Taylor Westphal Photography: Basalt-land the theme park (Hawaii)

I figured since my last birthday was spent in Granite-land, I would keep up the naming convention for igneous rock themed places. I took about 800 photos during the 6 days, posted 180, and less than 10 are probably worth printing. A good crop, all things considered.

Since I have no intention of posting a blog with 180 full size photos, I'll pick a few of my favorites, or ones that need explanation.

Here is the whole set:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrdrfishasuar/sets/72157623591921525/

TOUGH TOUGH TOUGH photography there. Solid black ground with bright white skies...confuses the poor camera. Lots of otherwise good shots were ruined because of over- or under-exposure, so I actually ended up shooting in full manual most of the trip, which slows the entire process down quite a bit.

This is also my first trip to anywhere tropical (Hawaii is ~20 degrees latitude) and there are so many amazingly cool trees, I can only imagine what the older islands are like.

Also, awesome little gecko creatures.

Goofing off is a theme that kept a solid hold on the trip.

I got home by riding two seaturtles lashed together with ropes made of....well, I don't really have any back hair.

A shout out to Kim, thanks for demanding I get shave ice, except you were wrong: the one with ice cream in the middle is totally better!

Some aa lava (as opposed to pahoehoe). Shelly put it the best way: its the sound you make when you're walking on it.

And this is why we walked on that crap

The Valley of the Kings, unfortunately the road down is too steep for our shitty vans, but I was just told that there are all sorts of old dead cars piled up at the bottom of the slope (that have fallen), but also that it's gorgeous and amazing down there....

Full 300mm zoom, plus big crop....I saw a whale! It even breached once, but I wasn't ready :(

First they had a hole digging competition, then a person burying one, then a person-volcano eruption one. Doug won the funniest faceplant into the water one.

This adorable kid didn't think we were that funny.

Some important charts and shit at HVO, on my birthday.

No caption needed.

South point, the southernmost point in the US, and I totally....got out of the van and walked to it...

That's our professor jumping off a cliff into shark infested waters!

The long walk to the mantle beach.

I also walked alone often, and found cool things because of it.

Yes, the sand really is that color, its the only green sand beach in the world, basically the water has eroded into an old cinder cone, which brought all that olivine up from the mantle...pretty sweet huh?

Bikini babes surfing in a volcano!

I'm a rebel without a cause

The mouseover caption is the best I could think of anyway

Some of us got crabs.

My favorite splashing picture (and I took a lot)

There are these signs on the beaches "Stay 15ft away from turtles" along with the fact that it is against the LAW. People walk right past these signs and get pictures of themselves touching these poor guys. Morons.

Some laws however, don't make much sense. Nevermind that the ENTIRE island is made up of this stuff.

One thing that became ever clearer to me this trip, is that I am much more useful than I am interesting.

Steam vent in the old Kilauea lava lake caldera

More cool trees, this one we climbed on.

Tree molds

Giant tree ferns

More oversized plants

Sexy model poses

Cool, (actually...not cool) hot spring fed river.

Tramp stamp baby!

Man, I really am a skinny bastard.

WARNING. The next photo is not for the feint of heart or wussies in general.

Usually warning signs make sense....

Rainbow falls, sans rainbow

Mauna Loa, the biggest volcano in the world.

The entire group (as far as I know...)

I stitched a panorama with the two main volcanoes, but the original will not fit here, so here is a link to it:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrdrfishasuar/4467849725/sizes/o/