Robert Swanson's photos with the keyword: hawaii

Taken during one of our morning walks near our Maui house. Some amazing skies to be experienced. Image processed with GIMP.

Our house on Maui (left) got a retaining wall. This is the start of the project, where all you have are rocks. The walls on Maui (and I think many other islands) were built by people from Tonga. They seemed to be the only ones in the business. Our neighbor's house (right) already has a retaining wall. (Oh yes, our, and our neighbor's fences are in the picture, too. Our "lanai" is above the garage. We spent many hours there watching the beautiful scenery, and the shipping in the harbor.) Image processed with GIMP.

Taken in 2007, this is a small shopping area near the big mall in Kahului. These buildings probably date from the 1950's and are typical of the "local" shopping and businesses. The terrible fire in Lahaina is obviously more recent, but keep in mind that this smaller area burned just 2 years before I took this photo (February 27, 2005). Buildings in the area caught fire during a day of very strong trade winds. A large local grocery store, and several businesses were destroyed before the fire department could arrive. We saw the fire from our house, and watched as all of the nearby wooden buildings (similar to this one) burned. - - - - - I failed to add this when I posted the photo. This was 2007, and cell phones were quite popular on Maui. However, the people here are just "talking story" as they say in the Islands. No one seems to be "head down" with their cell phone. The family in the background are enjoying lunch at the picnic tables in front of a restaurant.

The front area of the Baldwin Home Museum in Lahaina. We were there around the holidays, which explains the Christmas decorations on the street light poles. Looks like a nice place to sit and enjoy the endless parade. (UPDATE 2023: I fear that these buildings are now just smoking ruins.) Image processed with GIMP.

Looking across to our neighbor's house on Maui, 2004. This was one of the earlier digital photos we took. Today we enjoy looking back at the wonderful warm day on Maui, while it is plenty cold here in South Dakota. (Many stories about our neighbors and neighborhood back then....) Image processed with GIMP.

Taken at the Wahiawa Botanical Garden on Oah'u during our 2007 long weekend visit. These trees were quite impressive, with their trunks looking like the thighs of dinosaurs. The image seemed to look better to me in monochrome. Taken with the Nikon D50 and processed with GIMP and UFRaw. For more photos, see: swansonphotos.com/oahu_2007.html

We took a long weekend and flew from Maui to Honolulu. One of the photo opportunities we took was a visit to a bamboo forest at the Wahiawa Botanical Garden on Oah'u. While swatting mosquitoes, we got some good photos. This looks OK in color, but I like it more, after converting to monochrome. Taken in 2007 using the Nikon D50. Image processed with UFRaw and GIMP. For more photos, see: swansonphotos.com/oahu_2007.html

We lived on Maui for 10 years. During that time, we lived in a house facing east. So we saw (and photographed) a lot of sunrises, some of them other-worldly. However, we rarely saw any sunsets on Maui. Many visitors to the island rave about the magnificent views they get on the west side of the island. Well, we DID get a few sunset photos, primarily while visiting friends on the other side. This is a sunset over the island of Lana'i. Some sunrise photos at: swansonphotos.com/picture_gallery.html

At least I call it by that name. This was a tree along a golf course on Maui. I was driving to work, and spotted this sunrise and tree silhouette.

We were on another cruise ship, docked in Honolulu Harbor. Across the way was the Regal Princess, a P & O cruise ship, based in Australia.

The sun was blasting through the clouds around Haleakala, to spray its crepuscular rays around, while the palm trees swayed in the trade winds. In other words, another beautiful day in Paradise (Maui).