06-29-2008, 04:11 PM
Yes! Isn't that puka in Halemaumau something! It isn't like anything else. Without the fountaining, or the massive rivers of lava flowing down the pali, or even the explosive activity as lava pours into the sea, that new vent at the summit speaks volumes of the power within Kilauea! It's awesome. And anyone that hasn't taken the opportunity to go up and sit with it for a spell, really should! It's fantastic at dawn.
The one thing that gets me (I have been a photographer documenting Kilauea since Puu Oo started eruption in 1983) is how I can not get the feeling of that vent into a regular photograph. Try as I might, shooting all times of the day and night, with every conceivable lens, it just doesn't come out conveying the feeling I get standing on the edge of the caldera looking at it. The picture needs the whole thing, the summit caldera, AND Mauna Loa too, and needs it BIG, you need to be able to see the Nene, every nuance of every texture.. color.. in order to begin to give the viewer even a fraction of the sense of power I feel while sitting on that craters edge.
The one thing that gets me (I have been a photographer documenting Kilauea since Puu Oo started eruption in 1983) is how I can not get the feeling of that vent into a regular photograph. Try as I might, shooting all times of the day and night, with every conceivable lens, it just doesn't come out conveying the feeling I get standing on the edge of the caldera looking at it. The picture needs the whole thing, the summit caldera, AND Mauna Loa too, and needs it BIG, you need to be able to see the Nene, every nuance of every texture.. color.. in order to begin to give the viewer even a fraction of the sense of power I feel while sitting on that craters edge.