Even while working as a globe-trotting photojournalist for over 30 years, Stan Honda never lost his childhood fascination with astronomy and space exploration.
He continued to read up on the subject and joined an astronomy group in New York, where he lives, gaining a better understanding of “how things move in the night sky and in what seasons you can see things.” Still, Honda rarely turned his lens skyward until photography went digital.
“The cameras got better and better, and I began experimenting with the night sky” during vacations, he recalled.
In 2011, Honda, who was working for Agence France-Presse, applied for a weeklong artist-in-residency at Grand Canyon National Park, the first of six national parks where he would be granted such access, including at Haleakala National Park on Maui.
“It was the first time I’d been in a truly dark sky… ,” he said of his time at Grand Canyon. “National parks are the only place where you can see the Milky Way.”
Images from the month Honda spent at the 10,000-foot-high dormant volcano on Maui form the basis for his “Infinite Night” solo exhibition that runs through Oct. 22 at the Schaefer International Gallery at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.
Honda left his job at AFP in 2014 to concentrate full time on a bigger project on the night sky and to work with a writer friend on a separate project documenting the Japanese incarceration camp at Heart Mountain, Wyo., where his family was relocated during World War II. That collaboration with Sharon Yamato resulted in the 2018 publication of “Moving Walls: The Barracks of America’s Concentration Camps.”
During his Haleakala residency, Honda experienced the full cycle of moon phases and spent four days in the crater. He also visited the park’s Kipahulu District at sea level. Honda said he was used to the weather extremes atop the volcano from working in the U.S. Southwest, and doesn’t require a lot of gear for nighttime photo shoots, except for a tripod, which is essential to steady his camera for long exposures.
“I don’t use any artificial light. I use available light just from my training in photojournalism, and at night the available light is from the moon,” said Honda, whose astronomy-related photos have appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, National Geographic and other publications.
One of the most memorable images in “Infinite Sky” is of a rare Haleakala silversword, or ahinahina, which appears as a glowing ball of spiky leaves in an eerie lunarlike landscape set against a celestial expanse.
“It was getting toward first quarter moon, so it was fairly bright and it lights up the landscape really well,” Honda said. “And I saw the ahinahina plants, which under the moonlight they’re really striking because they look like this alien plant when you come across them. … The plant really struck me because there was light on its leaves but then light coming though the leaves for more translucent areas.”
Honda said he hopes his photos remind people of what the night sky really looks like — what they’re prevented from seeing by light pollution.
“From a place like Haleakala and some of the other national parks, you can see this pretty pristine sky and you can really see what is out there and get an idea where the earth is traveling and how we’re going through the universe,” he said.
—
“Infinite Night”
Photography by Stan Honda
>> Where: Maui Arts & Cultural Center’s Schaefer International Gallery
>> When: Tuesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., through Oct. 22
>> Cost: Free admission
>> Info: mauiarts.org
