Phoenix-area photographer describes experience with Hawaiian volcano

PHOENIX — As residents prepared for the eruption of a volcano on one of Hawaii’s islands, one Phoenix-area photographer traveled into the eye of the storm — and came out with some captivating images.

Erin Gramzinski, the owner of the Chandler-based video production company Mud House Media, described to KTAR News 92.3 FM’s Bruce St. James and Pamela Hughes what it was like when he captured images of the Kilauea volcano up close and personal.

“It’s spectacular. It seriously is one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen with my own eyes, much less my camera,” he said.

“You could just hear, occasionally, the earth kind of growling. You would hear that and you would be like, ‘Alright, we have to move,'” Gramzinski added.

“We look down and seriously this area, you just see the earth just rise up like a wave. You know, it’s ground but it bubbled up. It’s methane coming up.”

Gramzinski said the sky surrounding the volcano would always be “glowing,” but that it would sound like a “war zone.”

“This is a pretty rural area, there is no city in that area, and the sky is glowing and as you get closer and closer, especially because it’s always cloudy, the clouds are reflecting that,” he said.

“The clouds are like these beautiful sunset clouds, but they don’t change, they’re that same color.”

In order to access the volcano, Gramzinski said that he had to rub elbows with the locals.

“It is difficult,” he said. “They restricted access to the areas where you can get close to the lava other than to the locals, so all of the media outlets had to become real good friends with the locals to — in a way, we’re kind of sneaking in there to get right up close to the lava.”

But while the photos of the volcano look menacing, Gramzinski said that should not discourage tourists from visiting.

“In a sense, that’s where the media is failing us because we’re almost pulling away all the tourists from that island and it’s fairly hurting them. That’s what the locals are frustrated the most about from the national coverage was — it’s restricted to kind of one small area of that corner of the island.”

But Gramzinski had one final takeaway from his experience with the Kilauea volcano: “I could stare at it endlessly, it’s memorizing.”

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