I spent a month studying dolphins in Hawaii during 1983.
This is an experience I partially documented in a blog titled, The Dolphin is Also a Fish part one and part two.
There is nothing quite like Hawaii. The weather is
consistently wonderful, a tropical mix of rainbows and sunsets, fragrant flowers
and ocean views like nowhere else, certainly not in the United States. In
preparation for my trip I purchased a decent 35mm Canon camera with a couple of
lenses, one of which had a nice zoom. This was back in the days of film, a
medium that resulted in cost-conscious photography, a conservative philosophy
practiced by amateurs who were not provided unlimited film by kindly
managers. (this is a tribute to myself given one member of my Facebook audience.)
In those days you shot a roll of 36 exposures and then
headed to a photo lab and forgot about it for a while. Perhaps the next day you
stopped by to pick up your prints. Longer if you were busy building sand
castles or scrubbing the inside of a dolphin tank with those green scrubby pads
many of us use in kitchen sinks. Disgusting.
Anyway, my camera was mostly manual. F-stop, exposure, all
that good stuff. And with those settings pre-determined, I set out to take a
picture of something I had heard about prior to my trip. The green flash.
The green flash is a phenomenon you can look up on the
internet if you’re really curious. There is even a restaurant named in its
honor. Suffice it to say, when the sun dips below the horizon on an evening
when atmospheric conditions are favorable, precisely when the edge of the solar
disc appears to become extinguished by the ocean, a tiny green luminous blip of
green light appears for about one second. It is understandably hard to capture
without perfect timing.
So I patiently watched the sun drop slowly toward the water’s edge
against an orange tapestry of a sky. Waiters traversed the beach with trays of tropical
drinks as music wafted out of waterside restaurants toward my position on the
beach. As the time grew close, I raised my camera and tweaked the focus just a
bit. My right index finger rested on the shutter release. My left hand
supported the long zoom lens. Down the sun went, in an arc that we know as
time, relentlessly ticking off seconds, and then…click, whir, snap. I took the
shot.
I thought I saw a green dot on top of the sun, but it was
anyone’s guess as to whether my timing was correct or if my camera was up to
the task. I simply said, “Hmmm” and walked away.
I dropped the film off at the lab and went about my
business, then returned the next day. When I approached the counter and told
the tech my name, he turned and pulled the envelope containing my prints out of a bin at the back of the lab, paused in
his stride back to the counter, looked straight into my eyes and said, “You got
the green flash!”
Now, I hadn’t mentioned this when I dropped off the film, so
I was completely surprised by my accomplishment, and also by his intimate
familiarity with my photos. I guess processing film all day left one wanting
for entertainment.
So, next time you’re fortunate enough to watch the sun go
down against a distant horizon, see if you can spot this subtle but fascinating
effect. It’s no erupting volcano or spectacular lightning flash, but it’s
pretty cool to say you've seen it. I put it on my bucket list and immediately checked it off.