When you want to see the stars, find someplace dark
Processing photos of the Halemaʻumaʻu lava lake presents quite the challenge. The very bright lava fountains are difficult to properly expose while showing anything of the surrounding scene. Yet another try is shown here. This version uses very heavy tonal editing to compress the dynamic range of the lava fountains while expanding the low end of the histogram to show detail in the rock walls. The result is interesting, but quite different than seen in person…
Watching the fantastic scene below me it was the famous lines from a play that came to me…
Double, double toil and trouble;
Witch’s scene from
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Shakespeare’s MacBeth
This cauldron is roughly 500ft (200m) across and filled not with a witches brew, but a seething pool of lava. And while a line from Shakespeare might begin the description, it can not fully capture the reality… A churning pool of lava, mostly crusted over with thin sheets of dark material broken by brilliant red cracks. Along the edges bright fountains are powered by gasses escaping from deep below. In the night the brilliance of the lava lake was startling, illuminating the plumes of gasses and the low clouds over Kilauea Caldera.
To see this cauldron I had gotten up well before three in the morning for the nearly two hour drive across island. I traveled over Saddle Road and then up the volcano highway to Kilauea. Why the effort? The lava lake that has been present in the Halemaʻumaʻu crater was visible for the first time, at least from any publicly accessible place in the park. Normally the surface of this lava lake has been several hundred feet below the crater floor, hidden from direct view. An unprecedented surge of pressure in the Kilauea magma chamber has pushed the lake level to new heights, almost spilling out onto the floor of the crater.
Driving into the park revealed the first surprise. I was part of a little convoy of half a dozen vehicles, a bit unexpected at 4am. Arrival at the Jagger Museum parking lot I encountered an almost full parking lot, just a few spaces left in a very large lot. There were several hundred visitors already on the large terrace viewing area. A huge crowd, all here to see the lava.
Continue reading “Watching the Lava Boil and Froth”I work at the summit of a nearly 14,000ft mountain that sits atop a pretty tropical island. That alone is good enough reason to carry a camera at all times. You never know when you will need that camera, beauty appears when you least expect it.
The advent of digital cameras where the cost of each photo is negligible has made this possible. This would not have been practical in the days of film. Yes, I remember those days, counting out every frame of a 36 exposure roll, deciding if the shot was worth it. In this digital age I usually have a dedicated camera along and never worry about shooting. If that camera is out of reach there is always the iPhone in my pocket.
The equipment I work on is often unique, there may be only one copy in the world. Two if we have one installed on both Keck 1 and Keck 2. The documentation can be of varying quality, some is good, some is abysmal, some is just plain wrong. Some of this gear was professionally built by engineers, some of it was built by graduate students who would never need to fix it years later.
When doing a dawn hike on Mauna Kea it is important to choose your altitude with care. You really want to be right at the top of the cloud layer. There, where the fog drifts over in alternating shifts with the sunlight, there is where the magic happens. Mamane in the fog, puʻu appearing and disappearing, and fogbows. Add fog and you have all the ingredients for some good photography.
The plan had been to spend the morning on the summit doing some testing. When that got cancelled I quickly dropped into plan B… Go hiking. I got the altitude right.
The spectre of the brocken was a nice treat. At the center of the fogbow you can see a glory, and in the center of the glory is my shadow looming large in the mist. That is the spectre.
Just a few visuals from the past year, re-living a few memories…
Sometime you need to watch for the interesting photo simply walking from the front door to the car…
Yes, I meant to do that… Not.
Sometimes you download the SD card and find photos you had no idea you took, an accidental actuation of the shutter. Most of the time they totally worthless, a photo of blurred gravel, or a hand across the lens. But on occasion they are a bit more interesting, properly exposed and in focus…
Sometimes the photo does not quite work as planned. Turn to shoot the guys following me into a cave, except that the flash does not fire… It helps to turn it on. Expecting the result to be a discard, I am surprised to see a rather interesting photo…
