PSRI has four open competitions this year. I missed the first one, so I submitted prints for the second competition as well as make-ups from the first competition. We had the judging last evening, which provided a nice distraction from the election results pouring in. They showed the black-and-white images first, so I watched as the scores were announced for my two make-ups and one of my regular submissions. Where was the other one? Honorable Mention? No. Third Place? No. Second Place? Again, no. I could hardly believe it. I got first place in the first competition I entered for prints. I worked hard on the image, trying to get just the right balance between light and dark, and the most appropriate shading, which was a new challenge for me. Let me show you a comparison of the original image and the final product of my labor. Just slide the line back and forth over the image.

I did several things when editing the image, but the first step was to convert it to black-and-white. I tried a method new to me that I learned from my friend, Cemal Ekin. Cemal recently posted on his blog about using the linear gradient mask in Lightroom Classic to perform the conversion. I like this method, as it leaves you with full control of color variations as well as toning the final edit. I used several other techniques to emphasize the light on the pot and the hands of the potter. Here is the final image itself.

Then came the Class B color images. Again, I watched as my make-ups and one of my submissions were posted with their scores. Where was the other one? Not HM, or Third, or even Second. Really? I won first place in color prints, too? This image is familiar to anyone who has been to my house and used the bathroom or been the recipient of my business card. You, as a visitor to my website, see it on the opening page. It’s probably my favorite image, Green Darner #40. I made this image during a photography workshop in the upper peninsula of Michigan several years ago. The copy in my house is printed on metal, so I printed the competition image on metallic paper. Here it is.

I want to be clear about something. That I won two first-place awards with my first competition entries is not the point, however affirming that may be. I am not printing to win prizes, but simply because I like it as a final step in realizing an image. I am also assembling a portfolio of prints in a smaller size. I’ve included the ones I enter in competition as well as others I like and want to share in that way.

As you can see from the map, I would have to leave early from Waikiki to get over to the other side of the island. Google Maps told me I’d need about an hour to get there. I worked backward to figure out my rising time and thought I was all set. If you recall from an earlier post, staying in Waikiki virtually necessitates using the expensive valet parking at the hotel. I had not used my rental car the day before because that was the day I went to Pearl Harbor. The tour company picked me up for that trip. I also told the valet workers that I needed the car early this day. So, I go down to the lot, present my ticket, and wait for my car. And wait, and wait, and wait…. Meanwhile, I’m doing mental calculations about the time, wondering whether I would entirely miss the sunrise. I asked what was going on, and the young man informed me that yesterday’s workers parked my car in another garage since I didn’t need it that day, and forgot to move it back for today. Finally, the car arrives, I load my gear and take off. Several people had suggested I drive over H3 to get to Kailua; time required that I save that route for the return trip and take Highway 61 instead. I pulled into the Kailua Beach parking lot with only minutes to run down to the beach and set up my tripod and camera. I had planned on the next beach down the way, but sometimes you just take what you get. Here is the best shot of several. The small aperture causes the sun star.

After the sun was up I watched some people enjoy the ocean–kayaking, swimming, and just walking the beach, a very popular activity. Then I drove back to Waikiki through H3 and discovered why that route was highly recommended.

Click on images to see them uncropped and full-size

When I was there, some people were paying their respects to the fallen, visiting individual graves to leave flowers or musing over the many mosaics that depict various battles in the Pacific. Here are some images of the mosaics and the general layout of Punchbowl.

After a respectful time of reflection at Punchbowl, I continued up Mount Tantalus for an overview of the Honolulu area. This map indicates the location of the Mt. Tantalus overlook. The following image is a panorama created from 21 images taken looking south. Compare the top image with the one beneath it to identify the six sections of the image. For a closer look at any one, choose it from the gallery below. You can see the famous Diamond Head on the left all the way over to Honolulu airport and Pearl Harbor on the right.

After thoroughly enjoying the vistas from Mt. Tantalus, I drove over toward Diamonhead. You cannot drive into the park at the top without a reservation, which I did not have. However, there is a small overlook and parking area right before entrance to the park. Here are a few images from that location.

Finally, here are all the images suitable for this post. There are a couple more from the drive up Mt. Tantalus, as well as a portrait of the wild chickens, which are the majority population of Kauai! Enjoy.

Here are a few pictures from my adventure. For most of the flight to Seattle we were above the clouds. However, crossing the Sierras proved differently.

I did finally reach Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. Courtesy of Google Maps, here is an overview of the Hawaiian Islands and the island of Oahu. Honolulu is in the center of the southern part of the island, and Waikiki is on the south shore, east of Honolulu, along H1. Yes, Hawaii does have interstate highways. H1 for this post, but H3 coming up in a few days.

Waikiki is a busy place, full of hotels and people a lot younger than I am. Parking on the street is nearly impossible, so customers of the Marriott (and other hotels) are virtually forced to use the expensive valet parking. That caused me a bit of a problem a couple days later, but that tale is for another post.

Here’s what the view from my hotel room looked like–looking left or right, day or night. Nothing but hotels!

Weary from travel, I gratefully slid into bed around 10:30pm local time. I was too tired to calculate how long I’d been up, and decided to trim down my ambitions for sightseeing the next day.

Here are all the images for today’s post. By the way, that tree on the right in the Parking photo is native to Hawaii, and was of enormous importance to the first humans who settled on the islands. More on that later. Enjoy!

To get around this limitation, some photographers choose to remove this cut filter, thereby allowing the camera to receive visible light as well as a little bit of the infrared (and even ultraviolet) frequencies. With the impediment of the cut filter removed, a filter on the front of the lens can be used to isolate particular frequencies of infrared light. Typically, these filters may allow 590nm, 720nm, or 830nm to pass. The larger the number (or wavelength, in nanometers), the farther the frequency is from visible light. The 830nm filter, for instance, does not allow any color to pass, yielding an entirely black and white image on the sensor. The 720nm filter allows some color to pass, and the 590nm allows quite a lot of color.

With a few steps of processing in Photoshop and Lightroom, photographers can enhance these images. One effect is that organic materials, such as foliage, looks white, whereas the sky and water is dark. Some weird color effects can be produced with several tweaks in processing software. This image, taken from inside the gazebo, for example, even recovers green in the foliage.

Personally, I prefer processing infrared images as black and white. Even though a 720nm, or even a 590nm filter, admit color to the sensor, the presence of color frequencies allows for refining the contrast in black and white. For example, I used a 720nm filter for the workshop. That allowed me greater flexibility in processing this image of the bandstand, elsewhere in the park.

Here are some other images from the workshop.