Photographer Daniel Honma

When I was at the O-Bon festival over the weekend (see previous post), I ran into a local photographer named Daniel Honma.  What struck me about him was his camera - an old Japanese large format film camera.  In this day and age of near instant digital production, I was perplexed and very interested in Daniel's system.  He has to set up each shot meticulously and he doesn't really know what he'll get until he develops the film.  However, the images he produces using his methods are nothing short of extraordinary.  

The "problem" with digital SLR's today is that everyone is using them.  Photography is now the realm of the layman due to the ease of using digital.  I can literally shoot, edit, process and print a photo in less than 4 minutes using my camera, laptop, software, and printer.  So, any Joe with a modern Nikon or Canon DSLR, no matter how advanced or expensive, produces images that look similar due to shared technology.  Some images from the better DSLR's will look sharper or perform better in low light, but still, the essence of the image is pure Japanese DSLR.

This is not the case with Daniel's images.  Daniel has a dedicated darkroom in his basement and his work  epitomizes the "art" of photography.  You can see some of his work here, here, and here.  I snapped Daniel during the festival over the course of the evening.  


Daniel, do you have a website in which to showcase your work?  I saw your images on display at the Paia Tattoo Parlor and in the Maui Weekly, many of which I can't find on the web, and I thought they were unique and thought provoking.