from the sudden cooling, giving off a little firework show. My wife and I sat and watched this for probably an hour, just in awe. I took many, many, many shots while I was there, pretty much all of the same thing, but the elements are constantly changing. The smoke billows in a different way, the waves crash, the flow surges or slows down, chunks fall off and explode. This is a good combination of all that was going on. You must see it for yourself if you haven't!

This was a blend of several shots as the dynamic range here is super wide. The light coming off the lava is extremely bright, and it was well past sunset when I shot this. I managed to get most of the detail from one shot, but used another exposure(brighter) to bring a touch of detail into the rock, tone down the brightness in the fume cloud, and a separate shot for the stars.