The Beautiful Pu’u Poa Beach in Princeville Kauai

August, 8th 2022

The first time I visited this beach a year ago I came without my camera and was kicking myself for not being prepared. Not a total loss as I did have my drone and got some killer aerial shots around the bay, however, I talked myself out of taking additional gear. I learned my lesson and packed my camera, lenses, and dismantled my tripod into several pieces in-order to fit in my carry on. The tripod is a huge waste of space. This is when I discovered that Peak Designs makes an amazing travel tripod that has the smallest profile of any tripod I have ever seen. More on this after my review in a few weeks.

Pu’u Poa beach is beautiful. A great place to relax and enjoy the day with the ability to sunbathe or seek shelter under the natural overhanging canopy of the tropical almond trees. The golden sand meets the warm shallow water while the canopy of leaves kiss the ocean a couple feet away from the shoreline. A few openings in the leaves reveal the distant mountains and open waters of Hanalei Bay. It’s at one of these openings that I am setup and waiting for the light to be perfect.

Summer time is difficult to photograph due to the tropical storms and hurricanes. Extra humidity fills the air and clouds form just over the horizon making the colors die quickly. That was the case during this shoot. This is why I always begin shooting early to capture the light that is just a little warmer, but in a lot of cases too bright for slow shutter effects. My focus is on the backlit leaves and to make them fairly sharp and to frame the distant mountains. Lucky enough the sun gave me a little bit of color just before it faded. This is the resulting image. I plan to return for another attempt.

Thank you for reading.

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Additional images taken while waiting for the sun to start setting.

 

For more images of Kauai please view my Kauai Aerial Images post.