Although Bruce Omori was born and raised in Hilo, Hawaii, his appreciation for the Big Island didn’t truly manifest itself until he left to work in the city of Honolulu. “Growing up, I was totally oblivious to the beauty around me,” he says. “Only after I moved away did the realization of how special my hometown really was strike a chord with me. When the opportunity arose to come back home, I fell in love with the island all over again. This time around, I’m more aware of how delicate everything is.”

Delicate and volatile — at least when it comes to the surface flows, ocean entries, and eruptions of lava flowing from Hawaii’s famous volcanoes. Omori, who runs the Extreme Exposure fine-art gallery with fellow Hilo native and business partner Tom Kuali’i, specializes in capturing the magnificent molten rock as it flows and bubbles its way across the island landscape. Every image he shoots is unique, in part due to the lava’s inherently dynamic nature. “To be honest, shooting lava is really tough,” Omori says. “Lava is very photogenic — anyone can probably get some decent shots with a point-and-shoot. But to do true fine-art photography with lava is a whole other ballgame. Lava changes by the minute and is a source of light in itself. We’ve shot hundreds of thousands of images out there, and there aren’t two that look alike.”

Omori and Kuali’i sponsor guided photography tours to everywhere from the active volcano of Kilauea to the town of Kalapana, which gained notoriety in the 1990s, when a lava flow buried much of the area. “We also have access to flows that go over private property,” says Omori. “Those areas are usually restricted, but we know the families there, so we’re able to visit places that the general public can’t go to.”

There’s a reason, however, why volcano and lava tours are guided — and why anyone attempting this type of photography shouldn’t take it lightly. “The entire area is very dangerous,” Omori explains. “Tom and I have been out there hundreds of times each. We know the area really well and don’t take safety for granted at all—doing so can make you complacent, and complacency can make the difference between life and death. We take it seriously out there, because we know how hazardous it can be.”

Granted, it may not appear risky when you’re staring out onto a barren lava field — but, as Omori explains, the danger comes from what’s happening beneath the earth’s surface. “First of all, the lava fields are extremely unstable, as lava tubes may collapse,” he says. “The new land formed at the coast is even worse — acres could disappear into the sea in the blink of an eye. And we’ve witnessed it firsthand.”

Then there are the noxious fumes, such as sulfur dioxide, being released by the lava. “When the lava hits the ocean, it creates a steam plume called lava haze, or laze, which is a mixture of hydrochloric acid and concentrated seawater,” Omori says. “This gas is very toxic.” For these reasons, the National Park Service often recommends that people with heart and breathing problems stay away from such tours.

To prepare for such a strenuous walk along the magma coast, the National Park Service recommends photographers to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, for example, come equipped with 3 to 4 quarts of water per person, long pants, closed-toed hiking boots, one reliable flashlight per person, and gloves. “I go through a new pair of hiking boots pretty much every other month,” laughs Omori. The light weight of the 70-300 VC lens can serve to lighten a photographer’s already hefty load. “The lens weight (or lack of it!) is a nice plus on the lava hikes,” says Omori. “The lenses I normally use weigh so much more, so it’s a nice change.”

Realize, too, that your equipment is at risk in such an extreme environment, even if you wrap everything up (Omori suggests using standard rain gear) and keep it covered when not in use. “Some of my tripod legs are shorter than others because of the hot lava!” says Omori. “We’ve lost camera bodies and lenses because the environment is so corrosive.” And even though the surface flows Omori has been shooting of late don’t spew as much volcanic glass into the atmosphere as, say, an ocean entry, the particles are still there in the air. The versatile 70-300mm lens can come in handy in this environment — an environment in which you don’t want to be changing or cleaning your lenses. “This lens is great as far as the focal range goes,” Omori says. “Photographers like to use telephoto lenses out here, as well as wide-angle lenses to capture the whole scene. The 70-300 works well in this regard.”

One mistake Omori often sees when he takes his touring group out onto the lava fields: eager photographers trying to capture this awe-inspiring natural phenomenon without a tripod. “People will see the lava come real close to the viewing area and just try to shoot it handheld,” he says. “As a rule, you need a tripod to do this kind of photography effectively.”

Even with a tripod, though, Omori likes to use the 70-300’s Vibration Compensation to help combat the elements. “Because we’re shooting on a coastal plain where it’s just lava fields for miles and miles, there’s a lot of wind,” he says. “The other thing about this harsh environment: The heat can cause your images to be blurry because of thermal distortion — any time you try to do a longer exposure, it blurs the image. So we try to shoot upwind from the lava to avoid this as much as possible. We also always use the VC whenever we can. Between the wind and the heat, we want the image to be as sharp and clear as possible.”

Much like shooting a cascading waterfall or moving water, Omori likes to create a beautiful, dreamy effect by capturing the movement of the lava against the sharp detail of the surrounding landscape. “I like using slower shutter speeds to get that motion in the flow — you can really showcase the beauty of it that way,” says Omori