Category Archives: Photo Challenges

Birthdays take the cake

A chocolate birthday cake

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Sweet.’ See more responses here.

This birthday cake came from the Sandwich Isle Bread Company in Waimea, which also makes cakes and pastries. It was just the right amount of sweet, and the right amount of rich and chocolaty.

Well red

A red windsock at Upolu in Hawaii
The windsock at Upolu Airport with Maui in the background.

This month’s Sunday Stills Color Challenge is ‘Red.’ See more responses here. A variety of subjects for this one!

A day on the tiles

A Mourning Gecko on a tile floor

I saw this mourning gecko on the lanai tiles of my neighbor’s now empty house. Mourning geckos are mostly nocturnal, but are sometimes seen during the day, though usually not in such an exposed location. This one is a female. I say that with some confidence because almost all mourning geckos are females. They reproduce by parthenogenesis, which is where an egg or sperm doesn’t have to combine with another egg or sperm for an embryo to develop.

Posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge. See more responses here.

Reaching for the sun

A tomato sprouts from the soil in Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Seeking Light.’ See more responses here.

This seedling is coming up where some tomato seeds were planted, so it could be one of them or something else that’s volunteered there. We’ll find out in due course. Either way, the seedling is reaching up to the light to boost its growth.

Crossing the line

Late afternoon sun of the coast of Kohala, Hawaii

This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Silence.’ See more responses here.

The current eruption at Kilauea has been putting out a considerable amount of vog. This volcanic haze can make life difficult for people, causing respiratory and other medical complications. But it can also cause colorful skies.

I was driving home from work last week on a day when the vog was heavy and the sky glowed. There wasn’t much wind – another reason the vog has been hanging around – so the ocean was calm. I’d stopped to take photos once, but when I saw this little boat heading for this band of sunlight, I pulled over again.

I’d lucked into a quiet break in the traffic and was far enough from the coast that there was no sound from waves coming ashore or from the boat’s engine. I watched for a while until the boat crossed the glittering band, before returning to my car and heading home.