The Story Behind The Image; Honolulu At Night

Honolulu "Hills", Nikon D200, 18-200mm lens, 20 sec. @ f/8; ISO 100; tabletop tripod out of my hotel window.
(click to enlarge)

Before my retirement from "regular" work, I was assigned to be project manager for a project in Hawaii by the federal agency for which I worked at the time.  The project required me to travel from the east coast of the United States to Hawaii 10 times over about 4 years.  It also required me to travel to each Hawaiian island during each visit. Sounds great, doesn't it?  Going to Hawaii paid for by your employer?  Getting to travel to each island. Well, not so much as I normally worked between 50 and 90 hours a week while I was there. All that traveling among islands required getting to the airport by 6:00 a.m. to 7:00 a.m. on those mornings, then flying back to Oahu each evening.  But, I always made the most of the opportunities presented to me.  I didn't complain.  I was fortunate just to be there.

But that many hours of work didn't deter me from carrying a simple camera kit so I could make some images whenever I found a bit of time.  Those times were usually at daybreak and in the evenings.  For this particular trip, my simple kit was a Nikon D200 and a Nikon 18-200mm lens.

Except for one time in April 2007, I always managed to get a hotel room that faced south so I could see Waikiki Beach and the Pacific Ocean.  That time, however, I wasn't able to swing an ocean facing room and was relegated to a room that faced inland.  Making lemonade out of lemons with a view that wasn't particularly scenic, I noticed at night that the houses and neighborhoods built up along the inland hills of the Island of Oahu had an interesting look.  I noticed that, not only did a compressed, telephoto look give the hillside an interesting look, but in certain places I could see cars traveling along the streets.  My mind started working as to how I could create an interesting image out of that scene.

One night, I set up my tabletop tripod ( a small aluminum Gitzo G0011 with a very small, but sturdy ball head, a Manfrotto 3009) on the window sill of my hotel room, set a low ISO, stopped down my aperture about mid-way (f/8) to gain depth of field (the condo was considerably closer than the hillside) but to not introduce diffraction softening, chose various long shutter speeds (to streak the car's headlights) to bracket my exposures, set the self-timer to 2 seconds, then made several exposures.  Since I always use the RAW format, I wasn't concerned about white balance.

One of those exposures is here, cropped so it represents about 1/3 of the original entire frame. Not having a longer lens didn't really hurt since the Nikon 18-200 is a pretty decent lens and help up very well even with the heavy cropping.

The lesson I have learned over and over again throughout my photographic life is that no matter what is before me, where I am, how little time I have or what little gear I have with me, I can always find and make interesting images.  You can too!  Just get out there and "see" versus just looking.


Thanks for looking.  Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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