I’d come to Kauai by boat and needed to get to Shipwreck Beach at Po’ipu for a photo shoot. I hired a driver that offered a service that was a cross between tours and taxi. We headed to the south shores and once there, I jumped out arranging to be picked up four hours later.

The beaches were so amazing to photograph of course I went over schedule. It was getting late as I ran back to the van where he was thankfully waiting and off we went. I told him we were pressed for time and I didn’t want to miss my boat. He said he knew a short cut on a rural back road by an old fishpond that would get us to the harbor in time.

We were going along the road at a pretty fast clip. I was half-hanging out the window trying to get last minute shots of the scenery as we drove. (I don’t recommend you try this – especially if there are bugs in the area!) I was photographing some of those finely chiseled Kauai mountains that look like sculptures when my driver hit the brakes causing me to almost lunge out of the window. I pulled back in the van to see what was up.

There was an antique car that had turned left in front of us. The driver was enjoying a nice scenic outing at speeds that clearly belonged in the early 1900s. I wondered if the carefully restored car was an old Model T or a “Merry Oldsmobile”? I asked my driver if there were many antique cars on the island? He said no and that this was a rare site! I thought what are the odds of my seeing the car in the 7 hours I was on Kauai? What good photo-karma!

The old car being driven up a rural road amidst Hawaiian palms, overgrown foliage, historic farmhouses and old telephone poles made for a curious picture. It was like stepping back in time as it conjured up images of Hawaii’s nostalgic past. I began composing vintage-inspired pictures in my mind. I thought I’d make the pictures black and white to give them an old fashioned feeling. I began snapping photos of the back of the car with a span of winding road ahead of it. I checked my camera monitor and liked the look of the shots so far. I asked my driver to pull along side of the car when safe and pass it so that I could get shots from the side as well as looking back at the front of the car. That’s when I got this photo. I love it as it is like an old treasured keepsake photo looking back in time. It reminds me of some precious antique photos I have of my grandparents driving an old car on California’s backcountry roads.

We did cut it very close, but managed to make it to the harbor just in time. From the boat’s deck, I framed the receding silhouette of Kauai against the crimson rays of sunset with my lens. I couldn’t help thinking of the many, many images of times past on Kauai as I snapped a last few pictures of island, ocean, and sky darkening into the shadows of nightfall.


Susan Benay © July 7, 2007