Pele's Breath [explored] - a photo on Flickriver

Going back to Hawaii for this shot from the crater of Mt Kilauea on a foggy night. It was a very surreal experience up here alone at night surrounded by fog. The glow of the lava pool was reflected by the low lying cloud and the rising steam joined the cloud. What struck me most was the eerie quiet in the presence of such an awesomely powerful force. In fact I could hear nothing at all until I got very close to the crater rim, and there I could hear just a faint rush of air from the rising column of steam, almost like the rhythmic breath of a slumbering giant.

Followers of Kevin Benedict's stream will recognize this photo as very similar to one Kevin posted a few weeks back. I always try for a different comp than what Kevin has picked out, and it's always interesting to see how much variety we get from the same location. Here I say, without humbleness, that I think Kevin outdid me with the wider shot and the tree silhouette against the steam column. But take a look for yourself and see what you think:
flic.kr/p/GXRXWK

Not long after we took these shots, the layer of cloud moved in even more thickly, and surprisingly quickly. The crater light was quickly dimmed down to nothing (which, given the intensity of it, I did not think would be possible) and we literally had to watch our feet as we followed the trail back to the carpark, lest we unknowingly tumble over the crater rim or plunge in to one of the many steam vents that surround the area. I truly understood why the ancient Hawaiians would worship the volcano as a living entity - it certainly felt like one that night, thankfully she was peacefully asleep. I cannot wait to go back to Hawaii again.

Taken in: United States / Hawaii / Volcano (show map)

Taken on: July 15, 2016

Tags:

Hawaii

Kilauea

glow

lava

cloud

steam

silhouette

red

orange

mountain

Volcanoes National Park

Pentax K-3ii

Pentax 15-30mm

EarthNatureLife « less

Sets appears in: • SKY • Hawaii more » • **My Best Of** « less

Groups appears in: • Earth Science Teaching Resource • *Earth *Nature *Life more » • in explore • * Best of nature photography « less

Stats: 65,376 views / 92 comments

go back

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder