Our Top 12 Big Island of Hawaii Photos

Recently we set out on a mission to go through our thousands of Big Island of Hawaii photographs and pick out the creme de la creme of our finest photos. We're not professional photographers or anything, but we have to admit we're pretty pleased with how these photos came out. It was a combination of knowing just enough about our camera equipment, good weather,and perhaps a bit of luck. OK, and maybe knowing a little about photo editing after the fact helped too. But more than anything we wanted photos that captured the REAL Big Island of Hawaii and weren't overly photo edited. So we tried to keep any editing to a bare minimum. Below we've posted our top photographs we've taken of the Big Island of Hawaii.

This was a pretty tough challenge overall, even for us. The island is, well, BIG, and selecting the right combination of beaches, trails, animals, sights, gardens and general landmarks was tough. There are so many beautiful places on the Big Island of Hawaii; how do you narrow it to just 12 (now you know why we didn't select just 10)? Not included on this list are four honorable mentions; the view from atop Mauna Kea, the view at South Point, the coastal views in Puna, and the glimpse into the heart of the island at Kilauea. We'll save those for a future posting. So below, our top dozen of the Big Island of Hawaii - The Orchid Isle. Enjoy!