@hanahoumag October/November 2025- Photo Issue
Why did you pick this photo?
This image is important to me because it represents a time when a dream came true, when my passion and obsession became reality. Coming home to Hawaii from Los Angeles in 2010 meant figuring out what my future might look like. Shortly after I returned, the USGSâ Hawaiian Volcano Observatory accepted meâa new volunteer-to help scan original glass slides and journals from when the observatory opened in 1912. Out of generosity and by chance, two geologists brought me along in a helicopter over the craters of Halemaâumau and Puâu âOâĂ” to take photos of their aerial lava sampling. That moment made me question: âCould this become a career here on Hawaii Island?â Six years and five hundred flight hours later, another stroke of good fortune budded a growing relationship with Hana Hou!, leading to a story about kipukaâ areas of forest where lava flowed around, protecting themâin 2017, with the help of one of our stateâs most knowledgeable and skilled helicopter pilots,
@volcopters
Whatâs the story behind this photo?
In the good olâ days, we let it rip!
I really wanted to show the grand scale of kipuka, how they are time capsules of our Islandsâ ecological past. The only way to pull that off was to zoom out and give readers a birdâs-eye view. Some kipuka are surrounded by miles of monochrome, overlapping flows of pĂ€hoehoe lava. One was a small brown outcropping carved with petroglyphs in a sea of glassy pahoehoe. This photo shows a sliver of densely packed âohiâa trees surrounded by hot, sharp, rolling âaâa lava just off the Hilina Pali heading down to the ocean. I chose this because it shows how kipuka are formed, preserving a slice of the past.
To you, what makes a photo great?
The same as what makes a person truly great. It needs no explanation or context. It contains something more than the 99.99 percent of what we normally see throughout our lives. Something that represents and extends into the past, present and future all at the same time, effortlessly. A great photo has no âbecause.â It just is.
