A Tale of Three Milky Way Photos
Part One: "Spoon-fed, from a Silver Platter"
Dark sky location, check.
Above cloud cover, check. (9,300 ft above sea level!)
Low humidity, check.
Good weather, check.
Away from artificial light with virtually zero light pollution... Check. Even with a bright quarter moon, you still have a fighting chance - definitely the right place to shoot a Milky Way. In fact, this is one of the best places in the world to do this. You just have to be there at the right time to shoot the Milky Way's Galactic Center: that insanely picturesque and ethereally beautiful cloudy cluster of red giant stars. (See those storm clouds in some of the photos? Without their torrential rains driving us out of the coast, we wouldn’t have gone up all the way to Mauna Kea.) And being there at the right time without planning for it? That's a God-orchestrated "qarah" moment.
36 cinematic photos from Ryan & Angela's adventure engagement photoshoot in Hawaii (The Big Island), featuring location photos of Honokohau Beach, Kona lava fields, Downtown Kailua-Kona and Mauna Kea Observatories, and Kona-Kailua, HI, USA. September 2015. Destination pre wedding photography x @redsheepphotocinema. Color remastered April 2022.