After All

**After All** - Big Island - Hawai'i
I discovered this tree in a very unsuspecting place. It was near the sea, but among old, eroded lava rock. There is no soil nor grass in sight and just a few other trees sprinkled around. I have no idea how such a tree thrived in this extremely harsh environment. And after many years, it appears that life has again found a foothold.

I decided to return to the location after dark and photograph it against the black of night. With some luck and some weather forecasting I was able to get a very dark, clear night out here.

The evolution of life on the Hawaiian Islands is fascinating to me; land created from lava rising in the middle of the ocean, plants colonizing and breaking down hardened rock, and animals migrating to the island across all odds. Generations of plants and animals over the course of some hundred thousand years, (and in the case of the older islands, several million years) provide the fertile landscape where humans found paradise.

The tree was light painted with my head lamp. Additional exposures for the sky were taken and blended in post-processing.
Read less