Location: Hyatt Regency Maui, Ka’anapali, West Maui.
Photo Story
Last weekend, our ‘ohana was visiting our 2nd favorite travel destination, Door County, Wisconsin, for our last vacation of the year. We were with my wife’s family – who are also huge Maui fans, by the way – and we spent one night that weekend shooting star trails in the state park.
As we talked, we began comparing the stargazing conditions we had that night in northeastern Wisconsin to those we’d seen in Maui on our many trips before. And that discussion brought me back to this photo here.
Family Star Portrait
You may have seen this week’s Sunday Photo if you were following along on our last trip journal entries. It was from the last Saturday night of our Maui trip this year, and I spoke about the significance of sitting under the stars with my son. Also, if you read that journal entry and saw this photo before, you’ll also notice this one is a much nicer, newly edited version.
How They Compare
You’d think it wouldn’t be a fair fight between Hawaii and the Midwest in terms of comparing stargazing conditions. Any you’re probably right, but it usually depends on a few factors.
For example, in more developed places like Ka’anapali or Kihei, there can be more surrounding light pollution from resorts and buildings that would damper your ideal gazing conditions. Being able to lay on a beach towel and listen to the ocean, however, can more than make up for that, though.
There’s also the occasional vog or clouds off the mountains depending on which way the winds are blowing, too. Much of this can be averted, however, by getting up high. Like really high. As in, being up at the Hakeakala summit at night or camping out in the crater. On my bucket list, for sure.
So then, how about where we were last week in Wisconsin?
I’d have to say, from the time we’ve spent up there as well, the completely dark sky and surroundings we had last weekend seemed to be on the less frequent side. Not much of the area we stay at is very developed at all (as evidence of driving the unlit roads at 5:30am to the coast for the sunrise. It’s also a peninsula, with Green Bay to the west and Lake Michigan to the east. So, depending on the time of year, the weather patterns off either body of water can cloud up an otherwise clear sky in the matter of hours. That kinda closes your window of opportunity before it really opens wide enough.
More Maui Stargazing
Awhile back, I posted a Travel Traditions series at the blog, with one of my favorite entries being the stargazing post. While some of our trips have been busying than others, I always try to get out at least one night for a little shooting at night.
I had also started a Stars Over Hawaii group on Flickr for anyone that wanted to view more, or share their own photos the night sky above the Hawaiian islands.
And as always, if you wanted to Talk Story about your own stargazing experiences or tips while visiting Maui or the other islands, leave a comment below.
We were doing a sunset shoot on the beach outside the Hyatt in Ka’anapali when I spotted this family setting up their fishing polls. Can’t think of a better way to spend a family night on Maui than enjoying the sunset together.
Taken by Kris Nelson on August 25th, 2011.
Location: Ka’anapali, West Maui.
Photo Story
This photo was taken during the 3rd annual Maui Photo Festival and Workshops last month, during their doors-off helicopter excursion. I had previously posted how excited I was about this helicopter flight after flying back in ’09, and coming up to the event, I started sharing with the MPF staff and instructors how bad I really wanted to get this shot. Well, here it is!
The thing about the Sheraton is – for those new to the blog, anyway – is the place where we fell in love with Maui back in ’06. It’s also where I took my first Maui photo, right from the lanai of those ocean front rooms you see left of Black Rock in the photo. So having an image like this and being able to point to the fourth floor of those buildings and say “we were there” is pretty special to us.
Also, it gives you a great perspective on just how large the Sheraton Maui Resort really is. Maybe you’ve never visited there before or were in one of the ‘ohana suites and never ventured on the other side of the resort. Back when I blogged about some of the walking paths and lookout points from this side of the resort, this view from above really lays out those photos better.
The Return of Sunday Photos!
It’s been a few months since the last Sunday Photo now, but after coming back from the Maui Photo Festival last month and having so many new images to share, it’s about time to get back in the swing of things again. After all, we already have over 85 photos in our Sunday Photos series, so it’s about time we hit that century mark and blow passed it like a whale pod cruising by a boat of spectators. Be sure to follow along.
Share the Aloha on Facebook
There are also a few other updates for the site in the works – one of which is the new ability to Like our posts on Facebook. It’s a pretty popular feature over at my Daily Maui Photo website, so I decided to put it to work for us here, too. Go head, give that little Like button a click, and even post a comment to Facebook about this image if you like, too. The more, the merrier.
Also, you’ll notice the Facebook Fan Box (the official term, by the way) for my Maui by Photo page. You might remember a post way back when in which I introduced this FB page back in ’09. Since then, we’re now at over 10,000+ Maui fans, which still blows me away. If you haven’t seen it yet, why not join us for daily photos and discussion.
Check Back Soon
We’ll have another Sunday Photo available next week, but don’t be a stranger until then. If you’d like to stay up to date with the blog throughout the week, every week, view the Subscribe options on the upper-right of the page and stay informed.
Photo: Peter LiuTrip journal entry for Sunday, August 28th, 2011.
From the moment we landed on Monday, we knew Sunday would be here way too soon. But we had the full day to enjoy, and some friends to see before we left.
The Roughest of Mornings
This was our sixth trip to Maui, which means it was the sixth time we had to wake up on the last day of our trip, take one last look out from the lanai, and finish that last minute packing before checking out. And I can’t honestly say it gets any easier each time we do it.
Now, can we say that the morning we wake up to leave Maui is rougher than the 2:30am wake up call back home on the day we started our trip by being at the airport at 4:30am? That’s a toss up.
Wrapping up the Festival
Sunday morning starts with the final session of the Maui Photo Festival, which is centered around the awards ceremony and closing remarks.
It’s also one last chance to network and swap contact info – or these days, Facebook pages – with the other photographers you’ve been shooting next to and talking with in passing over the last few days. That morning, I had at least two people I had never met or spoken to online come up to me and mention my photography blog and said they’ve been following it for awhile and liked my work. That caught me off guard, and I was very flattered.
As part of the awards ceremony, the crew behind MPF put together this slideshow of the winners. It’s a good sample of the types of photographs everyone was taking over the four days, and if you’re looking for a good, visual recap of the entire event (not just what I attended), it’s a nice start.
And if you end up watching the entire slideshow, you’ll be sure to see this shot in there under the Best Aerial category.
It’s a pretty neat feeling having one of my images honored (again) at an event like this. Not too much you can describe in words, that’s for sure.
Congrats, Andy!
Our blog here isn’t the only one that had a photographer at the workshops receive an award this year, either. Andy Beal, the photographer from Go Visit Hawaii, also picked up the Best Hula award for his stunning sunset hula shot as well. In fact, head on over to this post at GVH and you can enter to win a canvas print of his winning photo. Hurry, you only have until Sunday!
Last Stop in Lahaina
With the awards ceremony wrapped up and after officially checking out of our hotel room, we were headed into Lahaina for one last stroll and to grab some lunch.
We walked around a bit, deciding on where we wanted to eat. We noticed that what was once BJ’s Chicago Pizzeria was now changed over to Lahaina Pizza Company, so we gave into our curiosity and made our way upstairs. After all, just because the sign on the door changed, there are still great views like this one.
Plus, I’m Italian, and it’s deep dish, and we’re from Chicago. You do the math.
Maui Tweeps to Go
After lunch and before our drive to the airport, we had carved out some time to meet up with some of our Maui pals on Twitter at Kalama Park in Kihei. Organized by popular Maui blogger and one of Maui earliest Maui tweeps, @AMauiBlog, it was actually the same spot where we first met up back in February ’09. In addition to Liza, we also met up with @raatz (David) – another one of the tweeps from that first meeting – @peterliu47 (Peter) and @roxannedarling (Roxanne). Peter we had met previously and was shooting along with the rest of us at the Maui Photo Festival. Roxanne was a new introduction (IRL, anyway) to us, and it turns out she came over from Oahu only a few months ago.
There were a few others hoping to make it, but schedules didn’t align in time. Next year, we’ll have to plan a few different meetings.
Like Father, Like Son
As we talked story for a bit, our son was getting a little antsy, so I broke out the cell phone at first and gave it to him to play with. Obviously it wasn’t the first time, since you can see below that he’s getting used to holding it the right way now.
Mahalo to Peter for taking these shots, too. They came out pretty neat.
Photo: Peter Liu
After seeing how much fun he was having posing for Peter, I decided to be brave and take out my camera and let him pose with that, too.
Photo: Peter Liu
Something tells me Christian and I might be a father-son photography team before he’s out of middle school.
As with the last few trips, it was great to hang out and chat with some of our Maui friends before we head home. As depressing as that last day of a Maui vacation can get sometimes, having a group of friends to help take your mind off it for awhile is priceless.
Aloha on Our Side
After our get together in Kihei, it was time to make our way to the airport and prepare for the late flights home.
We weren’t running late or anything, but the timing was a little close, and you always just want to get through the routine of rental car return, checking bags, and security as quickly as you can. Especially with a nine month old along for the ride.
So as we pulled up to Hertz to drop off the car, little did we know that we were about to fly through that routine faster than ever.
Hertz with a Save
In the opening post of our trip journal, I mentioned that we drove off the car rental lot with a bad taste in our mouths, even though we had been using Hertz on Maui for years. Well, when we pulled up to return the car and were 3rd in line, we were in for a more pleasant surprise. Just as I started to unload the luggage from the minivan and bring it over to the airport shuttle, the nice lady checking our rental signaled for one of the drivers to bring us to the terminal instead of waiting for the shuttle. Not only did that save us at least 10 minutes or so waiting for the shuttle, it also meant I didn’t have to unload the bags from the rental, get them to the shuttle, and then unload them from the shuttle at the terminal. Well done, Hertz. Mahalo!
United Stepping Up?
Living in Chicago and flying out of O’Hare airport, we’re always a little spoiled with their curbside check-in at the terminal. No waiting in lines to check bags, and straight to security.
For those used to flying home from Kahului, you know there is no such luxury. And in the past, we’d end up spending at least 30-45 minutes in line waiting for the United attendants to show up at the counter and start moving the line along. So when we arrived at the terminal, we were prepared for the long line that was already there ahead of us. Sigh.
But this time, something different happened. A few United baggage handlers had carts and were checking baggage for those inline, which meant we didn’t have to endure the line that was in front of us. That was totally unexpected and equally awesome. Another 30 minutes (at least) saved. This was getting good.
Comes in Threes
The last part that finished off the shortest trip through the Kahului airport was the super quick security lines. It was probably fast because of all those passengers still waiting inline at the United counter in the terminal, but still, there had to be only 4-5 people in line ahead of us.
One could really get used to that type of efficiency, mind you.
The Flights
Now that we were already go to and relaxing at the gate before boarding, it was really setting in that we were about to start our journey home.
Although Christian did fairly well on the flights coming to Maui, we weren’t thinking that the flights home were going to be a slam dunk. Especially since we were flying the red-eye back from Maui to San Francisco, and than continuing to Chicago after a few hours in between. Seeing how the little guy was going to take to his normal full night’s sleep time to being on a plane instead was the big question.
And to our relief, and those in the rows near us on the plane, he pulled it off with only one outburst. Not bad for a nine-month old on a four and a half hour flight in the middle of the night. With the first flight out of the way, we had a few hours for a quick breakfast (after everything opened) in the San Francisco airport before the last leg of our journey. And aside from a late gate change from one concourse to another, boarding and the final flight itself went as well as could be. In fact, during the last hour of our flight to Chicago, there was one child older than our son that was starting to fuss and make more noise that Christian was. Who knew?
Home Once Again
With that, we were back home and ready to sleep in our own bed (and crib). After being used to 2 week vacations to Maui, this second time going for just a single week surely felt less than adequate. But as with all our previous trips, we never wait very long after getting home – or even during the flight home – to start thinking about when our next visit to Maui will be. Even with our son now, that unwritten rule hasn’t changed, and we have a good idea of our Maui plans for the near future and beyond. We’ll be sure to share those here on the blog in the coming weeks and months.
Mahalo Nui Loa
That just about wraps up the trip journal for our ’11 Maui trip, thank you so much for following along with these posts this last week.
I hope you enjoyed reading about our time spent on Maui, and that maybe they’ve sparked ideas for your future trips or even about coming to the island for the very first time. In either case, please feel free to comment or leave any questions that you might have on this or any of our previous trips, and I’d be happy to talk story and share my thoughts the best I can.
Trip journal entry for Saturday, August 27th, 2011.
Could it be, our last full day on Maui already? With the helicopter tour and sunrise at Haleakala crossed off the list, it was time to just go with the flow.
Sleeping In
Saturday morning was back to the regular golden hour shooting time at 6am, which was sleeping in compared to the Haleakala sunrise the day before. This shoot was an action shoot of skim boarders on Ka’anapali beach a few resorts south from where the Hyatt was. The morning air was fairly calm that early in the morning, but the waves that had been rolling in rather rougher than I’m used to seeing made for some nice action shots that early in the day.
Seeing that I was pretty content with the weeks event to-date, and keeping thoughts of leaving the day after out of my head, I put myself in a more carefree and stress reduced state of mind.
I shot for about an hour before heading back to meet with the Mrs. for a little breakfast at the Hyatt coffee bar. Here was the shot I was most happy with from that first shoot of the day.
Classes and Lunch
The rest of the morning was a few different workshops on digital editing and modifying light for portraiture. Not directly Maui related, so I’ll breeze of those details for you. I do have a full review of the entire workshop at my photography blog if you’re interested, though.
With our last full day on Maui, we did decide to head back over to Whalers Village again, and had a nice family lunch at Leilani’s. Just lunch this time, no doubling up on the Hula Pie twice in one trip. Or year, for that matter.
There wasn’t too much time left after lunch to hit the shops again, so it was back over to the Hyatt to finish off the afternoon.
Back to Class
The next session after lunch was a portfolio review class, where each photographer could submit a handful of photos and have the instructor review and critique them in front of room full of other photographers. Sound scary? It’s actually pretty helpful, and after getting good tips in the same class back in ’09, I knew I had to attend again this time around.
Again, I won’t ramble on about the class details, but it is worth noting that this was a big shift for this session because in ’09 I submitted some of my Maui landscapes. This year, I was sharing portraits of our son that I shot over the summer. Quick a big contrast in subject matter. You can check out the photos I submitted here if you’re in the mood for cute baby photos.
Beating the Dinner Rush
With the portfolio review class wrapped up, there wasn’t anything in next time slot that particularly intrigued me, so we decided to head off for an early dinner and be back in time for the sunrise. We didn’t want to stray too far from the resort, and found ourselves over at Aloha Mixed Plate right behind the Cannery in Lahaina.
We had lunch at AMP one trip and remembered that the food was good, the prices were reasonable, and the parking was a little hard to come by – depending on what time of day it was. Well, we lucked out this time because there were only 3 cars in the lot when we pulled up. Nice!
Compare that to the 2 cars waiting for an empty spot when we were ready to leave, we knew we had timed things well. And speaking of timing, we had a sunset to catch.
The Final Sunset
Part of me thinks that heading sounds a little ominous, but that’s exactly what it was. Before we knew it, we had our final Maui sunset quickly approaching. It was time to soak it all in and make this one last until our next trip back to the island.
We knew we wanted to back down to the beach and maybe let our sun play in the sand one last time, but we had to fight for a spot in the sand and the odds were against us. The last sunset shoot of the photo festival was a faux wedding setup, and as luck would have it, there was also an actual wedding happening on the beach by the Hyatt as well. So not only did the paying bride and groom get their stretch of paradise for their special day (and rightfully so), the crowd of photographers had staked their claim, too.
We setup just South of the beach near the beach park, which was okay for sitting on the beach blanket, but being under the trees in the area meant the sand wasn’t the greatest for a nine month old to go exploring on hands and knees. But still, whenever you have an ‘ohana with as much Aloha in our hearts as we do, and have a gorgeous Maui sunset as a backdrop, you know there are memories to be made.
See for yourself.
Now, I will go on the record and say that the sunset portrait from Thursday’s journal entry was my favorite of the sunset shots, but that last one right here is a close second. Although there’s not sunset, just knowing the fact that we’re coming to terms with leaving the next day and how amazing it’s been to be new parents and back here on Maui made it a very special moment. Not as bittersweet as you’d think, just sweet.
History Repeats
Aside from the saddening task of having to pack ahead of checking out the following morning, I was still contemplating whether I would go back out and shoot the stars again that night. I had done so on the final night of the ’09 workshops and ended up with this self portrait of me and the Milky Way.
I was maybe 50/50 on whether I’d go or not, but being in our room at around 9:45pm and seeing as our son was hardly settling down for bed, I decided to pack up my gear, grab my tripod, throw him in the stroller and head out for a stroll along the beachwalk. If I could get him to doze off and then get some shooting time after that, it would be a win-win.
And it wasn’t long before the cool summer air and the sounds of the waves against the beach put him right out, so I was off to scout for a location. While I didn’t find the exact spot from ’09, I did wind up with another great view of the Milky Way. Maybe after 30 minutes or so, I had things setup and came up with this sequel to my ’09 photo.
It was truly a great moment, and I good have stayed out there for another hour, but not two minutes after this shot, my son woke up and he was NOT happy. Being on the other side of the resort and all my camera gear setup, I tried walking him in the nearby lawn area for at least 20 minutes before I had to call for reinforcements. Before long my mom came down from the room and had him quiet in no time while I packed up and walked with them back to the resort.
At least I got my shot.
But Wait, There’s More
Even though Sunday was our last day, it was still going to be a full day thanks to the red-eye flight schedule out of Kahului. And we still had some friends to meet up with, too, before leaving for home.
This blog is associated with the site Ka'anapali Dreamin', which is devoted to sharing the magic of Maui with a combination of daily content, helpful reviews, a large collection of photographs, and of course, this blog.
You’d think it wouldn’t be a fair fight between Hawaii and the Midwest in terms of comparing stargazing conditions. Any you’re probably right, but it usually depends on a few factors.
