Spent two mornings in Hanalei Bay, hoping to catch a good sunrise. Instead, saw storm clouds and rains.

I waited for the light to break through, but didn’t see the spectacular sunrise light and colors that I was hoping for. I ended up sitting on the pier for a couple of hours, chatting with the fishermen while waiting out the rains. They talked about the variety of cloud colors during sunrises and how they love fishing here during the early morning hours. Even in the rain, this place is incredibly moody. Rain clouds on the horizon, clouds hovering over the green mountain, waterfall streaming down the side of the mountain …. What missing was a hot cup of coffee.

The previous photo shows an overlook view of the valley; this was shot about a feet above the valley floor. I shot both of these Hanalei valley photos while returning from a sunrise shoot in Hanalei Bay.

The North side of the island is the wet side: overcast day with sporadic light showers is fairly typical. It rained for most of the early morning hours (no good sunrise photo). The rain stopped briefly, the clouds broke, and the light came through just when I passed this spot. I turned around and took my camera out, left my tripods in the car, and walked over a small irrigation ditch to get the shot. I’m still kicking myself for not taking my tripods to this spot. I had to crank ISO up to 800 and still couldn’t get a sharper photo. With my tripods, I would have shot this with a longer exposure to smooth out the water surface.

For the previous shot, I actually waited for the rain to stop to take the shot. It seems every single Kauai visitor took a photo or two from the Hanalei Valley Lookout. I just couldn’t leave Kauai without a photo from this postcard-waiting-to-happen spot :)