Apocalyptic Awakening

In December 2022, I photographed Mauna Loa’s eruption from Mauna Kea. The first thing you notice is the orange, of course. But what keeps me looking is how much of this panorama belongs to everything around it: the dark slopes, the clouds over the mountain, and that cool blue beginning to open at the far left. The lava doesn’t fill the frame. It cuts a narrow, bright path through it. That smaller scale makes the eruption feel more real to me. This wasn’t an isolated spectacle against a black sky. It was happening within an enormous landscape, while another day was arriving whether anyone was ready for it or not. I wanted the frame to hold both kinds of light at once. Follow the orange toward the mountain, then let your eye travel back across all that quiet blue. The land was changing while morning was arriving. I still find that difficult to take in, and that’s why I return to this photograph.