Aloha everyone! Haha, I’ve been waiting months to say that! I’m finally kicking off my series on Hawaii this week, and what better way to start the series than with what Hawaii is known for: amazing beaches and beautiful water. And of course, you can’t have that combination without also having surfers hanging around, especially on Oahu’s North Shores, where the waves are known to be BIG.  Also this week I’m introducing a new feature to Picture of the Week, the Alternate Perspective section.  If you’ve followed along with this blog for a bit, you’ve seen me wrestle with what to do with other images that I also like – do I call it a photo essay, or just extra pictures?  Is it even okay that I share additional pictures (this is more an internal debate, of course it’s “ok” to do it, it’s my website after all!)?  Well I’ve finally decided to just embrace the fact that sometimes I have other images I want to share.  Sometimes I’ll have things to say about those images, and sometimes I won’t; they’ll just be there for your enjoyment.  Regardless, the first image in the post will always be “the” picture, meaning the one I’m most excited about.  On that note, a special thank you to Steve, Shelley, and Julie for helping me work out what to call that section!  Now, on to the pictures!

This past January, Holly and I got to go to Hawaii for the first time.  We’ve both wanted to go for a very long time, and as luck would have it, there was a conference there that I needed to go to for work, so we decided to make a trip of it.  One of the people I met with who lives there on Oahu recommended we go up to the North Shores and watch the surfing, as there were big waves coming in that promised to not disappoint.  Once the work was done we hopped in the car and drove up, and it definitely did not disappoint!  We had never seen waves like this before!  Very very impressive.

As I was shooting, I was playing around with longer shutter speeds and shorter shutter speeds.  Having never shots waves like this I wasn’t quite sure what would be most effective.  The light got really nice, turning the waves brilliant shades of green and blue, and then, as tends to happen in crowded public places, this guy walks right through my scene!  Haha, I’ve learned this lesson before though, and so I kept shooting.  Lucky for me he took a perfect line through the scene toward the water and faster shutter speeds, as it turned out, worked nicely.  It wasn’t till I got home and started playing with the images that I realized I had also captured a number of people out surfing the waves he was headed to!

For the Alternate Perspective shots, you can see the result of my slow shutter speed attempts.  Also a shot of the setting sun as a surfer studies the waves.

More next week!

–Dan Thompson