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"The road to nowhere"
This photo was shot in Hawaii during my extensive 3 month coverage of the historic 2018 Kilauea volcano eruption for a news agency that gave my work international coverage. It was the biggest eruption in Hawaii in 200 years. More than 8000 acres of land were covered in lava destroying at least 716 homes and structures with another 220+ isolated by lava (now having roads rebuilt over the lava to regain access as I write) On the other hand 875 acres of land were created on the coast line where immense littoral explosions occurred and some of the loose deposits were pounded against the shoreline carried several kilometres away forming brand new fine black sand beaches in just a few months which can be visited today! About 1 cubic kilometre or 1.3 BILLION cubic yards of lava came out of the ground from 24 fissures over 3 months along the lower east rift zone after the draining of the Halema'uma'u and Pu'u'O'o craters. The statistics from the eruption are mind boggling and the local community is still recovering over a year later. Witnessing nature at its most violent and at the same time most beautiful was amazing. It was a visceral and breathtaking experience living through it for all those months but the Aloha community spirit I witnessed despite the stresses everyone was experiencing is another thing that will live with me forever. This image is in the heart of the flow field and hard to get to making the aerial approach the only realistic way of getting there and even then you need to know where to look for it. It is an iconic relic of the eruption and I see this image as a metaphor for both the despair of the moment and hope for the future residents of the Big Island Hawaii.
Biography: Joseph Anthony is a multiple award winning I AM Nikon photographer, photojournalist, story teller, explorer and writer available for hire across multiple genres, He specialises in wildlife and nature photography and film making.
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