CJ Kale is reportedly the first person ever to photograph lava entering the ocean from the surf, swimming near the scalding water and avoiding lava bombs just a few from where he was standing. Needless to say, the risk of dying is huge but his photographs are awesome.
In 2011, he feel into a 20-foot lava tube while shooting the Kilauea Volcano and shattered his ankle. Here’s a video of him taking these photos in the water, a few feet from the lava.
Raised on the Waianae Coast in Hawaii, his interest in volcanoes and nature mixed with photography when he moved to the Big Island of Hawaii. “There is no other place in the world that you can photography within feet of where you stood the day before and capture such dramatically different images,” he told me in an email, “each volcano photo I capture is truly a unique moment in time never to be captured the same again.”
He now lives in Kailua Kona with his wife and two children and runs the Lava Light Gallery with his best friend and fellow photographer Nick Selway.
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His non-fiery nature photos are beautiful too:
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CJ Kale has been featured in new articles worldwide such as Natures best, National Geographic, Professional Photography Monthly, Surfer Magazine, UK Daily Mail, New York times, BBC, Ocean views, and One World One Ocean, and has won numerous awards and has even had his work displayed in the Smithsonian.
You can follow him and his partner Nick Selway in Facebook and their web site.