Photography: Big Island, Hawaii

Kona Coast Photo Study Beachside Photography + Editing Exercise | Personal Series, 2025 Project Story On a dawn-to-dusk sprint along Hawaiʻi Island’s Kona side, I built a four-image study that tracks the coast’s mood swings in real time. From cobalt pre-sunrise over the Kohanaiki lava shelves to molten-gold dusk at Magic Sands, each frame spotlights one element—texture, tone, movement, or hush—so the set reads like four chapters of the same day. My Contribution Location Spotting – Pinned four micro-environments within a 15-mile loop: jagged lava outcrop, glass-still tide pool, powder-sand crescent, and tide-polished basalt shelf. Field Technique – Shot handheld on a Canon Rebel T5i (APS-C) with the 18-55 mm kit lens, CPL, and variable ND; bracketed exposures and timed wave sets for clean leading lines. Post-Production – Balanced highlight roll-off against deep basalt shadow, graded a cool-shadow / warm-midtone palette, and cleaned salt-spray artifacts in Lightroom + Photoshop. Curation – Sequenced the four finals as a chronological quadriptych—pre-dawn, high noon, golden hour, twilight—to let Kona’s fast-shifting light tell the story. Result A minimalist four-image gallery that shows I can coax pro-level results out of consumer-grade gear, tame high-contrast coastal light, and weave a tight visual narrative—adding a calm, atmospheric counterpoint to the motion and product work in my portfolio.