He was splayed on the rock like a sinner at an altar, yet his face had the piety of a saint. His heavy shell heaved ever so gently to his belabored breath. Had he swam hundreds of miles to find terra firma? The surf pounding the green-brown rocks did not seem to bother him even a wee bit. He seemed content with his warm spot unmindful of the attention he was getting.
For me, this was a perfect end to a week in Hawai’i. I had been looking for green sea turtles all week long. I spent hours combing the Kahalu’u beach at Kona and Richardson beach at HIlo, both beaches known for Green Sea Turtle sighting, but to no avail.
Here at the picturesque black sand beach of Punalu’u, my quest was complete. My Hawai’i checklist was all ticked.
Photography Notes:
My Nikon 300S was mounted on a tripod. I had the NIkkor 18-200 mm on to get real close to the turtle without having to wade in the water. The sky was overcast. The surf was white as milk. There was very little contrast and color in the frame so I worked the moss covered rocks into my picture. The diffused light allowed me to slow my shutter speed to 1/10th of a second to get the powder effect. I left the WB to auto as I was shooting RAW and I knew I could always adjust the WB in post-processing.
Post Processing Notes:
Most of my post-processing was focused on accentuating the turtle against the milky white surf. For this, I used the tone curve module in Lightroom and moved the Highlights and Lights slider to the left and nudged Darks and Shadows to the right. I also lowered the Exposure a notch and added a touch of Fill Light to lighten up the dark areas. I used the Blacks to define my absolute black point and the turtle popped out to my satisfaction. I saved the settings as a custom preset. I started the processing of every other turtle picture with this preset and made other minor adjustments.
