Trip journal entry for Friday, August 26th, 2011.
If there’s one truth about the roads on Maui, it’s that around 3:30am or so every single day, a trickle of cars start passing by the airport and form an impromptu caravan along what ends up being a 38 mile drive from base to summit. Yup, everyday, like clockwork.
Don’t Rise and Shine Me
It’s 2am on Friday morning. And there’s a reason why you pack all you camera gear the night before – it’s too darn early when that alarm goes off. Of course, I’m talking about the ritual known as the Haleakala sunrise. Number three for me, and the second going up as part of the Maui Photo Festival event.
While the excursion in ’09 was led by a local tour company on one of those mini-buses, this time around our brave few (maybe 12 or so) drove up in two separate vehicles. The first driven by Zane, one of the event organizers, and the second was piloted by instructor Andy Dunaway with me as his navigator. Our vehicle also carried instructor Stacy Pearsall, and her sister Meggen, which leads to another story on our descent back to the summit. But first, the photos:
The great thing about having already been up to Haleakala for the sunrise (twice, as mentioned) is that you already know what to expect mentally and physically. This time around, our temp at the top was 42F when we left our vehicle. Good thing I had my hockey jersey on (scroll down for pic). 
Another great thing is that no two Haleakala sunrises are ever the same, so even if you have a “been there, done that” attitude, you’re missing out on something if you take a pass on the early morning journey. And although I had a great shot in my head that I wanted to capture that morning, we didn’t make it up early enough to see the stars and we didn’t drive all the way up to the summit either. But I was still happy to be up there, just as I was the first time.
Is There a Doctor in the House?
While the dark drive up the mountain with steep climbs and no guardrails once inside the park, the excitement this trip was actually on the way down. Less than 5 minutes after we started our descent down the volcano, and about 90 seconds after we drove through the clouds at about 9,000 feet or so, we found ourselves stopped in a small traffic jam. One caused by a bicycle accident.
Luckily for the injured gentleman, Stacy’s sister is a registered nurse and we were only four cars behind the accident when we arrived. Meggen quickly – and without hesitation – sprung into action to help out until the park ranger could get to the scene and the 45 minutes or so it took the emergency team to make the drive up the mountain.
While we waited, I had quite a bit of time to admire the view of the valley down below and take in some of the brisk, chilly mountain air. Some quiet time for reflection in what otherwise if a pretty busy an active four days of workshops.
Back to Class
Once we finally arrived back to the Hyatt, the next session I was looking to attend was a session by Judy Host, titled Photographing Children of All Ages. Now, even though I fell in love with photography while shooting landscapes of Maui while on vacation, my latest endeavors have been taking photos of our son pretty much any chance I can these days. And while he’s only nine months old now, he’ll eventually be all the ages that Judy was covering in her class, so it was time to learn what to expect.
The second half of her workshop session was shooting a family of three young daughters, and also a mother with her newborn daughter of only eight weeks. And wouldn’t you just happen to know, the mother and daughter were the friends of ours that I mentioned in the trip journal entry for Wednesday? So on that note, here’s the very peaceful looking, and very happy mother Natalie and her daughter, Mia.
Do note that baby Mia is flashing a tiny little shaka in the photo. How cute!
The interesting part of capturing this shot is that we met Natalie two years ago when she was the photographer taking our keepsake vacation portraits on that trip. And now, after staying friends on Facebook and her and Cindy keeping tabs on each other’s baby bumps this past year, I’m now shooting her portraits. Just another one of those neat little things that made this journey back to Maui so memorable for me.
Let’s Get Ready to Hula!
As with the previous two years, the signature event of the Maui Photo Festival every year is the Quintessential Hawaiian Photo Shoot: Hula on the Beach at Sunset led by Randy Jay Braun. It was the same event back in ’09 that I first really ever took portraits, and seeing how much I had learned in the past few months practicing with our son, I was really looking forward to it.
In the end, the event didn’t really turn out the way I had anticipated – although it was still a great shoot for many of the photographers there. I put my take on it in my full review of the workshops over at my photography blog if you wanted to read more. But, despite only shooting about a dozen shots in less than 5 minutes, I still captured this image, which I’m very proud of.
I will say, this session put on by the festival and the volunteer dancers – a few of which were also in the shoot back in ’09 – is one of the great opportunities these workshops have to offer. If you do come for a future event, you’ll definitely want to plan on attending this shoot.
Cue the Sunset
It may not be a State Law, but it could very well be considered a law of nature that every day on Maui should end with a great sunset. And after straying from the crowd of photographers shooting the hula dancers, I made my way up the beachwalk to prepare for the sunset.
The first one was neat because there was a family setting up a few fishing poles right there under the palm trees. I would have shot them all the way through to the sun setting on the horizon, but this pack of photographers started walking into my scene. I wonder where they all came from. 
The third sunset in the set is named Sky Candy, and you can plainly see why. Something about the way the bright clouds rims the clouds just over the horizon that always makes me stop and take notice.
Maui No Ka Oi – The Magazine
The end of an extremely long day (a la 2am wake up call) was capped by a presentation by the editor, the art director, and a photographer from the magazine, Maui No Ka Oi. They were there to talk to us about the types of images and the consideration that goes into picking shots for the cover, as well as full page spreads and story lead-ins for their publication.
What stuck with me was the photographer on the panel that night said he had logged over 100 aerial shots over Maui. Unbelievable. Just imagining the collection of shots I could get with only a fraction of that (I’m only at 3 so far) made me super jealous. If only one day…one day.
Saturday Morning Awaits
One of the only good things about waking up at 2am for the sunrise is that no matter what time you have to get up the next day, it still feels like you’re sleeping in. So when it was time for our last golden hour shoot at 6am on Saturday, I felt as rested as one could be.
Stay Tuned,
– Kris
