Newer image, Entitled "The Greeters" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

My newest composition here is entitled "The Greeters." This was captured during my recent trip to the south island of New Zealand in March/early April, 2015.

After my plane landed in Christchurch and I gathered my luggage and got my rental car, it took me a bit to get acclimated to the left-side road driving and opposite instruments and controls in the car. But soon after I was headed down the left side of the highway towards the south parts of New Zealand. My first stop was to be the Moeraki Boulders on the coast but was unable to capture anything because of a massive rain system hanging over the area that was also dropping many lightning bolts onto the beach...so I relegated this spot for capturing later (images to come of these soon) and drove to the city where I was staying for the next couple of nights, Dunedin, for sunset...

Pictured here is the old pier on St. Clair beach located just south of Dunedin, New Zealand. On this evening there was a fairly low tide, so I got right down into the middle of the old pier posts to take this one amidst the waves. I liked the way the red illumination from the sunset was just creeping into the right side of the image and glowing off the pier posts and the wet beach sand. There was no way to get the setting sun into the frame because at dusk its aspect was behind some quite large hills that are just west of this beach, so I decided to center the island just off the coast between the pier posts. The island was named "Ponuiahine" by the indigenous Moāri which oddly means "The Girl's Great Night"...the local English name is much less original, it is named "White Island" because of the island's appearance from all of the white bird droppings that have built up the island over the centuries.

This is the actual first image I took during my recent trip to New Zealand. So the title of the image comes from the fact that this composition "greeted" me to the beauties of New Zealand combined with the way the pier posts look to have faces on them (at the top) and are all lined up like ushers greeting people as they come off the ocean and "walk down the aisle" of these greeters onto the beach and then into Dunedin...

I hope this image and message find you well.

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 24mm at f/11 for 381 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND Filter (10 stops) for the longer exposure and on Lee .75ND Grad (2.5 stops) to balance the brighter sky with the foreground...image was captured at 7:30pm as the sun was setting (off camera about 90° to my position)...

peace,
D. "Bodhi"

‪#‎New‬ ‪#‎Zealand‬ ‪#‎South‬ ‪#‎Island‬ ‪#‎Moari‬ ‪#‎Dunedin‬ ‪#‎SaintClair‬ ‪#‎Dolica‬‪#‎Tripods‬ ‪#‎Lee‬ ‪#‎Filters‬ ‪#‎BigStopper‬ ‪#‎ND‬ ‪#‎LongExposure‬ ‪#‎LE‬ ‪#‎Nikon‬‪#‎D800‬ ‪#‎Nikkor‬ ‪#‎24mm‬ ‪#‎f1‬.4 ‪#‎Seascape‬ ‪#‎Pier‬ ‪#‎Ruins‬ ‪#‎Beach‬ ‪#‎Ocean‬‪#‎Waves‬ ‪#‎Landscape‬ ‪#‎Sunset‬ ‪#‎Dusk‬ ‪#‎Reflection‬

New Release, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni" by Bodhi Smith

New image entitled, "Hoku-Noho-Aupuni". The name translates to the term used to describe the Milky Way in Hawaiian.

All I can say is that here are gorgeous stars and night skies in Hawaii. The beauty of this island does not disappear when the sun sets...

This image was captured in Kihei at 4am, a couple hours before sunrise

Camera Settings: iSO-1250, 24mm at f/1.4 for 13 seconds.

I hope this message and image find you well.

Mahalo and Maluhia,

D."Bodhi"

New release, "Unruined Radiance" by D. "Bodhi" Smith

This another new release named "Unruined Radiance". This composition was captured under the old decomposing pier in Lahaina on the Hawaiian island of Maui. The title comes from the radiantly glowing colors and the idea that this pier is in ruins .

At first glance, this pier looks like an eyesore. This pier is literally condemned to just wither away and crumble into the sea eventually. My girlfriend and I were visiting the giant Buddha at the Jodo Buddhist Mission just south of the pier in Lahaina, and I was taking a bit longer than she was with the site, So she went ahead to check out the pier...she came back and told me that she did not think I was going to like the pier because it was falling apart. But after we left the temple and went around the corner onto the beach, and i caught my fist look of the pier, I told her it was perfect and exactly what I was looking for: Ugly on top, but beautiful underneath.

The sun was getting close to setting and I promptly set up under the pier. The winds were really up and some sets of waves were coming in pretty big across the open Pacific to the east. I originally wanted to set up at the back of the pier by the break wall, but found that impractical soon after taking a couple hits from waves coming in AND banking of the break wall creating a node of intensity, This was was not conducive to taking long exposures, Plus there was a huge chance of getting me and my gear both soaked with salt water. I was going to have to set up further out under the pier away from the banking action of the break wall.

We had driven only about 45mins to get to Lahaina from Kihei, but I did not want to get wet/soaked since I did not bring a change of clothing. Simple and fast problem solving, I would just have to take off my shorts to keep them dry...go wading in my boxer briefs. It was getting dark as the sun was setting, and nobody was around under the pier, so for me it was not a big deal. It was wierd to be taking pictures under a pier in Hawaii at sunset in my underwear, but I did not give it a second thought.

I waded out under the pier about 100 feet and I anchored my tripod as best as i could in about 3ft of water. The air and water were both ultra warm, so temperature was not an issue as I stood waist deep in the Pacific ocean under a crumbling pier catching a beautiful sunset.

I thought the pier was giving way. As every so often when big set would come in, dust, debris, and smaller chunks of concrete would fall off the pier down into the water. I thought the pier might collapse on me at anytime, or at least a big slab let go and tumble down into the water as the sea continued to erode the old wretched salt and weather beaten concrete. Later, my girlfriend told me that there were idiots walking around on top of the this extremely unstable pier while I was shooting, which was what was causing the cracking and dust to fall of the pier...still, they could easily have fallen through at an moment while I was shooting...

I shot several longer exposures of 4 mins plus, but could not keep the tripod from moving during these more lengthy exposures because of the larger waves hitting me chest high (any movement of tripod = blurred images = trash). So, I had to settle for what the conditions would permit, which were much "shorter" (for me) exposures of 30 seconds where I could keep the tripod stable in between the bigger waves rolling in at intervals of about every 50-60 seconds or so.

The colors of the decomposing concrete were luminous and radiant, especially in the red light waves of the sunset...mix those colors with the crystal blue Hawaiian waters and what you see here is the result, I hope you enjoy it, and the impression i want you to feel when looking at it ...

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 48mm at f/8 for 30 seconds using one Lee Proglass .9ND Filter and 2 Lee .75ND Grad filters inverted at 90 degrees to bring down each of the bright sides of the pier compared to the underbelly of the pier. Image was captured just as the sun had set at 6:05pm.

I hope this message in image find you well

Mahalo and Maluhia,
D."Bodhi