This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Light the Night.’ See more responses here.
A lot of people, myself included, don’t bother with lights here, but there are always some displays. Here’s one I quite like.
Christmas lights
Category Archives: Photo Challenges
A green turtle says hello
I was snorkeling yesterday, when I looked up and saw this green turtle coming towards me. It was near the surface and heading up so I thought it might be about to take a breath. Instead, the turtle, which was quite small, leveled off and kept coming my way.
Usually, in the water, I have a bit of zoom on my camera since that’s often needed. In this instance, I zoomed out and found myself leaning back to keep the turtle in the image. It came within a foot of me and I thought we were going to butt heads, but at the last moment it stopped, veered, then swooped down and away.
It wasn’t until I got home and processed my photos that I noticed the slender remora on the turtle’s shell, behind its head. Remoras, which don’t harm their hosts, attach themselves by means of a sucker disk on their heads, so what can be seen on this turtle is the underside of the fish.
I don’t change my desktop image often, but the top photo makes me so happy I popped it up immediately, so I’m posting it in response to Clare’s monthly Share Your Desktop challenge (see more responses here).
Abstracts: Wheel
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Metallic.’ See more responses here.
I’m not much of a car person. I like vehicles that are comfortable and reasonable to run. But mostly I look for reliability. But I know many people are really into cars.
Here on the island, we have lifted and lowered vehicles, cars with spoilers and go-faster stripes and other strange accessories. Tricked-out Honda Civics seem to be popular, but at the end of the day they’re still Civics, not Ferraris.
Wheels are popular spots for expression. I still think of hubcaps as round bits of shiny metal covering the wheel nuts, but those days are long gone. Hubcaps, or whatever they’re called these days, can be anything. The wheel in the photo had a jazzy, offset spiral thing going on. The irony is that many of these shiny, metallic pieces of auto art are not metal at all, but plastic wannabes.
Silent night
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Christmas Song Lyrics.’ See more responses here.
I’m one of those people who sings, hums, and whistles Christmas songs year-round, often to the annoyance of those in earshot. Spoiled for choice, I decided to go with Silent Night with the intention of taking photos of Hawaii’s star-spangled night sky. However, by the time I got around to taking photos, the stars had been blanketed by clouds. These came from a weather system that prompted warnings of blizzard conditions and 100 mph winds!
Such conditions weren’t expected where I live – that would represent climate change of biblical proportions – but the weather system generated clouds and rain island-wide. In addition, it seemed to swirl back and forth and around the Big Island maintaining these conditions for a week and counting.
This photo looks down on the lights of Kawaihae and I think the heavy clouds add a muffled feeling that’s quite in keeping with the song.
A close call
Driving to work yesterday, after two days off, I passed a couple of fire trucks parked at the foot of the hill. I didn’t think too much about it and carried on. I didn’t notice anything else unusual until I parked my car and got out. Something smelled a bit acrid, but even then, I didn’t think too much about it.
Once I got to the office I was immediately asked if I’d noticed anything. I shook my head. A hand pointed to the window. When I turned and looked, I saw the bank of the reservoir above our location was blackened, as were the hills beyond. That explained the acrid smell; another brush fire.
I found out later that the fire department had been called to a fire in the area on Sunday evening and had put out a small fire. The next day, Monday, a second fire started in the same area. While the fire was mostly out by yesterday morning, my arrival coincided with the Fire Department’s helicopter being called to gather water from the reservoir to douse a couple of lingering hot spots.
These photos show the helicopter heading out with water, dumping it on the fire, returning to gather more water, and then heading out again. One interesting footnote is that the two fuel trucks in the photos are about 100 yards from the foot of the reservoir bank!
The bottom photo is posted for Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge. See more responses here.
Cozy cats
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Cozy.’ See more responses here.
I don’t have too many cozy photos, but cats seem to be cozy pretty much wherever they are. These two are from the place where I work. They seem to think that they run the joint, and in some ways they do. They look mellow in the photo, but it should be noted that I call the lower cat ‘Slasher.’ There’s a reason for that.
Ruby wine
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Color Challenge: Ruby wine.’ See more responses here. Terri described ruby wine as ‘burgundy-brownish’ and included a handy color match, which I’ve made use of here.
The top photo shows exterior of the Pu’uanahulu Baptist Church. The second photo features a fire extinguisher on a colorful wall. I liked the reflections in glass of the cabinet. The bottom photo features another church, this time the interior of the Painted Church south of Captain Cook.
Candlenut
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Leaves and Trees.’ See more responses here.
Candlenut (Aleurites moluccana) is known as Kukui in Hawaii. It’s a canoe plant, brought to Hawaii by the early Polynesian settlers. The tree can grow to around 60 feet tall but is usually shorter. Large clusters of small white flowers are followed by round nuts, which can be seen at the top of the second photo.
The tree had many uses. Oil was extracted from the nuts for various uses and the nuts themselves were burned for lighting, hence the name. Roasted nuts are edible and were used for flavoring. Raw nuts are a potent laxative. The plants had several other uses, both decorative and medicinal.
Because of this versatility and cultural background, Kukui was named the state tree of Hawaii in 1959, replacing the coconut palm. It’s the only state to have a non-indigenous state tree.
Graham's Island 