Two large trunks of the Lahaina Banyan Tree.

Back Story

First of all, this tree is huge. Check it out in Google Street View if you haven’t been there before. Believe it or not, that’s all one tree, as the branches of these banyan trees will actually bore their way back into the ground to form what looks like different trunks.

On our last free day in Maui before the Maui Photo Festival officially started, we spent some time in Lahaina for lunch and a little shopping. We took a break from the afternoon sun to enjoy the shade of this 150+ year old tree, and as we did, I took a stroll around looking for different shots to compose. Since this beauty of nature is typically too large to get in one frame (at least other than an aerial) I’ve seen a lot of people shoot underneath the tree itself.

That’s what I was going for here.

And because you’re in the shade, and there was various amounts of light peeking through the tree above, I went ahead and bracketed my shots at +/- 1EV stop and put this image together with HDR in Photomatix Pro.