Traffic, which can be brutal, reflected in the glass front of a downtown building.
Yesterday I posted a small town response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme of ‘Urban.’ See more responses here. It wasn’t until after that post went live that it occurred to me I could have used photos from my jaunt to Honolulu a few years back. It’s not the Big Island, but in Hawaii, Honolulu is by far the largest urban area.
When I got home, I had a look to see what photos I could use and came up with these images. The entire population of Hawi could fit comfortably into one of those skyscrapers.
The concrete face of the American Savings Bank TowerA downtown building from the State CapitolA plane flies above downtown buildingsA doorway to one of the downtown office buildingsA person sits in the open air atrium of the State Capitol BuildingThe entrance to the Territorial Office BuildingA railing in downtown HonoluluThe 1820 Mission Memorial building
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Urban.’ See more responses here.
North Kohala is mostly rural, so in this part of the world Hawi and Kapaau are the only urban centers and pretty small ones at that.
The top photo shows downtown Hawi on a moderately busy day. Some days, the traffic and crush of visitors can make it almost impassible. Downtown is mostly shops and restaurants, though there’s a small local grocery store and, of course, real estate agents.
One kind of store you don’t get in most downtowns is Hawi’s Aloha Man which features items made in Hawaii. There’s even a hammock just out of sight to the left of the store, in case walking the two blocks of downtown is too much for you!
Clouds off Upolu, a scene not greatly different in color.
A black and white cow with her mostly white calf.
A trio of black and white cows, the middle one looking particularly suspicious of what I was up to.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Daylight in Black and White.’ See more responses here.
I was going to post a single image for this but then got caught up with the idea of black and white images of black and white things. This is the result.
Black and white sheep doing sheep things.A black and white Great Frigatebird gliding into a stiff breeze off the coast of North Kohala.
Some shadows on a wall, not so different in black and white from the full color original.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Monthly Color Challenge: Jade.’ See more responses here. I think these photos are in the ballpark.
At the top is a selection of colorful kayaks available for rent on the beach at ʻAnaehoʻomalu Bay. The one on the left looks jade to me, maybe a couple of others, too.
The middle photo is a sign at a business in Hawi.
Finally, this building in Kapaau, housing L&L Hawaiian Barbecue and other businesses, has some jade as well as a multitude of other colors.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Meaningful Memories.’ See more responses here.
This seemed like an opportune time to revisit my first visit to Hawaii, back in 2010. My wife and I stayed in a vacation rental near Captain Cook, overlooking Kealakekua Bay. The sky was hazy with vog from Kilauea Volcano, but the place was awash with colorful flowers. Just down the road was the Painted Church and at the foot of the hill, Puʻuhonua o Hōnaunau National Historical Park celebrates Hawaiian culture and history with its wooden ki’i and towering palms.
We traveled the whole island from the black sand beach at Pololu (even if we had to pass the carcass of a dead whale twice) to the black sand beach at Punalu’u, dotted with resting green turtles, and rocky surrounds. There were waterfalls big and small, and roads lined with tropical foliage leading to the active lava flow at that time.
There, signs warned that flowing lava is dangerous (who knew?), but we were still able to get within 10 feet of oozing tongues of red, and saw small fires still burning in nearby brush.
There was even a house for sale: ‘Buy now before it burns!’ We didn’t, though that house still stands while others, much farther from that scene, have since been consumed by subsequent flows.
It was this visit that prompted us to return permanently two years later. Hawaii isn’t paradise – it has its pros and cons like any place – but we haven’t regretted the move and are looking forward to the next 10 years.
I had to go back more than a week to find my last photo for Bushboy’s Last on the Card photo challenge (see more responses here). It might not be the last photo I took, but it is the last I saved, and I’d already processed it for posting later this week. There’s really not much difference between the original (above) and the adjusted version (below). I cropped the photo a bit and lightened the shadows a bit to bring out the anole more, but it works pretty well even without that.
My final post in response to this month’s Becky’s Squares challenge theme of ‘Odd.’ See more responses here.
The stilts are odd enough in themselves, with their pink legs and long beaks, but it was the lighting in this image that got my attention. The sun was sinking and the shadows lengthening. But the distinctive lighting in this photo was due to the reflection from a cream-colored trailer parked beside the pond!
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fresh.’ See more responses here.
Here’s a weekly ritual of mine these days. There are two tangerine trees on the property and they constantly churn out fruit. I rarely see the flowers, though I did eventually notice that they do exist (here).
Each week, I pick a small bucket of ripe fruit. Often I can just reach up an pick enough for my needs. Sometimes I use a ladder and rake to snag the higher fruits. Then I take my bounty inside and juice it. I use a hand juicer; I tried a powered one, but it didn’t really work for me. It doesn’t take long to fill my jar. This time I used 29 tangerines, but the number varies from week to week depending on how ripe they are and how juicy.
I could juice them daily for truly fresh juice, but this still tastes pretty good to me.
Also posted in response to this month’s Becky’s Squares challenge theme of ‘Odd.’ See more responses here.
