Spirit of Kilauea

About This Work

This image existed in my mind before I ever booked the flight. The day I learned that white tropicbirds glide around Kilauea's eruptions, I couldn't stop picturing it: fire and grace in a single frame. So when the forecasts called for the volcano's next episode, I flew to Hawaii and camped for days on the crater rim, watching the tiltmeter climb as pressure built through the days, and sleeping in thirty minute stretches at night, waking to search the webcams for a glow. At 4:15 on what had to be my final morning, the crater was glowing.

By the time the fountains were throwing lava more than three hundred feet into the sky, I had hiked to a vantage point as close to the eruption as I could get, camera and long lens set on the tripod. That's when the bird appeared. A single white tropicbird, calm and effortless above the chaos. I tracked it frame after frame until, for one pass, it crossed directly in front of the fountain. That was the frame that had haunted me from the start.

Fire and grace, the island's most violent force sharing the sky with its most delicate. In person, this is the print people cross the room for. Most ask if the bird is real. It is.

The full story behind this image is on the Journal.