Grand Wailea Church – Maui

23. July 2012 · Comments Off on Grand Wailea Church – Maui · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

If you should happen to find yourself in Maui and staying at the Grand Wailea Resort and decide to either renew your wedding vows or even get married, well, the hotel has just the facility you need.  This small church is in the hotel grounds and is available for weddings and vows and I would imagine it’s a pretty busy place.

The church is nicely lit up with stained glass windows providing color inside so I thought I’d grab a shot for the site.  The large number of lamps that light the way to the from the church and the abundance of tiki torches add to the evening ambiance.

While staying at the hotel I’ve seen quite a few weddings, some people have large receptions at the hotel and there are loads of people who opt for a beach wedding instead of the church (it’s probably pretty pricey – everything else is here), and almost every night there’s some bride and groom having their pictures taken on the beach.

Having your wedding pictures taken on a beach really sounds nice, and I’m sure for the wedding party it’s great.  But if you want to take a picture and you have nothing to do with the wedding good luck!  The local professionals hog all the good locations and prevent you from standing in the best place for a sunset picture – that is of course unless you want to photograph the bride of the day as well.

Talking of sunsets… I can’t get a good one, and I’ll tell you I’ve tried, several times.  The main problem is that the sun sets over Lanai which is an Hawaiian Island to the west of Maui.  To make matters worse Lanai has a large extinct volcano in the middle (don’t they all) and all around the peak are puffy white clouds.  So the sun actually sets behind the white clouds, and the sunset lasts around 60 seconds.  Even in it’s best moment, it’s not great.  I’ll keep trying though and I may get one before I leave.

Anyway, back to the church.  I took this shot just after the sun went down and with a long exposure got the sky to look almost light blue.  Fortunately nobody was in the way and I got the shot below first time.

Cater and Master Chief hit the beach this afternoon, but Carter made a huge mistake and fell asleep, so Master Chief buried him!

Old Ford – Maui

22. July 2012 · Comments Off on Old Ford – Maui · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

The other day we visited Maui’s Tropical Plantation, it is a working plantation in the middle of the island.  The reason for the trip was that the family wanted to go ziplining and this was the location for Maui Ziplines who let you zip across the plantation.

Lisa, James and Abi are not really that comfortable with heights so it was a big thing for them to do this.  But they all went for it and had a blast.  There were 5 lines they had to go down, each one taking you across different crops in the plantation and I got loads of shots of them in the air flying high.

The plantation also offers tours where you can take a tram around the 60 acre plantation and see all sorts of local crops grow.  So what do they grow?  Well pretty much everything you can imagine that you would want in Hawaii.  They have sugarcane, coconut, vanda orchids, star fruit, coffee, avocado, macadamia nuts, and the list goes on and on.

As we walked into the plantation we saw this cool old Ford car.  I don’t think they used it and to be honest the paintwork wasn’t that great, it had clearly been sitting outside for a long time.

But I thought it looked cool with the palm trees behind it and the plantation in the distance.  I had to take loads of shots of this and I almost gave up.  Every time I composed a picture someone would walk into frame.  Lisa and the kids thought it was hysterical.  In the end I finally got this shot on the way out when we left, the only down side was that the sun had moved to a position in the sky where it caught the car’s hood so it was totally blown out.

That aside I was pleased with the image so it’s my posting tonight.

Tonight the guys got out their surf boards and hit the beach.

Grand Wailea Waterfall – Maui

20. July 2012 · Comments Off on Grand Wailea Waterfall – Maui · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

I probably should have posted this particular image the first day we got to the hotel, but as I only took the picture today that would have been difficult.  The reason being that the waterfall is what you see when you drive up to the hotel, it’s across the road from the hotel reception.

This waterfall is of course a man made and not natural, but it looks really pretty and the water is coming down pretty fast so I thought it would make a nice picture.

Waterfalls are a little tricky.  You don’t want the water to be frozen in time, but to appear almost “Ribbony” (that’s a real word right?) so that the picture gives the felling of motion.  To do this you need to have a long exposure.   But (and here’s the hard bit) you also want the leaves around the waterfall to be sharp and not blurry, which does tend to happen as over a long exposure the water rushing past blows the leaves about.

So what you have to do is take two images.  One with a long exposure for the water, and one with a short exposure for the foliage and flowers.  Then you blend the two pictures together to create the “perfect” waterfall.

Of course I didn’t do that here as it’s a total pain and loads of work (plus I was rushed and forgot), so here you get ribbony water and slightly blurry flowers.  Enjoy.

Tonight we went to the Cheeseburger Island Style restaurant in Wailea, but we lost the Halo guys, then I found them playing on the wall decorations!

Grand Wailea Grounds – Maui

20. July 2012 · Comments Off on Grand Wailea Grounds – Maui · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , ,

We had a really busy day today visiting a sugar museum, water fall and a working plantation where the family went zip lining.  The result of all this is that I have around 500 pictures to sift through and it will take too long to find a good image, process it and post it to the site.  As a result I’m posting another “view from our hotel” image, that I took last night.

This one was taken just after the sun set from in front of the spa.  In the center of the image you can see a decorative pond with fountains and beyond that some dolphin statues – you’ll probably have to trust me on that one as they are quite small in the image.  Either side are some lit up gazebo’s that lead you down to the adult’s 18 and over pool.  Now I’d definitely like to spend some time there, but apparently that’s not the “thing” to do on a family vacation. so I’m not allowed.

Beyond the adult pool are some palm trees, duh yeah I know we’re in Hawaii.  And then there’s the sea.  Outside of this picture to the left of the adult pool is the family pool with 3 major slides, a rapids drop and a lazy river.  Oh yeah and a rope swing and water elevator.  Yup you read that correctly, a water elevator, apparently the only one in the world.  You swim in and they pump water in and you float on seats to the top of the elevator shaft, then you swim out and go down a slide – nice eh?

The sky in this image came out well and the lights around the gazebo’s made them look pretty cool too.  Add to this the lights on the fountains and you end up with a pretty picture.  And yes, Maui really is this beautiful.

It was really hot today the Carter and Master Chief started to over heat.  So when we got back to our room they found a way to cool off.

Humuhumunukunukuapua’a – Grand Wailea

19. July 2012 · Comments Off on Humuhumunukunukuapua’a – Grand Wailea · Categories: Image a Day · Tags: , , ,

Today is the 200th day of the year and I’m still posting a new picture every day, can you believe it?  No neither can I!  All I can say is, don’t expect a picture on January 1st 2013 – I’m retiring from this picture a day nonsense.  That said, here’s today’s posting…

Now those of you who have visited the state of Hawaii will probably know that the Humuhumunukunukuapua’a is the state fish!  Yeah I didn’t know that states had a fish either.  But it also happens to be the name of the main restaurant at the Grand Wailea Resort and Hotel in Maui.

I promised the other day that I’d post some hotel pictures, because in truth this place we are staying at is absolutely beautiful.  So this evening after dinner I walked around the hotel taking some pictures.  The Humuhumunukunukuapua’a restaurant sits on a salt water lagoon and overlooks the sea.  The restaurant area is basically a number of thatched roofed buildings on stilts sitting on the lagoon and all around the restaurant are tiki torches lighting up the lagoon and leading you to and from the hotel and sea.

We haven’t actually eaten here as the prices are pretty high and the kids just wouldn’t enjoy it, so we tend to eat off the hotel’s property in restaurants around the area.  But we walked past the restaurant and I just had to take a picture, and it came out (I think) really well.

Lisa was concerned that it was too dark as the sun had well and truly set – it was completely dark, only the tiki torches and the lights from the hotel let you see what was around.  But a long exposure brought out the blue night sky and the water reflection of the trees.  You can even see the remains of the sunset in the far distance.

I took some other shots of the hotel that I’ll post in the coming days, and I’m sure when you see these you are gonna wanna stay here too.

This afternoon Carter and Master Chief decided to have a chat, at the bottom of the pool.  Very cool having a helmet with air in it all the time!

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