Waikiki Beach at Dawn

Posted by Don Smith (California, United States) on 3 August 2009 in Landscape & Rural.

Aloha from Oahu and Waikiki Beach. I am with my family on a vacation/work trip (at least some work for me) and we have landed in Honolulu to spend a day touring Pearl Harbor.

The alarm went off at 5 am so we could meet our tour bus at 6 am for a 7-hour tour of Pearl (I was strictly playing tourist on this one). As my boys and Beri were getting ready, I went out on our balcony and captured this image of the famed Waikiki Beach about 30 minutes prior to sunrise. As you can see, the beach is empty (except for a few hearty joggers) and the city of Honolulu seems for the most-part to still be asleep.

The street below is Kalakaua Avenue and runs the length of the beach. You are looking south towards the Honolulu Airport and Pearl Harbor with this view. According to our guide, the mountains you see in to far distance are the ones which the first wave of Japanese war planes flew over on the infamous day of December 7, 1941. Behind me is Diamond Head (which I could not see from this vantage point). We will be spending a day on the island, then we will fly to Kauai. I was here 27 years ago and I am amazed at how much it has changed!

I captured this image with my 16-35mmL (which explains why the building on the right-hand side of the frame is leaning due to parallax distortion) from the 25th floor of the Aston Waikiki Hotel. I may correct this in PS later using Filters>Distort>Lens Correction.

My Website: "how to" articles, galleries, stock photos, and more...
www.donsmithphotography.com

Software Discounts:
Photomatix Pro 3.0 type in code at checkout: donsmithphotography
Nik Software type in code at checkout: DSMITH

vfxy Photoblogs | Listed on Photoblogs.org