As a landscape photographer, Andrew McHowell is drawn to exotic locales. At only 28 years old, McHowell has traveled to destinations such as the Amalfi Coast of Italy, Bora Bora, Patagonia, and Machu Picchu. Navigating the world in search of the grandest landscapes, McHowell prefers to pack his equipment compactly and venture alone rather than bring along an assistant. His journeys spark a spectrum of experiences and colors: a trip last year to the Maldives resulted in dreamy, pastel waterscapes; an encounter with unscrupulous custom officials in South America eventually turned into a series of green mountainsides and valleys; and his most exciting tale, which began as a relaxing cruise along Kaua‘i’s Nā Pali coast on a 60-foot yacht and ended with him being rescued by a jet-ski-riding Coast Guard contingent, made for stark black-and-whites of empty coastline.
The booked flights, chartered boats, and dangerous circumstances are necessary factors in the production of McHowell’s landscape work, which is compiled in his book, New Landscapes: A Spectrum of Photographs, and presented at his gallery in Hawai‘i Kai. The wooden-floored, white-walled gallery of Aina Imagery displays mounted panoramas taken with his Linhof film camera. This German camera features an extreme panoramic format that allows McHowell to accurately photograph the broad, majestic, natural scenes he encounters both here in Hawai‘i and in his travels abroad.
McHowell’s formative adolescent years—his childhood in the Midwest, his teenage years living off Main Street in Huntington Beach in California, and his visit to Peter Lik’s gallery in Lāhainā at 18 years old, which inspired him to become a professional landscape photographer—provided McHowell with a love for photography and the outdoors that is reflected in his images.
New Landscapes does not necessarily showcase never-before-seen vistas and unexplored territories. Rather, it is a collection of landscapes captured with a fresh take by an up-and-coming photographer. An essay in the book by David Ulrich, a professor and core faculty member of Pacific New Media at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, comments on McHowell’s work: “This book, like many first books, portrays the threshold of his talent and personal vision. The book stands as a testament to the ongoing discovery of his way of seeing and his deep relatedness to the elements of the natural world.” Although the pictures contained within New Landscapes possess an undeniable beauty, they are a deviation from the formulaic, commercialized aesthetic familiar to the average consumer. McHowell’s work in New Landscapes will probably be unsatisfying to people in search of standardized, stereotypical pictures of nature, but will appeal to both connoisseurs of landscape photography, as well as to those with a budding interest in nature’s beauty.
New Landscapes: A Spectrum of Photographs is available at the Halekulani Boutique. To see McHowell’s photography in person, visit Aina Imagery in Hawai‘i Kai, 6600 Kalanianaole Hwy., Suite 108B. For more information, visit ainaimagery.com
“Andrew McHowell’s book stands as a testament to the ongoing discovery of his way of seeing and his deep relatedness to the elements of the natural world.”
“Although the pictures contained within New Landscapes possess an undeniable beauty, they are a deviation from the formulaic, commercialized aesthetic familiar to the average consumer.”
As a landscape photographer, Andrew McHowell is drawn to exotic locales. At only 28 years old, McHowell has traveled to destinations such as the Amalfi Coast of Italy, Bora Bora, Patagonia, and Machu Picchu. Navigating the world in search of the grandest landscapes, McHowell prefers to pack his equipment compactly and venture alone rather than bring along an assistant. His journeys spark a spectrum of experiences and colors: a trip last year to the Maldives resulted in dreamy, pastel waterscapes; an encounter with unscrupulous custom officials in South America eventually turned into a series of green mountainsides and valleys; and his most exciting tale, which began as a relaxing cruise along Kaua‘i’s Nā Pali coast on a 60-foot yacht and ended with him being rescued by a jet-ski-riding Coast Guard contingent, made for stark black-and-whites of empty coastline.
The booked flights, chartered boats, and dangerous circumstances are necessary factors in the production of McHowell’s landscape work, which is compiled in his book, New Landscapes: A Spectrum of Photographs, and presented at his gallery in Hawai‘i Kai. The wooden-floored, white-walled gallery of Aina Imagery displays mounted panoramas taken with his Linhof film camera. This German camera features an extreme panoramic format that allows McHowell to accurately photograph the broad, majestic, natural scenes he encounters both here in Hawai‘i and in his travels abroad.
McHowell’s formative adolescent years—his childhood in the Midwest, his teenage years living off Main Street in Huntington Beach in California, and his visit to Peter Lik’s gallery in Lāhainā at 18 years old, which inspired him to become a professional landscape photographer—provided McHowell with a love for photography and the outdoors that is reflected in his images.
New Landscapes does not necessarily showcase never-before-seen vistas and unexplored territories. Rather, it is a collection of landscapes captured with a fresh take by an up-and-coming photographer. An essay in the book by David Ulrich, a professor and core faculty member of Pacific New Media at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, comments on McHowell’s work: “This book, like many first books, portrays the threshold of his talent and personal vision. The book stands as a testament to the ongoing discovery of his way of seeing and his deep relatedness to the elements of the natural world.” Although the pictures contained within New Landscapes possess an undeniable beauty, they are a deviation from the formulaic, commercialized aesthetic familiar to the average consumer. McHowell’s work in New Landscapes will probably be unsatisfying to people in search of standardized, stereotypical pictures of nature, but will appeal to both connoisseurs of landscape photography, as well as to those with a budding interest in nature’s beauty.
New Landscapes: A Spectrum of Photographs is available at the Halekulani Boutique. To see McHowell’s photography in person, visit Aina Imagery in Hawai‘i Kai, 6600 Kalanianaole Hwy., Suite 108B. For more information, visit ainaimagery.com
“Andrew McHowell’s book stands as a testament to the ongoing discovery of his way of seeing and his deep relatedness to the elements of the natural world.”
“Although the pictures contained within New Landscapes possess an undeniable beauty, they are a deviation from the formulaic, commercialized aesthetic familiar to the average consumer.”
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