Looking for photo opportunities on Oahu? The best spots for scenic pictures? Secret places around Honolulu to take top shots?
Great photography starts with great subjects, and to find great subjects it helps to have a guide.
I’ve adopted a new hobby. Photography! It’s awesome and I love it and I want to marry it. Funny how new hobbies form. For years, I never understood what attracted photography buffs to the art. But now I’ve got the bug. There’s a fascinating science to it, and a wonderful combination of technology and artistry.
I have a good camera, a Sony NEX 5T. It’s awesome and I love it and I want to marry it. The wars people wage about what is the best camera are enormously silly and completely below me, of course, but I do want to make one small comment: the Sony NEX 5T is the best camera that has ever existed or that will ever exist, it’s better than your dumb fat DSLR camera, and if you don’t like it you’re stupid and DIE!
Right-o, with that out of the way, let’s move on to the real point of this post. Although I’m a photography newbie, just at the beginning of my education in lighting, composition, exposure, and so on, there is one area where I might be of assistance to more experiences photographers: identifying photo hotspots on Oahu.
Other guides will direct you to the standard spots: Tantalus, Lanikai Beach, Hanauma Bay, Byodo-In Temple, the Pali, and the big surf beaches on the North Shore like Pipeline. These spots are glorious and you’ll definitely enjoy photographing them.
But there are a great many other interesting subjects on Oahu, and I think I just might be able to identify a few that you won’t find elsewhere on the web. So I’ve started a new post category, Oahu Photo Hotspots.
In this post I’ll tell you why you might want to visit Moanalua Gardens, and then brainstorm a few other spots worth checking out.
More below the fold.
Moanalua Gardens is home to the famous Hitachi Tree. Well, it’s famous in Japan. Japanese tourists flock to the gardens to visit the iconic tree, which is the trademark of the Hitachi company. It’s an enormous, symmetrical monkeypod tree – perhaps the most beautiful monkeypod tree in the world.
Get under the canopy and you’ll see gnarly, mossy branches. A great place to compose creative snapshots. There is also another monkeypod tree on the property that, along with the Hitachi Tree, is listed on the National Historic Register. Notice that none of the other park visitors pay the slightest attention to the other trees. You’ll have them to yourself.
Moanalua Gardens is also home to Kamehameha V Cottage, a running creak, a couple of fantastic banyon trees, and a pond with a sprinkling of orange koi fish. If you want photos of fish popping out of the water, invest $2 in fish food at the little store at the entrance.
As for other photo hotspots on the island, here are my initial thoughts:
* The Waikiki Aquarium has a Leafy Seadragon exhibit. The jellyfish, sharks, and various colorful fish are also photogenic, but the seadragon is particularly special.
* If you want great photos of the setting sun, try one of the lagoons at the Ko’olina (on the west side of the island). It’s usually easiest to find parking at Lagoon Four. Lagoon One is the northern most of the four main lagoons. If you start there and walk even further north, you’ll find a couple of secret lagoons, until you reach the lagoon at Paradise Cove, where you’re bound to see a sea turtle.
* If you want more dramatic photos of sea turtles, check out Papailoa Beach on the North Shore. It’s a little tricky to find, but a WAY WAY better place to photograph turtles than the North Shore’s Laniakea Beach, which is the traffic bottleneck on Kamehameha Highway where all the tourists crowd around one or two harried turtles. You might get some cool shots at Papailoa at sunset.
* If you like photographing birds and don’t mind a hike, the Laysan Albatross at Ka’ena Point put on quite a show during the nesting season (winter). These are BIG birds (over six foot wingspan). They greet each other in a way that will make you laugh. This hike isn’t recommended on a clear day in the hot season because there’s no shade whatsoever.
* If you like underwater photography, check out Electric Beach. The electric plant emits hot water that attracts an incredible assortment of fish. (Don’t worry, the water isn’t radioactive or anything.) You’ll notice a glassy patch of water when you look out from the shore. Go when the waves are flat. (They’re generally flatter in the summer.) I recommend you go with a friend, and you should be a fairly strong swimmer; the swim is a little longer than it looks from the shore. From the parking lot at Electric Beach, you can also sometimes see spinner dolphins.
* Hanauma Bay is spectacular, of course, but for underwater photography you might actually prefer Shark’s Cove or Three Tables on the North Shore. Go when the waves are flatter (summer).
Stay tuned to my Oahu Photo Hotspots blog posts. When I come across great subjects, I’ll share them here.
Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2014 William Bloom