The Abandoned Island Series

The beautiful landscape of Hawai'i is never seen with its scars. With its perfect temperature, perfect waves in the winter, palm trees, and beautiful beaches, these cars are hidden behind the mask of beauty.

One of my first conceptual projects, which first started in 2005 when I first visited the Hawai'ian island of Maui. I had come across all these abandoned cars and found their juxposition with the beautiful Hawai'ian landscape intriguing. Two years later I had gathered enough funds to go back and spend an entire month there to collect images of these cars. I talked to locals and researched news articles to find out their history. These cars are the product of a scrap metal factory not meeting the environmental stardards of Maui County, and so these cars are abandoned by their local owners in diverse locations throughout the island. Each seem to have a history and I found through the medium of black and white photography they would appear more errie in placement, like the last reminds of a civilization. Also, I find there's something about the monochrome of tropical landscape, like taking a facial expression away from a portrait of a model only to see with greater clarity her body expression.
The photograph that started it all in 2005.