Storytelling at core of Downtown Art Center photo exhibit

Documentary photography will take center stage at the Downtown Art Center this month.

Its Documentary Photography 2023 Juried Exhibition features the work of nearly two dozen local photographers, who could submit single images as stand-alone works as well as up to five photographs covering a single theme.

Photographer PF Bentley, a decorated photojournalist who covered everything from rock music to presidents to global politics while working for publications like Time and Newsweek as well as television news, served as juror for the show, the first of its kind for the center. “We had no idea what was going to come in,” said Bentley, who grew up in Waikiki and currently resides on Molokai. “We wanted to be real and do the theme of the show. We got some really good images and some images that didn’t fit the bill.”

Although all the photographers had to reside in the islands, the subject matter varied. One of the most intriguing entries for Bentley, who covered international conflict during his career, was a sequence of photos by Mengshin Lin on the 2019 Hong Kong protests against a proposed law that would have allowed criminal suspects to be extradited to mainland China. “It was real hardcore stuff,” Bentley said.

Most of the photos, as expected, were taken in Hawaii, resulting in less chaotic subject matter. “Hawaii isn’t the Ukraine, it isn’t Hong Kong, it isn’t hard news,” Bentley said. “We weren’t really going after hard news at all. But I wanted to see images that told a story, if they were a series. Or (if it was a) single photo, if it captured an instant in time which had meaning to it and made (a) viewer have to think, like ‘Wow, what’s going on here?’”

Another photo, by David Butterfield, that stood out shows a woman with breast pumps, with a small child at her feet, “and she doesn’t look happy,” Bentley said. “That one just stood out.”

One question that the show might raise is whether there is a difference between photojournalism and documentary photography. Floyd Takeuchi, a photojournalist who was a special adviser for the show, said documentary photography “is at its most basic level, storytelling. That’s pretty broad, but we differentiate it from photojournalism by speaking in a ‘quieter voice.’”

He said most of the photographs are “pretty personal, in the sense that it’s around things in individuals’ lives, whether it’s a scene in Waikiki … or what happens in house with a mom and baby. It’s pretty much a wide range.”

In addition to the juried show, there are three special exhibits by professional photographers. Olivier Koning’s exhibit, called “The First Hawaiians,” will feature closeup photographs of endemic and indigenous plants in Hawaii. Koning, who will talk about his work at 2 p.m. on June 17, had no background in Hawaii’s flora when he got an assignment about 10 years ago to shoot some indigenous plants. The project has evolved to the point that, while he originally brought plants to his studio, he now lugs his camera and a “makeshift studio” into forested areas and botanical gardens to photograph the plants.

“There’s a lot of challenges,” he said. “You have to adapt to the terrain. You have to adapt to where the plant is, the time of day. It’s very physical, but it’s very worth it.”

Koning uses a strobe light and white backdrop to make the details of the plant stand out, and the results have been so striking that people have often been confused by what they’re looking at.

“A comment I got a lot was, ‘Is this a painting?’ People often think it’s a lithograph or a painting,” he said. “I’m trying to put the plant in a new, completely neutral context so that people can focus on the plant completely and very clearly.”

Also featured are an exhibit of photographs of volcanic eruptions on Hawaii island shot from the air by Leslie Gleim, and a collection of photos that have appeared in Hana Hou!, the magazine of Hawaiian Airlines, collected by editor Matt Mallams. Mallams will speak about his exhibit from 5 to 8 p.m. Thursday and Gleim will discuss her work from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday.

The exhibits are open through July 1. Regular hours at the gallery, 1041 Nuuanu Ave., second floor, are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays. Visit downtownarthi.org.