Dramatic photograph of a cluster of stones found along the black sand beach of Pololu Valley.

I needed to drop off some metal prints at the Ackerman Galleries in Hawi and decided to make a day out of the long drive. Hiking into Pololu Valley is one of my favorite things to do on the island… not to mention I needed the exercise. Without the push to get out of the house I may have just stayed home all day to later form into a slug.

During the past several weeks I have been reviewing a lot of older images that I wanted to re-work with new techniques I have learned over the last few years. One of the images I stumbled upon was a composition of 2 stones on the black sand beach of Pololu with the green sand trail left behind it from the surf. The only issue was the upper portion of the image was out of focus. At that moment I wanted to get back down to the valley to study the stones and sand as it mingled with the surf in-order to correct the oversight in the older image.

Down in the valley the stones were dispersed across the beach in hundreds of different patterns and I was studying them for the perfect composition. It took me a while before I settled on this cluster of stones, but then I suddenly realized that they dramatically shift after every wave that passes by when one stones I was looking at suddenly dissapeared. I placed my tripod over the stones and aimed the camera nearly straight down and exposed for a few seconds at 22 aperture. Then a wave came in and my tripod sunk into the sand, stones moved around, and the sand texture shifted making me reset focus and composition. It was a quick complicated dance I learned after a few steps that lasted nearly an hour.

The trip was relaxing, fun, and memorable.

© Christopher Johnson