Ben Finch Photography » Award Winning Fine Art Wedding, Lifestyle & Editorial Photographer

Almost from the moment we were married, Jennifer has been planning a trip to Hawaii for our 10-year anniversary.  A big milestone deserves a big trip, right?  Speaking of big milestones, I just celebrated my third decade; that’s right, I turned the big 3-0 on Christmas Eve!  Despite Ben and others telling me thirty was not bad at all, I still had my reservations.  So, around June of 2011, Jenn and I decided to take our Hawaiian vacation about 3 years early.  What better place to take your mind off the trauma of turning thirty than Maui?  Also, it was 5 time zones to the west so I would also be delaying the inevitable for as long as possible!  Fast forward a few months from June and our lives have changed quite a bit; we found out Jenn was expecting our first child in June!  Suddenly, 30 was a number no longer feared; it was the year I was going to become a father!  All of my trepidations about aging were suddenly gone.  Of course, the Hawaii trip was already booked, so we somehow forced ourselves to go…HA!  The following are some of the images I captured on our Hawaiian Christmas vacation.

We were anticipating nothing but sunshine, but we arrived to rain.  Here, the island of Lanai is surrounded by rain clouds.

On Christmas Eve, my birthday gift to myself was to wake up early and drive around the western part of the island photographing the scenery.

This is my favorite image from the trip!

We later visited the blow hole.  It’s a natural formation where a hole has worn in the lava near the coast.  When high tide comes around, the waves crashing into the coast send geysers of water 50+ feet in the air.

In my opinion, the stunning landscape can only truly be appreciated from the air.  Here, clouds cover the western volcano of Mauna Kahalawai.

We decided to attend a luau one evening.

On the grounds of the luau, flamingos and ducks roamed everywhere.  The seemed pretty uninterested in our presence.

The ladies who performed were all extremely graceful and laid back.

The men on the other hand…  This guy brought the intensity level up a few bars!

One of Maui’s most famous drives, the road to Hana takes you through some of the island’s most scenic locales.

There were plenty of waterfalls to be seen.  Many of them were right beside the road.

In addition to being unique, the black sand beaches were absolutely stunning!

The black sand on this particular beach was actually small bits of lava.  The righthand image shows a lava tube that emptied at the ocean.

We finished our Road to Hana trip with a hike to the Venus Pools.  Some pools were large enough to allow cliff jumping…

…while others were so tranquil that is was difficult to determine where land ended and water began.

Our final evening, we ventured up the eastern volcano, Haleakala.  This enormous mountain stretches 10,023 feet above sea level.  At the very tip, there is a massive observatory nicknamed Science City.

It’s not everyday that you get to witness a sunset from above the clouds!

As the last bits of light faded from the sky, Science City opened up a 13+ foot telescope…the largest of its kind in the world!  I was definitely jealous!

As darkness arrived, the sliver of a new crescent moon looks down on Science City.  On the left, the white dot between the moon and the observatory is not dust on your screen; it’s actually Venus.  On the right, a quick lens change brought the moon a bit closer.

With the sun now below the horizon, millions upon millions of stars appeared overhead.  The Milky Way Galaxy was easily visible, and the image on the left shows it above the cities in the valley.  If you look closely to the left of the Milky Way, you’ll notice another galaxy, the Andromeda Galaxy (cropped and circled on the right).

Here’s that same galaxy through my telescope in an image I took last year.  (And that is how you seamlessly…and shamelessly…promote your own astrophotography in a normal blog post!)

I was having to push my camera gear pretty hard to bring out the Milky Way, and this was introducing some noise and streaky stars (two things that I hate).  Therefore, I brought the settings back to a more normal level for my final image of the trip.  This was my second favorite; I LOVE how the lights of the cities make the clouds appear to be on fire.