My wife, in a stroke of genius, found a house to rent on airbnb inside the restricted Kalapana Gardens area. That gave us much closer access to the lava fields from that side.

Lava flows into the ocean from the Hawaii Volcano National Park side of the lava flow from the Kilauea volcano on the Big Island.

Sunset on the lava flows reminds me of Burning Man. It is way too crowded and there are a lot of people doing a lot of silly things just because they see other people doing it, like walking across glowing lava rock in tennis shoes.

Lava entering the sea from the Volcano National Park side in Hawaii. Give yourself several days if you want good photographs, on this day, the only day there was a clear view of the sea entry from land like this, there were sustained 30 mph winds blowing fumes and making any telephoto work on a tripod impossible.

A view of the lava ocean entry from the Kalapana side. This wasn’t as photogenic as the other side, and the sea entry had gone completely into a lava tube the day we left, but two days later as we were at the airport headed home, a large breakout apparently started cascading over the cliff face nearly 400 ft wide. It changes every hour.

Our first night we flew in 6 hours, drove 3 hours then hiked for 4.2 miles. We decided to just sleep out on the lava field as the easiest thing to do in order to have an opportunity to shoot sunrise and sunset. The winds howled all night long, and around 2am turned noticeably warmer. I got up and found that the lava had come to within 200 feet of where we were sleeping.

Photographically the lava presents many problems. During the day, even the big flowing breakouts appear a dull orange. During the blue of dusk and dawn things look the best to me, but if you have any breakout, or moving lava, it is so intensely yellow and bright that it was impossible to photograph with a digital camera without going out of gamut. So I started looking for formations that were starting to cool and no longer moving and found those balanced out the best.

Photographically the lava presents many problems. During the day, even the big flowing breakouts appear a dull orange. During the blue of dusk and dawn things look the best to me, but if you have any breakout, or moving lava, it is so intensely yellow and bright that it was impossible to photograph with a digital camera without going out of gamut. So I started looking for formations that were starting to cool and no longer moving and found those balanced out the best.

One morning when I hiked in around 2 am, there was a large flowing river of magma running straight into the ocean. It was so hot and bright that we could feel it from the cliff. It was also so bright, that at 2am, I got a choice of a strip of well exposed lava and nothing else, or some surrounding texture and blown-out lava. I bracketed and did some blending in post, but found that some only worked as black and white. Oh, and when I came back to this spot around 4:30 am to shoot the sunrise, the entire flow of lava had stopped. Only a small glow from the tube at the end. Did I mention it changes every hour?

We booked a sunrise lava boat for one day just to see what that angle looked like. It was worth it, the boats all got really close and spent plenty of time. The lava wasn’t too active on this particular day, but you never know. Although I rarely saw a large group of people at sunrise (compared to the insanity of the sunset crowds) there was a local party and about 20 people decided to take the after-party out onto the lava fields. I’m surprised they all survived.

A subtle sunrise at the lava ocean entry seen from the boat.

The end of the lava tube emptying into the ocean. The ocean entry points change the fastest with the water cooling the lava surface and allowing quicker formation of tubes.

There were three boats operating tours, two small ones like these, and a large 50 footer. Most days I saw the small boats arrive about 2 minutes before the large boat and was disappointed to find we could only get space on the large boat, but it turned out fine as they all get so close that I really wouldn’t want to get closer. At slow speed, the larger boat was actually more stable, making the photography easier, just get in quick and get a seat in front or on the edge, because fully 2/3 of the seats you would be in a center isle and have to shoot over people, not good!

Hawaii volcano national park lava ocean entry 2016.

This was part of the party group. This woman sat on this spot the entire time our boat was out there, over an hour, taking selfies. Just so you know, that hump she was sitting on was not there when I hiked back in at sunset.

One of the more crowded sunrises on the lava field.

Another thing to consider besides wind and weather if you are looking for that epic ocean entry shot is tide. High tide was mostly in the morning while we were there, meaning bigger waves and more explosive impacts with the lava. It also meant the ocean entry spent more time either under water or steaming than being clearly visible. If you are doing some travel planning, which we did not, aim for a time when you have lower tides in the morning.

I took this photo on the second day, after I realized that going to the breakout flows like a moth to light didn’t actually make for better pictures. I slowed down and started looking for compositions with subtly glowing rock instead.

This picture was actually well after the sun came up on a stormy morning. We also had the good fortune to have the remnants of two tropical cyclones pass by during the 4 days I had to shoot. So you can get a better idea of the brightness of the lava by how dark the sky is for a proper exposure.

More subtle glowing compositions to go with the sunrise sky.

This is one of my favorite pictures from the shoot, not only for how it turned out, but for the experience in shooting it. I rented a bike the last evening we were there and rode in about 5pm. Riding the 4.5 miles took me about 25 minutes. It was raining off and on as I was riding, and once I got there, the crowds were gathered along the road and near the sea entry, so I simply walked the other direction. During the time I was there, the more active flows were actually about .5 miles up the coastal plain towards the mountains, but nobody ever went there. So I am out shooting by myself and another squall comes over. It was a windless evening and the only sound was the hiss of the falling raindrops building to a roar as the drops exploded into steam on the super heated rock. This squall built into a real rainstorm and I put my camera away, then looked about realizing I was completely isolated in the steam. I couldn’t see 100 ft. in any direction and the temperature was hotter that the steam room in my gym, so I stripped and enjoyed natures open air sauna for about 10 minutes until the squall passed, then I unpacked my camera and took this picture.

The first night we were there, the lava wasn’t very active so I decided to spend the night trying to do some night photography. I had a lot of fun, and learned to find the subtle leading lines of red that you could barely see, but would seem to explode from the core of the earth on a 20 second exposure. What I did NOT count on, nor even notice until I got home, was that in the extremely hot state my camera was in, digital noise was increased about 100 fold. Where I would normally not have to think about dark frame subtraction on a 2-10 second exposure in the mountains, I found that these time frames yielded thousands of red and blue and green specs that will take hours to remove. So either keep your camera cool, or dark frame every different exposure you use.

The first night we were there, the lava wasn’t very active so I decided to spend the night trying to do some night photography. I had a lot of fun, and learned to find the subtle leading lines of red that you could barely see, but would seem to explode from the core of the earth on a 20 second exposure. What I did NOT count on, nor even notice until I got home, was that in the extremely hot state my camera was in, digital noise was increased about 100 fold. Where I would normally not have to think about dark frame subtraction on a 2-10 second exposure in the mountains, I found that these time frames yielded thousands of red and blue and green specs that will take hours to remove. So either keep your camera cool, or dark frame every different exposure you use.

This was the sign that read “Do not go beyond this point,” and which almost everyone ignored. Sadly, you would have to ignore it to get a decent photo, but as I mentioned before, the lava field changes every hour. One morning it may be perfectly fine to get close in a certain direction, the next morning it may be an orange lake of fire. This sign was up when I arrived at 3am. After the sun came up, the flows had changed and started moving along the road and spreading out and this and one other sign got burnt in that few hour span.

This is the feeling my wife got when she realized she had just accompanied me on our last long hike in or out from the lava fields.

These photos have nothing to do with lava, but I thought this was a really cool experience. The last time we went to Hawaii in 2013 there were two things I really wanted to do that I could not. One was see lava, because it wasn’t flowing, and two was dive with the manta rays, because my wife wasn’t certified and I didn’t feel like ditching her for a night. Well, in the years between that trip and this, Monique got certified and we booked a night manta ray dive with Big Island Divers. It was kind of like Cirque du Solei under water with all the lights, but it was an amazing experience and looked really cool and there are tons of manta rays which like to eat the plankton which is attracted to the light. So they would just fly all around us for an hour, I even had to duck once, they can’t see the best apparently. But it was one of the best night dives ever. Highly recommended.

Hi, Monique here, sharing a few more images. We thought we’d end this post with a few of our “lifestyle” images from the trip… things we do on our down time when not photographing the lava. Top image: I found this cute little “tiny house” on Airbnb inside the Kalapana Gardens housing area. It was a perfect home base and had all the modest amenities we needed. Below left: A mural of Madame Pele, the fire Goddess, in the super crunchy hippy town of Pahoa, she was good to us this year, but since we left, she has doubled her efforts to get the lava flowing in to the sea! At Right: As soon as we landed in Kona, we were starving for lunch, so we just happened upon Da Poke Shack, not knowing that it is rated as the best Poke in Kona! It is a take out place with only a few spots to sit at the restaurant, but there are several beautiful beaches nearby on Alii Drive that you can have a picnic with a view. Below left: Rambuton, papaya, mango and those little sweet bananas were a staple for breakfast. Middle: A lonely jungle road in the Puna district to the east of the lava flow, where we spent our down time at Kehena Beach, a black sand beach, swimming and napping, and visiting warm springs pools. At right: On our last day we spent time at Waialea Beach north of Kona where we found our own private cove for skinny dipping and skinny snorkeling. Bottom left: the other black sand beach in the Kalapana area that is slowly replacing a world famous coconut tree lined beach that was wiped out from a lava flow in 1986-92 Pu’u O’o flow. This area has a long way to go, probably centuries, until the lush jungle returns. Bottom right: On our last evening, we revisited one of our favorite eateries from our first trip, The Big Island Brewhaus in Waimea.