This is not a postcard. I know it looks like one, but I promise you, I took this photograph myself. My lover and I concluded a day of frolicking on the north shore of Oahu as we watched this January sunset. Four years I’ve lived in Hawai’i, and naturally, this was the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen. I even have proof.

It’s difficult to classify a photograph like this as "artistic", especially since you can buy similar images on a postcard at any dime store tourist trap. So it becomes a challenge to take large-scale photographs of the magnificent landscapes and seascapes of Hawai’i in such a way that conveys something of depth, something more than what you might see in a travel brochure. I wanted to make the viewer feel the same contemplative awe and elation that I feel. The result is a picture that is too perfect - a surreal, utopian view of paradise. Here’s the punchline: It really is this beautiful here.