Saturday 5 September 2009

Kalapana outflow

Even from several miles away the cloud from Kilauea's lava outflow into the Pacific Ocean is visible. It's a poisonous and acidic steam plume that contains more than just water as some rather unfortunate visitors have found out in the past; they are no longer with us to tell their story. It's best to watch from a distance although you don't have to be quite this far away!

I was on the way back home after visiting Kalapana and it was getting dark but the volcanic plume and the red cirrus clouds looked beautiful, so I stopped to take a few pictures. This is actually a blend of a couple of long-exposure photos, one under-exposed to get the sky and plume and one over-exposed to catch the dark lava field.

4 comments:

Zuzana said...

Ah, very ominous image.;) The landscape looks very futuristic and interesting.;) I think your technique worked well.;))

sww4 said...

Damon pointed me here. I don't think all that self criticism is deserved - your pictures are excellent!

Tom said...

Protege - definitely not "my" technique, it's something some photographers use when faced with conditions that have both very dark and very bright parts to the photo and don't have the right filter! The current trend is to use HDR (something I've posted about in the past) but I'm not a great fan of the technique anymore, it makes pictures look too surreal in many cases.

I still use the technique myself sometimes as it can make some magical pictures. I prefer the blending technique as it can deal with highlights and shadows but the picture looks more "normal" in the end.

Sam - thank you and I need to add you to my blogroll. I really enjoyed your recent post about flying to the island!

Keera Ann Fox said...

The middle ground looks like an impressionist view of a landscape, complete with unrealistic colors and visible brush strokes. :-)