Captured using top-notch cameras and lenses, this video is a cinematic display of four Hawaiian Islands in over 150 timelapse clips that leave nothing to the imagination.
From the video description on Vimeo:
You are invited to escape for this moment, and enjoy a cinematic four Hawaiian Islands presentation. After long labor, endless exploration and tireless education the time lapse epic ‘Infinite Hawaiian Kingdom’ by Eric J. Chandler is complete.
If you have travelled Hawaii, you will see familiar sights and hopefully a few yet unexplored. I was able to capture the lava lake filling up at Kilauea, tropical lightning storms from above at Mauna Kea and many other amazing scenes. Watch closely and you will see rainbows, moon-bows and lunar eclipses.
The production was extremely challenging, taking me three years to learn, self-fund, shoot, edit and release. It contains about 150 clips, and almost all of those are HDR time lapse. Three years may sound like a long time, but this includes times that I was unable to travel, processing times, waiting out weather and seasons and reshooting as technology or skills advanced. The cost of travel between islands is reasonable, but the cost of staying somewhere that I can use as a base, and that is safe enough to store gear while I travel, is not cheap. As we approached completion, my wife and I were in a car accident that set us back another half of year in recovery time.
It is hoped to alter the observer’s perspective of our place in the universe by manipulating our perception of time and motion. The sequence is designed to be seen as one day, as the sun rises through the four islands of Oahu, Kauai, Hawaii and Maui, before the viewer continues into the afternoon, evening and night throughout the islands.
Above all else, I hope this project reminds us to love this land and honor the true Hawaiian people, who have endured so much and continue to be priced out of their indigenous lands by an unstoppable rise in the cost of housing and goods. Much is owed to these people.
I transferred to Hawaii in 2012 while working as an active duty public affairs specialist for the United States Coast Guard. Not long after arriving I was retired for medical reasons after 12 years of service. My photography skills progressed from journalism towards artistic endeavors as I was exposed to the endless landscapes and seascapes of the beautiful Hawaiian Islands.
As I accumulated footage, my plans for a larger project began to take shape. This resulting production evolved with my skills, as I planned shoots for seasons and positions of the sun and moon, saved money for gear and developed processing methods. For more information and photos of the projects development, please visit or add us on Facebook at facebook.com/SimpleIconic/ .
I would like to thank my wonderful wife and adventuring companion Carizza Chandler, who has helped me very much along the way with early morning sun rises, all-nighters under the stars and a lot of challenging hikes. Thanks also to Dylan Banning for assistance with some very hard climbs and Robert Bates for curation recommendations throughout the editing process. Thank you to all the travelers I met along the way who showed interest and encouragement for what I was doing.
Although this is an unsponsored project, I would like to mention my appreciation to Hawaii Camera for going above and beyond to get me the gear I needed for various environments and for being a great company to work with in general. Also, thanks to Kessler Crane, as this project has developed alongside the evolution of their dynamic motion control gear and these shots have used everything from their most primitive to their most advanced systems. For insight into the latest and greatest gear, I have always been able to count on Tony Zerga at Pro Camera Hawaii for in depth knowledge of cutting edge photography tech.
Time lapse is captured using high dynamic range bracketing. Slow motion scenes are shot on Red Scarlet Dragon Camera (for 60fps and 120fps) and Sony FS700 (for 240fps). The sunset shots use the incredible dynamic range of Red’s Dragon Sensor. The benefits of HDR exposure range must be processed carefully to achieve a realistic look and not every shot was a complete success, but I am happy with the overall result. These clips were chosen carefully from several hundred time lapse shoots. It has been an incredible learning process and a great adventure to travel and learn the Hawaiian Islands.
The soundtrack is by Dhruva Aliman – dhruvaaliman.com/
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