SmugMug Appreciation Sunday — No. 030

In brief, these posts serve to introduce new readers — and reintroduce regular readers — to photos from the early days of this blog and, occasionally, to photos from days before this blog came into existence.

Only one gallery this week . . . and, in contrast to last week’s, a short one. Just 22 photos and four videos.

There’s one blog post associated with the photos — HERE — and the photo gallery is HERE.

The photos and videos were shot with the D7000.

The place is Laupāhoehoe Beach Park on the Big Island. Site of a deadly tsunami, it’s a bit of a drive both to get there from where we were staying and to get down to the park itself (narrow 1.5-lane road winding down the side of a cliff).

When you stand on the shore, the waves coming at you look taller than you, obscuring the horizon and making you think they’re going to inundate the ground you stand on . . . but the rocks break them up . . .

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I wave at you three

For them wondering about the title, “I wave at you“<<link and “I wave at you two“<<link are previous posts exploring/offering wave photos (and, if interested, one of those explores my legs). This short post continues the titles (with fewer photos, and no legs … maybe).

No processing (Adobe Color instead of Camera Neutral)

So, that’s right out of the camera, except I turned on Adobe Color as opposed to my usual Camera Neutral. Camera Neutral has a vapid appearance with hardly any saturation or contrast (what I usually start with when I post-process).

Side Note: for them wondering whatever happened to Falkor (LINK), as you can see, he finally got rid of his aversion to water and is now body-surfing in Hawaiʻi.

Anyway, this post was born from my desire to try a few different processing options . . . and the fact I like waves.

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Quick Hurricane Lane Update

While various parts of the Big Island have been affected by the hurricane (flooding), here in Kona it’s been mostly a non-event. FYI, I’m writing this a number of hours before it goes live.

There were some unusually higher waves in the bay and that drew some people just because it was different. Even then, no flooding or high winds damage.

That’s not to say it might not yet happen as we’ll probably suffer sea levels rise due to the storm swell and this in addition to the increased waves may yet cause some coastal flooding and erosion damage especially along Aliʻi Drive which in many areas is very close to the water.

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A few Kona waves in slow-motion

I mentioned I’d walked to the shore a couple of times. Snapped me some decent photos (which I […]

A few hours in Kailua Kona – Part 3 (the waves)

I’d hoped to cover the 90-minute photo session in two posts, but it turned into three posts. The first post (HERE) covered my encounter with the rusted truck relic. The second post (HERE) dealt with the surfers I photographed.

This post has forty-four photographs in the gallery at the bottom of the post. However, I won’t post all of them in the body of the post. I also have seven videos to share, all of them less than a minute long (you know, for them who have the attention span of a gnat).

The photos and videos are primarily of waves . . . with the exception of the photos opening and closing this post. Those photos are of the rusty truck and the red flowers hedge.

Before I continue, some housekeeping . . .

Some of you might have noticed a recent lack of contributions to this blog. Some might even have noticed I’m not as engaged in your blogs as I might normally be. There’s a reason for that.

That reason is also why you might not see or hear much from me in the next four-to-six-weeks. Life demands more of my attention than normal.

Before anyone starts to worry . . . I’m not sick. No one in my family is sick. I have no lawsuits hitting me right and left and I’m not under investigation (I fly pretty straight; I might not know where I’m going, but I’m heading straight there). I’ve not won the lotto and about to become a hermit. I’m not joining the Witness Protection Program and I’m not scheduling elective surgery to become even purdier. Despite my intellect, wisdom, and winning personality, I’ve not been drafted to solve the world’s problems. I’m not writing a book, composing music, or building a monument to Salami and Cheese sandwiches.

Basically, I’m busy; nothing bad, nothing good. Just life.

I plan on dropping a few posts here and there, but it’ll be mostly for my relaxation and enjoyment. Others are welcome to enjoy them . . . or not. For instance, I’ve been processing the 1,300 photos from September 11 (Alaska cruise). I assume that at some point I’ll be done, and sometime later I’ll post a few hundred of them.

The only thing I feel bad about is that I won’t have time to read all the blogs I follow. I’ll catch a few posts here and there, but whereas I usually read every post from blogs I subscribe to, I’ll probably miss a bunch and — sadly — I don’t plan on catching up when my normal life resumes.

Really . . . if you are inclined toward worrying about me, don’t. Believe me, plenty of bad stuff has happened since I’ve had this blog, and no one knows anything about it. Heck, if I were dying, the last place I would mention it would be here. So, really, if I didn’t say anything and just dropped out of sight, then you might wonder if I’ve died or lost all my fingers, butI’m telling you . . . it’s just life.

Now, this seems long, as if overcompensating . . . nope! It’s just that only a few people will read this, and I want to impress upon them — the ones I care about — that nothing’s wrong. The majority of “readers” won’t even get past the first photo and, frankly, I don’t care much about them.

And now, the first wave photo . . .

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The waves visited for a few days – Part 3: the long videos

As promised, the rest of the wave videos, the longer ones.

Please note: I suggest starting the videos below with the volume set on low. Waves and wind are pretty loud as are the occasional planes flying overhead.

One correction I need to make . . . in THIS post I said I didn’t have photos from my visit to the Magic Sands Beach. Well, that’s not true. I had forgotten to unload the D7000 memory card from that day. Now, since this will be mostly videos — and longer ones, at that — I’ll only post a few teaser photos.

The rest — including the associated animations I put together — will be in the next waves post.

These photos will not be added to the SmugMug gallery until they are presented in their own post along with all the other photos.

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The waves visited for a few days – Part 2

I’m in a bit of a quandary about how to do this. I have videos and I have photos and I have a fair amount of both.

The day was January 14th and the place is Wawaloli Beach Park. Melisa and I call it “the Energy Lab” because that’s the exit you take to get there.

On this particular day, the surf was up, so I loaded up with the D7000 with the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens, the Nikon P900 mounted on a sturdy tripod with a video head for ease of panning, and my Samsung Note 8.

I took photos and videos, some at regular speed and some in slow-motion. For two sets of photos, I combined them into animations.

Please note: I suggest starting the videos below with the volume set on low. Waves and wind are pretty loud.

I guess what I’m trying to say is . . . I gots me a lot of stuff to share. That means at least one more post after this one. Maybe, two.

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The waves visited for a few days

Compared to our first winter here, this winter has been a bit of a disappointment when it comes to waves. As disappointed as I’ve been, I imagine surfers miss the waves even more. I think we had a good five months of nothing but gentle and small swells.

However, for a few days earlier this month we saw a bit of action in the wave department. Perhaps it was the full moon (January 2nd) . . .

I kid . . . it was a couple of storms. The first waves of the year came on January 3rd. I stopped at the Magic Sands Beach to get a few shots.

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So, how’s my Note 8?

It’s fine, thank you. I don’t have any complaints and if pushed, I’d be hard-pressed to come up with something I’m not happy about. Blazing fast, lots of customization, handles pretty much anything I throw at it. However, readers of this blog are likely to only care — if they care at all — about one aspect of the Note 8 . . . the camera.

Well, I’ve been taking odd photos here and there, and I aim to show those in the next few days. Today, I want to share stuff from the middle of December. Specifically, two movies from December 14, when I dropped in at the Pine Tree park beach area (a. k. a. Koanaiki Beach Park) and also stuff from my December 17th visit to the Place of Refuge ( a. k. a. Puʻuhouna o Hōnaunau NP)

Yes, slow motion is about to come your way . . .

It was a very windy day. So windy, that it was difficult holding the phone steady because the gusts of wind were working hard at getting me to lose my balance and fall on the lava. The lava was also in on it, providing an uneven platform for me to stand on. That’s why — despite the guide lines on the screen — the horizon occasionally goes off horizontal.

I also had my P900 with me, but those photos are for another post. Here’s the second video from the Note 8.

I like the way the Note 8 lets me control which parts are shown in slow motion, lets me control the speed of the slow motion (normal speed, ½ speed, ¼ speed, ⅛ speed), and lets me make multiple versions from a single movie.

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Nikon P900 vs. Samsung Note 8 – slow motion shootout

So, here’s the thing . . . I knew the P900 had slow motion. I mean, I’d read it had slow motion capabilities. But, I’m old. I’m old, and I have a lot on my mind. Stuff like where’s the next malasada coming from, why does the hair in my ears grow so fast, and what’s up with my eyebrows? It’s like they’re on some sort of acid trip. Honest, it’s all I can do to keep them from looking like mini-antlers above my eyes.

The point is, it slipped my mind, see? And, I can tell you why.

640 x 480 (120p mode)

For them who don’t know what that means, 60p is regular motion; real world; what we experience when we look around and say “What was that? Did you see that?”

120p shoots twice as fast so that when you play it back it’s at half speed. Now, that sounds pretty good, right? Except for the 640 x 480 part. Those numbers are the width and height of the frame in pixels, and for them who were born after 1980, that’s what’s known as VGA.

VGA is fine when viewed as no larger than the above. So, if you click on the YouTube logo, the video opens up in another tab and will play with a couple of large black bars on either side of the picture. Try to view it as a full screen, and it will look like crap.

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The Road To Hell Is Paved By True Believers

These days, divisiveness is the norm. Divisiveness bordering on — if not fully enshrined by — hate expressed in venomous comments by one party or group directed at another party or group; comments that dance on the edge of being criminal, often threatening actual physical violence.

This now-accepted behavior of offering vile and crude insults laced with threats of physical violence is so far from civility that I fear we’ll never find our way back.

Where does it come from?

In part, it’s the result of political, social, and news organizations drumming into people that “the other guys” are a danger to you and your family.

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No thoughts Sunday – just canoes

Being Sunday, I had planned a post on philosophy as applied to the real world. More so, my opinion of what is useful and what is not.

The description next to the name of this blog says the following:
“Thoughts, photographs, and writings from a would-be philosopher, photographer, and writer making his way through an all-too-short life.”

“What is this ‘philosophy’ you speak of?”

Well, Bob, that is a tad misleading . . . I’m not really a would-be philosopher in the classical sense of the name:
Philosophy (from Greek φιλοσοφία, philosophia, literally “love of wisdom”) is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was probably coined by Pythagoras (c. 570 – c. 495 BC). Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument, and systematic presentation. Classic philosophical questions include: Is it possible to know anything and to prove it? What is most real? However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as: Is there a best way to live? Is it better to be just or unjust (if one can get away with it)? Do humans have free will?

While I read all sorts of . . . wait . . . you almost had me there! A classic tactic that I often fall for, but not this time. Nope! That discussion will wait for another post.

Today? Today we deal with this:

No, wait . . . that’s a cat. I meant . . .

So, here we go . . .

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Hawaiʻi – Volcano and Stuff

Many times have we journeyed to Hilo . . . depending on the route we take, we stop in at the Volcano National Park. As a senior, I have my Lifetime Pass, so it costs me nothing to go in there for a quick look and perhaps to use the . . . ahem . . . facilities after nearly a two-hour drive festooned with snacks and coffee.

These days there is an additional incentive to stopping there . . .

This particular day was October 8th, and the above is the Halema‘uma‘u Crater and the photos were all taken from about a mile away.

The full-size versions of these photos are in THIS SmugMug gallery. You can click on the photos for a larger version.

The first time I saw that particular spot, I was a lot closer . . .

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Hawaiʻi – Laupahoehoe Beach Park in Black and White

A few of my readers like B&W photos. A few like Color photos. A few like both color and b&w renditions of photos. I done used to put everything in one post, but the eyes can play tricks when you see a color photo immediately followed by a b&w photo or vice versa.

Well, here will twelve B&W renditions land. I added these photos to the Laupahoehoe SmugMug album. You can also click on the photos and a larger version will open up in a new tab or window.

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Hawaiʻi – The Big Island Laupahoehoe Beach Park

On November 9, 2016, we had a sudden urge to skip our 4.5 miles morning walk, skip our daily 1.5 hours visit to Pacific Island Fitness, and, instead, drive clear across the Big Island. The previous evening, we had stopped at Costco and bought two of their salads and croissant turkey sandwiches.

That’s right, we went on a picnic to Laupāhoehoe Beach Park.

The park is seldom crowded, and this day was no exception. We had a nice picnic as I eyed the waves crashing in front of us. I then spent the next two-and-a-half hours calming my troubled mind by watching, photographing, and videoing waves.

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