Color In Small Packages By Photographer, Author & Contributor Don Hurzeler
I grew up on the mean streets of Palos Verdes Estates, surrounded by colorful peacocks, black and white skunks, rattle snakes, green landscapes and the blue Pacific Ocean. I loved it…still do.
Today I live in Kailua-Kona, Hawaii and only get to see my beloved PVE when I visit my daughter and her family in Rancho Palos Verdes. But here is what I found…not all the beauty in the world is in Southern California…lots of it, but not all.
Hawaii has more than enough color to keep me smiling. My wife, Linda, and I are professional photographers. We have the good fortune to be in the ocean, out on the lava fields and all over the Big Island of Hawaii, looking for color to photograph.
We do not have to look far. Our garden has lots of color…and some of it in small packages…flowers, lizards and birds. I will share the birds and flowers with you in a future article, but for now, let me introduce you to my little friends.
This guy is a Jackson Chameleon. He loves the ohia and coffee trees. The little guy looks like a triceratops…three big horns on his head, but only about a foot long.
The female lacks the horns, but is an amazing hunter…nailing insects in the blink of an eye with a tongue seemingly as long as her body.
They both have eyes that can look in all directions and independently.
The most abundant creature in our garden is the Madagascar Day Gecko. They are everywhere and keep our property relatively free of insects.
They love our pineapples.
Our bromeliads.
The trees.
And plants.
They do not like some of their neighbors…another lizard called an anole.
And they certainly do not like their praying mantis neighbors…who tend to eat them from time to time.
But love the bees…
Heck, I like the bees, as well…hard workers and fun to photograph.
Palos Verdes and Hawaii…two great places to be a photographer. Two world class places to live. So happy I was able to book end my life (so far) with two beautiful communities.
Aloha.
Don and Linda are “lucky to live Hawaii” for the past fourteen year and claims to have never experienced an unhappy day on the island.
However, he does admit that he thinks of PV often…as it stands today and as it was. And what he misses most from those early days on the hill are growing up with a great set of friends and neighbors and the unimaginable freedom enjoyed in those days. He claims that he was raised like a free range chicken, able to hitch hike to get around town, to go out in surf that would scare any parent and to carry around a bow and arrow or small caliber gun to protect himself from rattle snakes when he hiked the canyons…not as a highly trained, accredited, licensed gun owner…but as a 12 year old kid whose dad treated guns like tools…there for protection and to be treated with respect and care.
And the best part of his freedom, no cell phones. Don was basically on his own and no one could track him or reach him until he decided to come home. Don always knew when dinner was served and he made sure to sneak in the door a few minutes prior. And, get this, dinner always included beer for Don…from about age 9 on. Or a milkshake made using 31 Flavors Baskin and Robbins ice cream from the Hollywood Rivera store mixed with crème de menthe. His dad felt the alcohol would whet Don’s appetite and help him grow from the skinny kid he was in those days. That did not work, but it did make him (temporarily) unafraid of orcas.
You can catch up with Don Hurzeler on Facebook. He is also on Instagram @donhurzeler. His book writing website is donhurzeler.com and his photography website is lavalightgalleries.com.
For a kid who grew up on the mean streets of Palos Verdes Estates, parented in a way that would land everyone in jail today, but supported, coached and loved…Don came out alright. A PV boy who fully understands how lucky he was that his parents built their dream home on a hill with a million lights sparkling below…or a fog bank a thousand feet thick.
