This week’s Sunday Stills color challenge theme is ‘Teal or Aqua.’ See more responses here. I’m going underwater for a selection of aquatic aquas.
The top photo shows what happens when divers have too much time on their hands.
Next, we have some Square-spot Goatfishes and a few Orangeband Surgeonfishes meandering over a patch of sand. Then a Bullethead Parrotfish displaying a variety of colors. And a shoal of Hawaiian Silversides going hither and yon over a rocky bottom.
Finally, a couple of Spinner Dolphin photos, where they swam below me over an aqua background.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Emerging.’ See more responses here.
A while ago I posted a photo of Plumeria buds (here). I returned to that tree several times over the next few weeks and took photos of the same cluster of buds and then flowers to see how they developed. Plumerias aren’t one-bloom-and-done trees. Instead, there’s a continual production of buds, which bloom and die.
I like the swirls and colors of the buds and the different stages of the flowers emerging. I’m not the only one. All kinds of insects can be seen on both the buds and the flowers.
This week’s Sunday Stills challenge theme is ‘Fabulous Florals.’ See more responses here. For this, I’m taking a short jaunt off the island to revisit the first tropical garden I planted. That was in Washington State. Now, I’m aware that Washington State isn’t in the tropics, but I like a challenge.
My goal was to create a garden of hardy tropical-looking plants, with colorful flowers and/or big, bountiful foliage. The first summer, I laid the foundations with three Windmill Palms and a wall of bamboo alongside one fence. Colorful canna lillies and big foliage gave an inkling of what was to come.
Canna Lily-TropicannaSolanum laciniatum and Castor Bean-Carmencita Red,
The second summer was when the garden took off. Ground covers spread. Vines took off. Pots provided focal points.
And of course, there were those fabulous florals.
One corner of the garden featured a Dicksonia Antarctica tree fern, which was soon joined by a Dicentra Scandens-Golden tears vine, Eccremocarpus scaber – Chilean glory vine, and a Clematis Armandii. There’s less than a month between the second and third photos in the gallery below, and the following summer the area was rampant with color and growth.
But it is Washington State and there are winters and in the winter it can snow. The palms and bamboo bent low under the weight of the snow, but they survived. The tiki torch looked distinctly unhappy with the weather, possibly jealous of those lucky plants that were moved indoors for the winter.
This week’s Sunday Stills color challenge theme is ‘Diamond or Quartz.’ See more responses here. Why have one when you can have both in the same photo!
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.
Graham's Island 