In Colorado, where I live, you can see forever. Drive in from our airport (whose code should be BFE, not DEN), and you can easily see Pikes Peak some 80 miles south, and Longs Peak, some 55 miles to the north. Compass points of comfort — I grew up always knowing my place in this big, wide landscape.

I bring this up because the Dominican Republic couldn’t be any more different in this regard. Driving along the North Coast Highway, from Puerto Plata to Playa Grande, you hardly ever see the ocean even though its within spitting distance to the left. Trees and development obscure the view most of the way, with only a few tantalizing glimpses of cerulean blue here and there.

What this does for a traveler, in effect, is increase the potential for massive surprises. I wouldn’t have thought much of Sosua based on my first impression. Another town, crowded sidewalks, wires crossing the airspace over the road, motorcyclists dodging in and out of traffic, and then poof — you’re back in the countryside. Why would we go back?

Well, as it turns out, Sosua has an amazing beach nestled on a big bay, and its from here that many of the area’s scuba trips and booze cruises launch from. On our second day at the Ocean Manor Resort in Cabarete, we were alerted to a snorkeling trip done out of Sosua, and so we decided to check the town out. Unfortunately, the first time, the waves were up and the weather was awful for snorkeling, but as serendipity goes sometimes, we found ourselves strolling the sandy-bottomed commercial strip adjacent to Sosua’s beach.

When you travel with a toddler, you can’t help but see through their eyes. Varenna’s curiosity made Sosua an even richer experience. “C’mon, Daddy…” she kept saying, beckoning me onto the beach, under a tree, to a storefront, to a comfy looking chair.

And the hawkers did their best to woe her as a means to melt our hearts—I mean open our wallets. “You want a toy?” they’d ask her. “Look, she loves this inflatable alligator. I sell it to you as a good deal.” Not knowing any better, Varenna would wrap her hands on the toy, and Hailey and I would have to unravel the sale. It was harmless, and all part of the scene, but it made for some entertaining moments.

One purchase we couldn’t deny her was when she plopped herself at a cafe table and exclaimed “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

We ordered a hot dog for her and a beer for daddy, and then she charmed the guys who were hanging out nearby with her elementary Spanish: “HOLA! HOLA? HolacomoSTASS!”

She left with a seashell, and we returned a couple of days later to try the snorkeling. It was an experience not worth repeating. The promise of a trip to explore a protected cove where we could snorkel from the boat or from the beach (where I planned to hang out with Varenna while Hailey and her mom dove in) proved to be a bumpy boat ride to a random reef with little variety of fish and no way to be placed on the beach. So I clutched Varenna in my lap for an hour while we bobbed at sea. Big let down.

But in the end, Sosua was a delightful little spot. Don’t let the main strip fool you.

Hailey, Varenna and I just returned last weekend from a six-day vacation in Cabarete, a beach town on the north shore of the Dominican Republic. We traveled with Hailey’s mom, Diana, who instigated the trip last April. The logic was like many vacations hatched for this time of the year: some place warm, with sand and surf. No other requirements.

Why Cabarete? Well, we had access to a timeshare there, and it afforded all the things we needed: a two-room suite with views of the Caribbean Sea. Food? Included. Drink? Yep, that too. We were determined to rediscover loafing.

And it was because of this that I had low expectations for photography. It seemed that we wouldn’t stray too far from the resort, and while we had a rental car, we didn’t plan to use it much (on account we had read in Lonely Planet that the roads were treacherous and that the rules of the road were non-existent).

While I had recently bought a new lens — and I was eager to try out (a Canon 24mm-105mm f4) — I was remarkably less-than-obsessed with my usual vacation routine: waking at dawn, shoulder-slung lens bag for quick access, “can I take a photo of you?” memorized in the local language…

We were going for the main purpose of relaxing on a beach. We had few ambitions. Sigh.

(click on image for a larger view)

What we did discover was that driving in the D.R. really isn’t that bad. It’s just different.

After the 30-minute drive from Puerto Plata Airport to the Ocean Manor in Cabarete, I was brimming with confidence. String of mopeds going 15mph? Just skirt right by them. Massive dump truck riding your bumper? Just ease to the side and wave him around on the next straightaway. Donkey on the road? Keep an eye on him but keep going. Cattle drive covering the highway? Yield to the ones with horns (if you want your damage deposit back from Avis, that is).

We arrived on Sunday, and by Tuesday we had abandoned the loafing game plan and hit the road — our curiosity piqued by the drive in, the desire to see Playa Grande, and a renewed sense of road-worthiness. It was a sign of things to come, for throughout our six-night stay, we drove to Rio San Juan and Playa Grande (twice), hung out in Sosua (twice) and checked out the beach scene in downtown Cabarete. Without a rental car, we probably would have loafed a lot more, and — I believe — we would have had a lot less fun.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say that driving the highway along the Dominican Republic’s North Shore was my favorite part of the trip. The only tough part of driving was staying alert in the urban areas. The roads are maybe a lane and a half wide, so we encountered plenty of tight squeezes paired with sudden motorbike merges.

But without a rental car, I don’t think I would have had any assessment of the country — its rugged landscape, it’s people, everyday life. All of that would have been based on what I’d read while loafing. That just doesn’t feel right to me.

And so, it turns out we’re not very good at loafing.

This was the fourth vacation we’ve gone on with our daughter, Varenna. I guess its not surprising, but I have to make note of the fact that each time we go somewhere with her it just gets better. She is an incredible observer, picking up on the smallest details, the distant sounds, and even nuances you’d expect a 2-year-old to miss, such as the fact that locals use a different language than us. She quickly learned to say “¿Hola, como estas?” as a form of greeting. This delighted every Dominican she came across.

And she learned to overcome some anxieties around water, especially the ocean. Its very rewarding as a father to watch your daughter evolve in a matter of days, from timidity to just-the-right-amount-of-confidence. Of course, this conquering of Wave Terror also happened the day we were leaving, which meant a lot of her clothes were wetter than we wanted in the suitcase — and let me tell you, nothing’s smellier than a toddler’s seawater-addler clothes after 16 hours in a suitcase.

But so what? That’s what a true vacation is about, right?

Roxborough State Park — located about 45 minutes southwest of Denver — has long been a favorite stomping ground for me, especially in the last 11 years, since my parents moved out that way. It’s quiet, filled with wildlife, and defined by a series of sandstone fins rising upwards of 175 feet over the valley. This is the same geological formation as Red Rocks Amphitheater and Colorado Springs’ Garden of the Gods, only it rises up from the hogbacks in a more hidden, lesser traveled part of the Front Range, making it more intimate and — in my mind — more spectacular.

I had very close friends from Tennessee visiting for New Years, and since we didn’t have time for a run up to Steamboat Springs — or any of the mountains for that matter — I opted to take them out to my parent’s house and walk into the park. As soon as we set off from the house, we were greeted by this scene, of the half moon positioned right in the midst of a formation we’ve always called The Molar. It wasn’t quite as dramatic as the Matterhorn eclipsing the moon, but it was cool nonetheless.

It took nearly an hour to discover what was happening.

We had hiked up to this meadow just outside Zermatt, on the trail that eventually leads to Zmutt and the North Face of the Matterhorn. It was getting hot, and Varenna was inspecting the gravel on the trail, handing her best specimens to Mom, and then pushing her stroller like the big girl she was proclaiming to be (“bick guhr! bick gurh!). We were all content, and not planning to go too far. After all, this appeared to be it: the iconic view of the Matterhorn, the one that conjures visions of alpenhorns and men yodeling “Ri-co-la” into the crisp glacial air.

But as we turned to head back to town, the moon was suddenly quite noticeable and on a very interesting course.

(Click on image for a larger version)

And so, over the course of maybe 20 minutes, it swooped low, landed on the summit of the Matterhorn, and temporarily turned the world’s most famous mountain into a Santa hat.

It disappeared, then reemerged, like an arrow piercing the heart of Switzerland and coming out the other side. It was our second-to-last full day in the country, but it felt like an apt conclusion to the trip.

Here’s my dilemma: I have too many good photos from the Berner Oberland for one post.

This has little to do with me and my photography skills. It has everything to do with the extreme beauty of the area. Never before have I been anywhere as dramatic and scenic as this alpine region smack in the middle of Switzerland. We spent almost an entire week here, and it still wasn’t enough. Every day was different, and we kept moving, but even then, I can’t pretend that I am a fountain of definitive photography knowledge on the area.

But what I did learn, I’m putting here, so hopefully there are a few kernels of insight.

In full disclosure, I ran out of time (and money) in the valley to shoot the following areas: Interlaken, Brienzsee, Thunersee, Jungfraujoch, Shilthorn/Piz Gloria, Schynige Platte, Gimmelwald, Grindelwald, First/Bachalpsee and — tops on my Unfinished Business List — Hinteres Lauterbrunnental.

That’s a ton. In fact, if you are reading this because you are researching a vacation in the area, it may sound like I didn’t see any of the big sights. Not true. There’s just simply that much to see and shoot in the Berner Oberland.

This post covers the following subjects:

• The Lauterbrunnen Valley
• The Jungfrau
• The Jungfraubahn

Part 2 will cover:

• The Eiger
• The Mönch
• Staubbach Falls
• Mürren
• Swiss life
• Cows, cows, and more cows.

I’ve included a Google Map of these places — and where I took these images — at the bottom of this post.

Photographing the Lauterbrunnen Valley…
The only way I can describe this area is to compare it to two places I’ve never been (how stupid is that?) — imagine Yosemite Valley with the Himalaya plopped on top of it. Hyperbole? Not really. The town of Lauterbrunnen, at the bottom of the valley, sits at an elevation of 2,608 feet. In addition to having the 1,000-foot-tall Staubbach Falls dumping huge volumes of water on its head, the town is overwhelmed by the 13,642-foot Jungfrau, which soars over the valley just 4.5 miles away. Basically, in the distance between Central Park and the Brooklyn Bridge, the Jungfrau rises 11,000 feet higher than Lauterbrunnen, the equivalent of nine Empire State Buildings.

Capturing the beautiful colors and textures of the Lauterbrunnen Valley is easy — capturing its massive scale is extraordinarily tough.

There are three ways to approach this potato — (a) from the valley floor, (b) from just above Lauterbrunnen, and (c) from the top looking down.

I’ve always felt the latter fails to do a place justice photographically speaking, but if you have to get that all-incompassing wide-angle shot from the top, the terminus of the Männlichen lift above Wengen is the place to go (see photo at the top of this post — that’s the view from the Männlichen looking over the Lauberhorn to the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, rather than down into the valley).

A far better option to capture the scale of the Lauterbrunnen Valley is along the cog-railway route from Lauterbrunnen to the town of Wengen. The first view opens up shortly after leaving the Lauterbrunnen train station. The railroad bends uphill, crosses the Weiss Lütschine River and reveals a magnificent view of Staubbach Falls, the town’s chapel, the valley cliffs and the snow-draped Alps in the distance (first photo in this section).

The other priceless view of the valley opens up just before the train reaches Wengen. Make sure you are seated on the right side of the train just after the Wengwald train stop. The view (above) lasts for only 20 seconds or so, but it encompasses the falls, the massive cliffs, the summits of the Breithorn and Jungfrau, and a magnificent foreground of Swiss chalets and emerald pasture. Since you are shooting from a moving train, be sure to have a faster shutter speed. I even went so far to shoot on a motordrive to increase the chances I’d have the right cropping when all was said and done.

Photographing the Jungfrau…
I will admit that I missed a key component to the “Jungfrau’s experience” — at more than 100 CHF roundtrip, we opted to skip the Jungfraujoch, the high-altitude train station situated on the saddle between the Jungfrau and the Mönch that is marketed as “The Top of Europe.” It was sacrificed at the altar of 6 CHF bottled water and all the other gouge-jobs speckled across this beautiful country. We’d just had enough of doling out the cash, and ultimately figured we had plenty to enjoy underneath the Jungfrau.

Frankly, I have never seen a mountain more domineering than the Jungfrau. It’s sheer volume, scale and steepness brought an instant dose of humility. Ultimately, I found dozens of great vantage points to shoot this peak, even during early morning strolls outside our hotel in Wengen, where I snapped this shot. Ultimately, the best place to capture the rugged and imposing soul of the Jungfrau is right underneath it, where trails bisect lush meadows (above image), quaint little trains chug by on the Jungfraubahn and Wengenalpbahn, and traditional Swiss huts are overwhelmed by the mountain’s scale. We took the train to the Eiger Glacier station and hiked down to Kleine Scheidegg and Wengenalp. With our daughter it took the better part of a day, but at every turn, a new face to the Jungfrau was revealed.

The other “must” for shooting the Jungfrau is from the Mürren side of the Lauterbrunnen Valley, particularly in the town of Mürren itself, where you face the narrowing chasm of the Lauterbrunnen Valley and the sheer western wall of the Jungfrau. The quaint little choo-choo ride from Grütschalp to Mürren is also great for the precision art form of hanging-out-the-window photography. (Or, you can walk the trails in the area, too, and get the same killer views with better foregrounds … we had a baby on board).

Photographing the Jungfraubahn…

At certain points on the trip, I found myself wondering if certain attractions are more about the Swiss engineering than the natural features of the land. Few tourist draws demonstrate this better than the Jungfraubahn, which burrows into the face of the Eiger, hangs a sharp right, burrows through the guts of the Mönch and pops out at the Jungfraujoch, a snow-and-ice clad saddle at 11,332 feet. There, a whole tourism infrastructure of amusements has been erected, including an observatory atop a rock outcrop called The Sphinx.

The Jungfraujoch is the tallest railway station in Europe, which begs the question: there’s a railway station higher than this? (Yes. The Tanggula Railways Station in Tibet is a ridiculous 16,627 feet high). More incredibly, the tunnel and railway were built between 1896 and 1912. I think lightbulbs were also a rather novel new invention at that time.

Well, Swiss engineering aside, the Jungfraubahn is really a beautiful train to look at, and its bright red trolley cars chugging underneath the burly mountains is really one of the most romantic — and iconic — images of Europe. All along the hiking path between the Eiger Glacier train station and Kleine Scheidegg, there are great views of the Jungfrau, Mönch and Eiger with train tracks running in the foreground, and since the train goes by roughly every 10 minutes, its photographically like shooting fish in a barrel. What makes it such a striking image is the bright red of the train cars contrasted with the various shades of green and blue in the landscape. You get bonus points if you can somehow capture the wildflowers, too, but I was unsuccessful.

The train + landscape shot is easy pickings. But getting the story behind the train, and the sheer madness of its existence, is another matter. I managed to photograph the fleeting moment of a tourist smiling out the window of the train as it chugged out of the Eiger Glacier station with a tilt-shift (above left). Pure luck, but it was about the closest thing I got to capturing the excitement of the Jungfraubahn.

Part 2 will include more on the area, including the Eiger and cows.

Lucerne is said to be one of Europe’s most beautiful cities. I still have a lot of Europe to cover, but its hard to imagine a cleaner, more idyllic, more photogenic city than Lucerne. The place seems designed for postcards, coffeetable books and small 1-inch-by-1-inch decorative chocolate wrappers.

To get my best shots in Lucerne, I made my way to these places:

Capturing Blue Hour

There is a certain moment at dusk when an urban landscape looks its best. The grit fades into the shadows, the sky holds an ethereal cobalt, and the light of the buildings and streetlamps twinkle to life. It doesn’t last long, and in Lucerne I only had one true crack at it: the last night we were there. The previous two evenings I was too exhausted and jetlagged, and because the sun sets so late in Switzerland in June, I ducked in early before blue hour happened.

Fortunately, in the limited window I had, I lucked out and found one of the best vantage points in Lucerne. In the Google Map, I’ve labeled this image Jesuit Church at Blue Hour, and it was taken along the northern shore of the Reuss River.

Elements of Lucerne remind me of Venice — the stately bridges crossing placid water, the waterside restaurants with tourist menus in four languages, loads of drunks shouting into the wee hours (just add a thick cloud of rotting fish to the air and it might complete the vibe). This location, I feel, showed Lucerne at its romantic best.

Here’s another angle I played with while I had a quasi-blue hour. Like much of Europe in summer, dusk seems to last forever. It wasn’t really dark until 10pm or so, and since we were traveling with a 1-year-old, it was hard for all three of us to stay up that late. Still, from about 8:45pm to 9:45pm, there is a dwindled light that is fun to work with. From the Lake Bridge, you have this beautiful angle of both the Chapel Bridge and the Jesuit Church, with white swans in motion.

Working With Perspective

The crown jewel of Lucerne is the wooden Chapel Bridge, or Kapellbrücke, which spans the River Reuss on a diagonal. Dating back to 1333, it is historically important on two accounts: It is the oldest covered wooden bridge in Europe and the world’s oldest surviving truss bridge. It’s long corridor is decorated with paintings depicting the city’s history, though, tragically, many of these were lost in the 1993 fire that devastated much of the bridge (a boat moored to the bridge caught fire and it quickly spread).

Draped with colorful pansies and crowned by a stately brick tower, the Chapel Bridge’s exterior captures all the postcard attention. But I found the interior of the bridge provides more opportunities for creative photography. The bridge’s natural linear perspective, its artistic details, and the opportunity to incorporate the cityscape into the shot, all pose unique challenges.

The locations for the above and below photos are listed on the Google Map as Interior Chapel Bridge Shots and Interior Blue Hour Chapel Bridge, respectively.

The Postcard Shot

On the one sunny day we had in Lucerne, I rose early and so did my daughter, and the two of us cruised around the quiet city for a good 90 minutes. She’s only 1-year-old, and usually patient with me and my happy snapping. The biggest thing in Lucerne that really got her excited were the swans, and this location below — labeled Chapel Bridge and Mt. Pilatus — not only kept her happy and smiling, but it produced one of my favorite shots of the trip. I will post some tilt-shift images from here in a later post.

Beauty in the Details

Later on our trip, we went to Zermatt, where it is easy to get lulled into the habit of placing the Matterhorn in the background of every shot. The Chapel Bridge in Lucerne has a similar effect. It’s kind of like that guy at a wedding who seems to poke his head into every person’s photo and mug for the camera. Truthfully, I’m not sure I got enough variety to my Lucerne shots, but one subject that would have been fun to play with more are the town’s murals.

Colorful, vivid and lively, these painted walls decorate a few of the buildings (mostly restaurants) in the old town quarter of Lucerne. This one (above right, labeled Old Town Murals on the map) seemed to depict the harvest season, hell, and all the reasons why I hate clowns.

And this one (Zunfthaus zu Pfistern) suckered me in because I had never seen a golden pretzel before.

Finally, this fairy-tale like mural lies just across from the Harvest/Hell/Clown Show building. My one struggle in all of this was finding a unique way to frame these paintings. It just felt all too easy to crane my neck up and take a picture like a tourist. Oh well.

And because it’s like that dude at weddings who sneaks into every shot, here’s the Chapel Bridge one more time, from a vantage point labeled Quintessential Chapel Bridge.

Well, here I am, two months after the trip, and I still have the international/sometimes kooky/always delicious flavors of Kauai on my taste buds. Here’s the best of what we had:

1. Puka Dog, Poipu – It’s the kind of food that inspires 1,001 Anthony Bourdain rants about post-hangover cures. A Polish sausage, a hole drilled through it, a tropical relish pumped through the open vein, and the whole thing slathered in garlic sauce and neatly fit into a tubular bun. Located in a shopping center, I’d rank it as the No. 1 reason to visit Poipu, with the snorkeling ranked second.

2. Kintaro, Kapa’a – This Kapa’a institution is unassuming enough (about as thrilling as a Benihana from the outside), but after a long day baking in the sun, this place’s parade of sushi, tepanyaki and other fresh locally caught fish is worth the long wait. On our night there, we enjoyed an incredible peanut-sauce mahi-mahi that may just be the best fish I’ve ever had.

3. Hanalei Taro & Juice Co., Hanalei – This little roadside shed packs a cornucopia of Kauai into its nice paper-plate lunches: Kalua pig, poi, lomi salmon, taro and coconut pudding bread, and taro mac salad (pictured at the top of this post). Much of the taro, if not all, is grown in the nearby taro fields, adding an extra dash of locavorism that can’t be dissed. The servers also dole out delicious smoothies (see Varenna’s smile, above) and ginger lemonade to die for.

4. Kilauea Farmers Market, Kilauea – Held every Tuesday at 4:30pm, the Kilauea Farmers Market starts in earnest with a car horn. It’s over within 30 minutes, as the fresh supply of locally grown apple bananas, papayas, herbs, veggies, and flowers are bought up quickly. I think I saw k.d. lang buying a coconut here, and I definitely ran into an old college buddy, who — as it turns out — is now a full-time farmer on Kauai. Stock up here if you’re renting a house and cooking your own meals.

5. Wishing Well Shave Ice, Hanalei – I personally thought the whole shave-ice experience in Kauai was overrated, until I had Wishing Wells snowball of sweet goodness: piña colada and coconut syrup ice served over Kona coffee ice cream. Took three quarts of water to recover from the teeth-sticking sweetness, but it was so worth it.

6. Kountry Kitchen, Kapa’a – Not much more to say about this country-styled breakfast joint other than two menu items: coconut French toast, and pumpkin-pie pancakes with macademia nuts.

7. Java Kai, Hanalei – True, it’s a bit of a franchise at this point, but I had no idea when Hailey, Varenna and I first walked into Java Kai off the main road in Hanalei. Turns out, we loved it enough to hit it three times on the trip: once for coffee, once again for crack-of-dawn breakfast sandwiches and more java, and a third time for an afternoon Thai coffee and Bone Builder Smoothie (which included pineapple, mango, banana, papaya, orange and ginger). Varenna and I split the smoothie, which may have been the best smoothie I’ve ever had.

8. Duke’s Restaurant, Lihue – Close to the airport and open on Thanksgiving: those were the only two credentials we were looking for on our last night on the island. Fortunately, Duke’s fit both bills, and not only did they serve a mean mai tai, a superb Thanksgiving buffet, and a heavenly seven-spiced ahi with papaya-mustard sauce — they also happened to have a sweet barefoot-on-the-beach vibe that served as the perfect send-off to our week in paradise.

So there you have it: Kauai’s best food and drink in one blog post. Hope the hyperbole wasn’t too overboard.

On the Friday morning before Thanksgiving, I had a feeling my brother was trying to talk us out of going to Waimea Canyon. It was a long drive, he noted. Time on Kauai was precious, and Varenna — our 8-month-old daughter — would be facing backwards for the whole ride. Poipu had a baby beach.

But I acted like the typical younger brother: the more he discouraged it, the more determined I was to go. This was a verdant miniature Grand Canyon, and at the end of the road was a window to the Na Pali Coast. Yes, time on Kauai is precious. But for me, that meant not letting a week slip by without seeing this magnificent sight.

True to his prediction, Varenna had her cranky spells. Who could blame her? Two hours of driving in paradise, facing backwards, on windy roads? Yeah, we were asking a lot of her. And yes, my brother and his family were probably having an awesome time snorkeling with tangs, Moorish idols and sea turtles in Poipu. But fortunately, Varenna’s crying always had a remedy: fresh-air and time in our arms.

She slept from Kapa’a all the way to the State Park’s edge, where we couldn’t resist stopping the car (and therefore, the nap) at a surreal red-water cascade. The series of waterfalls was like a Zen garden on the surface of Mars. I’d never seen anything like it, and truthfully, it was the prettiest scenery of the whole Waimea Canyon area.

A little up the road, we came up the canyon’s main lookout, which we had to share with another 100 people or so. And while overlooks are frustrating for a photographer (little room for creativity, chain-link foregrounds, the same photo everyone else has taken), the gorge’s majesty wasn’t lost on me. Here on a tiny speck in the Pacific Ocean was a mile-wide canyon. How arbitrary.

I had fun trying something new with a tilt-shift lens, and then we moved on.

It had been uncharacteristically dry on Kauai leading up to and during our visit, which unfortunately meant that Waipoo Falls was dry and not even visible.

Beyond the Waipoo Falls turnout, views of the canyon come to an end, and the road climbs up into Kokee State Park. We stopped at a gift shop/restaurant, chased some roosters in the big field across the parking lot, and then made the final push to the two lookouts that gaze down at the Na Pali Coast from a cloud forest ridge.

When we got there, we were greeted by a wall of white. A gauzy mist hung in the air, obstructing the entire view of the Kalalau Valley. Fortunately, we’d read that this was the norm in the afternoon, and that to turn around and head back would be a mistake, as conditions are quick to change.

We spied a bright red songbird flying by, most likely an apapane, a species that only lives in the Hawaiian Island chain and which is critically endangered. It was a reminder that this wasn’t just some brochure paradise. It was a rare and fragile island ecosystem hanging by a thread.

The gauze began to separate within five minutes of our arrival, revealing the most vibrant blue I’ve ever seen in nature — the Pacific Ocean beneath the Na Pali Cliffs. Undulating green and red walls emerged, their sinewy shapes more reminiscent of muscles than mountains. And at last, a full view of the Kalalau Valley, one of the most famous sights in the Pacific.

We lingered for almost an hour, just quietly observing nature in motion. Smokey mist evaporating, then condensing, then lifting, then drifting over the tree tops. It reminded me more of Monteverde, Costa Rica than any other place in Hawaii, with one major difference: in place of distant monkeys calling, I heard the thumping rotors of tourist helicopters.

Oh well. You can’t claim Kauai is perfect, but its a pretty awesome island to behold.

I’d hesitate to say I’m “into gear.” I’d rather read a personal finance blog than the Digital Photography Magazine Buyer’s Guide. In writing, gear is just not interesting.

Where things get interesting for me is when gear enables new techniques. Last year, I used BorrowLenses.com to rent a 200mm prime lens and a 24mm tilt-shift for Holy Week in Mexico. To have two new weapons in my bag made the week’s imagery 100% better. The 200mm allowed for more intimate candid shots during the processions, while the tilt-shift opened up hundreds of doors of creativity for my cityscape and architecture. It was like shooting in a third and fourth dimension.

For Kauai, I once again rented two lenses: this time, a 24mm–105mm zoom lens (a must for the helicopter tour) and a 45mm tilt-shift lens. Once again, the tilt-shift rocked.

Kalihiwai Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 400, 1/2500 sec, f5

Tilt-shift photography is a bit hard to explain, so here’s the Wikipedia page. But in essence, its about manipulation. Tilting manipulates the plane of focus, while shifting reorients the subject in the image area without moving the camera back, thereby eliminating converging lines (handy in architecture imagery). The lens actually moves on the camera body. A knob pivots the lens up and down for tilting, while another knob slides the lens across the front of the camera. A third button rotates the lens on the camera body, so pretty quickly you can get funky.

In Kauai, I was shooting landscapes, and didn’t end up shifting as much as tilting, so all of the images in this post are the product of angling the lens up or down and rotating it on the camera body, and not shifting. I did a brief illustration on the above image to show how tilting alters the plane of focus. On conventional lenses, the focus is related to the distance from the camera (e.g., everything 10 feet away is in focus, while everything closer and further is out of focus). Think of that focused area as a plane. With tilting, that plane is redirected. Suddenly, a swath across the image will be in focus, which in the above image includes my brother Ben and his son Jeremiah some 30 feet away, footprints on the beach 25 feet away, and the surfers bobbing in the distance, some 200 yards away. Meanwhile, the waves 25 feet away, as well as the distant palms trees and nearby footprints, are heavily out of focus. At that moment, I wanted to train the viewers eye to my brother and the surfers at the same time.

Kalihiwai Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 400, 1/3200 sec, f5

Here again I tilted and tried to get the plane of focus to follow the surf line into the distance. I almost nailed it. Because of its nature, shooting with a tilt-shift is all manual focus, so getting it exact is a challenge.

Waimea Canyon; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 200, 1/500 sec, f6.3

Everybody’s favorite effect with the tilt-shift is to “miniaturize” a landscape. By shooting down from a high vantage point and altering the plane of focus, you can make a landscape look like a handcrafted model. My best effort at this is the top image of the Hanalei Valley Lookout, but it also works well here on Waimea Canyon. Again, the key is having an elevated position and tilting down on the scene.

Kalapaki Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 100, 1/1600 sec, f4
Hanalei Valley Taro Fields; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 200, 1/5000 sec, f4

Shooting vertical images with a tilt-shift lens can present its own challenges. I think that’s because I often go vertical when I’m looking up a bit, so as with the sailboat masts on Kalapaki Beach above, or the foreground/mid-ground/background of the taro fields at dusk, executing the right plane of focus can be difficult. Sometimes it works for completely the wrong reasons. The sailboat shot is actually mostly out of focus, but the bow on one boat, the surf and the clumps of palm trees are crisp, giving the shot a surprising intimacy (not what I was going after). On the taro field shot, I should have done a diagonal plane of focus going the other way with the sunbeams. Oh well.

Here are some other experiments:

Palms on Kalapaki Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 100, 1/200 sec, f4

Wailua Falls; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 400, 1/640 sec, f4
Anini Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 800, 1/320 sec, f7.1

Outrigger Canoe on Kalapaki Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 400, 1/250 sec, f4

Palms on Kalapaki Beach; Canon 45mm TS-E, ISO 100, 1/1600 sec, f4

While on Kauai, Hailey and I took a 90-minute helicopter tour of the island with Jack Harter Helicopters. The tour was billed as a photographer’s tour because it went slower and took its time with each section of the trip. Because of this alone, I highly recommend it. Kauai’s interior and much of its coastline is inaccessible (to most of us) and seeing it by air is really the only way to truly get a sense for the island as a whole.

However, don’t kid yourself. Just because its labeled a “photographer’s tour” doesn’t mean you’ll get great shots. In fact, its very hard work to get semi-pro to professional quality shots from these kinds of tours. I’d even go so far as to say you can’t get professional grade images unless you go on a windowless/doorless flight, and risk getting wet (which you will, when the tour heads to Mount Waialeale, the wettest spot on Earth).

Obviously, my No. 1 reason to do the helicopter tour was to get amazing images of the Garden Isle. We dropped a lot of money, and learned a lot along the way. I figured it was worth it to do a photographer’s scouting report for those of you considering a similar trip. Here are six tips to make the most of it:

1.) Try to minimize switching lenses and bring two cameras if you have to – Jack Harter (and probably all other helicopter tours) don’t allow bags, and once you are on the chopper, its easy to see why. Space is tight, and between the straps, life preservers and headphone cords, a bag would be a tangled-up nightmare. So, without a bag, you have to be judicial with what you take. Your chief camera should have a zoom lens (24mm–105mm is ideal). The second camera can have a longer telephoto range or an experimental lens. I had good luck with a prime 200mm f/2.8 lens, but I’d imagine a 300mm would be too close to be practical. Hailey had the second camera and was trying to rock a 45mm tilt-shift, which was incredibly difficult under the conditions, but when it worked, it was amazing (upper right). Also, keep in mind that things happen fast on these tours (and I was on the 90-minute flight), so always stay one step ahead of the pilot in terms of what’s coming up and be prepared to have the right settings ahead of time. The last thing you’d want is to see Weeping Wall, frame the shot, and decide to switch lenses for a better focal length. The view will be gone by the time you’re set.

2.) Don’t fight glare. You can’t win. Just enjoy the views for a moment – Unless your tour is windowless, glare is inevitable, and can be frustrating if you let it bother you (see two examples above … and for the record, that is not a butt crack). They tell passengers on this tour to wear dark clothing to minimize glare, but that didn’t help us: our pilot wore shorts and his thighs were the leading contributors to glare from our angle. My advice? If the glare is bad, put the camera down and just enjoy the moment. You can’t fight it, but you can quickly fail to register just how spectacular that waterfall on the other side of pilot’s thigh-glare is.

3.) Be prepared for any seat in the house – The tour company will seat you specifically based on weigh distribution on the helicopter, so calling shotgun will do you no good. I was seated in the back row middle, which I thought would be the worst seat in the helicopter. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t horrible. I had good luck with the long lenses (24mm–105mm and my 200mm prime) from this spot, but glare was exaggerated from here, especially at wider than 50mm. Hailey was on the left side, back seat, and had less glare, but a whole different problem: the warped glass. Front center and front right would have probably been the best seats for shooting, but they also may have had significant glare. Hard to tell without sitting in that spot.

4.) Best light for the Na Pali Coast is evening light – Our departure was at 9:30am, and by 10:15am we were circling over the highlight of Kauai, the Na Pali Coast. Problem was, we were looking back into the light, which would have been fine if I could maneuver to harness the light. But buckled in, and with lots of glare out the right side of the helicopter, it was difficult to compose shots without major drawbacks. My point is this: it may be worth taking the risk to fly in the afternoon. The weather may set in, the crater may be extra cloudy and wet … heck, the flight might even be cancelled. But if you get sunny conditions in the late afternoon, the Na Pali would be a freaking photographic jackpot. Your call.

5.) Be prepared for darker conditions in the craters and inland valleys – This caught up with me at the Weeping Wall (above right) at the end of the tour, the one cloudy spot we encountered on our extraordinarily sunny trip. After firing a few frames, I realized my shutter speed was teetering around 1/60 second, way too slow to be shooting from a moving vehicle. Sure enough, a lot of the images from inland were throw-aways. It’s easy to just keep the camera on one setting the whole trip and forget about it, but the waterfalls of the interior are one of the most stellar sights on Earth. Best not to miss a shot of them because of complacency.

6.) Embrace post-production – While initially flipping through the 449 images we took while airborne, I had a bit of a sinking feeling. It didn’t appear I had much to show for my efforts. But back home, and after loading everything into Lightroom, it became clear I had a lot of good images. Most of this was just contrast adjustment, some of it was just cloning out a minor glare here and there. Nothing too technical, and nothing that altered the reality of what we saw. In the end, I’m just glad I kept shooting.