Elyse Butler and Matt Mallams and went on an incredible two day hike into Haleakalā Volcano on the island of Maui, one of the quietest places on Earth. On assignment for Hana Hou! The Hawaiian Airlines Magazine, searching for silence in the crater of Haleakalā, we went to discover and illustrate the quiet solitude found there.

It was such a unique and amazing experience, spending days in a surreal, barren world high above the clouds, watching the most vivid sunrises and brightest stars in the night sky, and hearing only the occasional gusts of wind or insects buzzing by. We hiked 12 miles and over 3000 feet of elevation, listening to the sounds of Pele, feeling the massive landscape around us, it was definitely one of our most rewarding adventures yet. See the full spread that ran in Hana Hou! and more photos from our journey.

The writer, Edward Readicker-Henderson, has traveled the globe listening for quiet. His story is beautifully written, truly illustrates the feeling being there, excerpt below…

“The paper crackles loud as thunder as I check my map: I’ve reached my destination. And so at last, five years after I should have come, at a spot where there’s nothing around me but multicolored cinder cones rising, I stop. The wind does not touch me, and nothing moves. I stop shuffling, find a comfortable way to sit. The sky is empty. The landscape, empty. It takes a while to hear through myself, my breath, my heartbeat, the ringing in my ears. Louder yet are my thoughts: Is this really as quiet as it’s supposed to be? What am I doing here? Is it different from the other places I’ve gone?

But as time passes, my body quiets, my mind slows to match the stillness and I start to hear something else. The crater. The island. The sound comes not as sound, but through the rough sand under my hands, the slow gradations of color.

When I can’t hear my body anymore, I touch my wrist. My heart moves in time with something at the edge of sensation, a disturbance of the field. Maybe it’s the vibration of distant waves coming ashore. Maybe it’s just the island breathing. I’ve never heard anything like it; I probably never will again.

I sit for as long as the quiet lasts, feeling my pulse, or maybe the pulse of Haleakalā. Or maybe, just now, they’re the same.”

Space on the Sliding Sands Trail

Walking along the edge of Earth

Curve of the crater near Kawilinau

Sunrise in the meadow of yellow flowers at Holua

Rocks, cinder, and blue skies

Red Cinder along the Sliding Sands ‘Keonehe’ehe’e’ Trail

Park Ranger from afar

Sunrise from the Summit

Stars in the Night Sky at Holua

Matt hiking the Sliding Sands Trail into the crater

Elyse at the Holua campsite

When I arrived home this Thanksgiving, Nick was in the bathroom shaving. It had been a year since he underwent Deep Brain Stimulation. I knocked on the door and opened it up. He turned his head very slowly, looked at me, and smiled, but it was more like a wince. I could tell, without him saying anything, that he had a cramp. But, since the surgery, the effects have been much less severe. In the past, he would have been in bed all day and missed the holiday; this year, I could tell he was hurting and although he was moving slowly, he was able to enjoy Thanksgiving with us. It’s still not easy—for him or for us—but it was beautiful that this year I could sit across the table from my brother, my twin, and make pictures of him eating dinner and laughing. For my family, this surgery is the closest thing to a miracle we can expect.

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“The Distance Between Us,” is a monthly column by freelance photographer Chris Capozziello about the life he shares with his twin brother Nick. “Initially, photographing Nick was not something I set out to do; but over the years, one picture has lead to another, and a story has emerged. The time I spend photographing him has forced me to ask questions about suffering and faith, and why anyone is born with disease. Nick has Cerebral Palsy. Suffering itself raises countless questions. From time to time, someone will ask if I ever feel guilty for ending up the healthy one. I do. I look at him and think that it could have been me, and am constantly reminded and aware of his struggles. I wonder why he has to be the one who struggles on a moment-to-moment basis. It stirs up this process of grieving that never seems to end, like one long lament.”

Here is one of the main reasons I’ve been a bit absent over the last few months:

Curiosity, Community and a Camera from Yoon S. Byun on Vimeo.

This project on Globe photojournalist Bill Greene, was done to fulfill my degree requirements for a Master of Arts in Photojournalism at Ohio University.  The question behind the thesis was, “What motivates a local New Englander, who has never left Massachusetts, to be such a prolific storyteller in his home community?”

Although its intention is to serve the library and future students at Ohio University, I do feel that the piece speaks to photojournalists at any level of their career, whether they are a student or a 30-year veteran.  How do you keep it fresh in a community you’ve chosen to live in?  I was truly inspired listening to Bill and the people he works with.  If you see the video, I hope you are too.

“Napkins and Quarters” is a column by Yoon S. Byun, Staff Photographer, at The Boston Globe.  He writes about his thoughts, pictures, and observations from his daily job.

I went to Haiti back in November to continue a few health stories the Globe had been working on throughout the year.  I was asked after three photographers who had initially gone several times before me were unavailable for travel.  I felt proud and privileged that our paper dedicated spending the resources to have people in Haiti starting with the day after the earthquake, up until our last trip in November.

I’d seen Haiti through the eyes of so many talented photographers who had traveled there long before the earthquake.  It seemed like a country full of life, but also full of tragedy.  My experience, even after the earthquake, was no different from what my perceived notions of the country were.  And during my 10 days there I came to have a deep amount of admiration and respect for people in the country.  I hesitate to generalize about a country’s people, but my own experience with people was overwhelmingly moving.

Something that really struck me during my time there was the amount of patience the people had.  It had been over 10 months, billions of dollars had been donated to various organizations, yet, by the observations of our translator it was hard to see much that had changed.  Driving for miles around kiddie-pool-sized pot holes and by tent camps built on soccer fields, really made you feel so overwhelmed, and to a point hopeless.  Yet, people persevered.  They persevered whether they were homeless, jobless, or had no school to go to.  The only thing people had was hope and time.

I had never visited Haiti before the earthquake, so I don’t know the extent to which the country lacked infrastructure.  But the question that often came up between the writer, translator and I, was “How is this ever going to get fixed?”

When you ask that question as a journalist, you can’t help but feel partly responsible for answering that question.  You’re hoping that the work you’re doing will add to the effort to help the global community and the Haitian people.  All eyes were on Haiti for several weeks following the disaster.  The international media came and went.  As a result people around the world donated with their hearts.  But 10 months later, and now over a year later, with Haiti sparsely in the headlines, it’s hard to feel like you’ve accomplished something.

Sometimes people asked me for money.  It was hard to say “no,” knowing that I had enough money in my pocket to pay rent for three family apartments for a year.  Many strangers I encountered were very reluctant to have their photograph made.  I didn’t blame them.  To them, I was just another foreigner sticking a camera in their face promising hope.  It would just be another let down at the expense of their dignity.

Reginette, who we were visiting for the 3rd time this year, was amazingly patient at the fact that we returned with nothing for her, with no promise that our story would change her situation in any way.  And I think that’s the part of this trip that was hard to swallow.  Our translator would explain to people that we were doing stories that would be seen by hundreds of thousands if not millions of people in the United States, and hopefully it would help to bring about change.  But you can’t help thinking that people may read this story the day it’s published, feel sad and perhaps overloaded with stories from Haiti, and move on and forget, especially after so much time has passed.  I unfortunately think the outside world will forget, not because they want to, but because life goes on and Haiti is not in their everyday life.  It’s no different from victims of other world tragedies.  It’s in the news for weeks, there’s a global community response, then life goes on.

On one of the last days with Reginette, she and one of the people in her camp asked me if I would be coming back.  My heart sank, knowing that after 2010 there would probably be very little media attention to the country.  I looked at them and reluctantly said, “I don’t know.”

This is one of the stories we worked on in Haiti.  Special thanks to Dina Rudick for conceptualizing the production of the video.

“Napkins and Quarters” is a monthly blog by Yoon S. Byun, Staff Photographer, at The Boston Globe.  He writes about his thoughts, pictures, and observations from his daily job.

In my last blog entry I talked about picking up the discarded remnants I find in public places. I want to talk a little more about why they are are so interesting to me and I think the biggest reason is because more times than not they are are just so damn weird that I just have to keep it and put it in my back pocket. I mean, you just can’t make this stuff up. It keeps proving to me that the saying “reality is stranger than fiction” is so true. That has been a huge motif of mine because picking up these weird found things go hand to hand with street photography. While you’re not picking up a hard copy of a awkward family portrait found laying upside town in a puddle, you’re out looking to capture something equally as weird on your camera, for things to come together, juxtaposing themselves by chance and capturing it in a split second. You’re not picking up a photograph but your making it digitally, finding images by chance. Lets say you take a right down that alley, then a left, you would never have found that photograph, whether you picked one up or grabbed it in the 4 corners of a frame. It’s all by chance.

xerox copy of three paper clips..?

Thinking back about what really got me in to street photography, one of my first tastes of it was a small book I came a crossed by Joel Meyerowitz at Prairie Lights Books in Iowa City at 11:15 am 12/27/03 at a whooping cost of $ 7.95.  I know all this because I’ve kept the receipt as the bookmark. But I remember heading back to my friend Lucas’ place and soaking in the whole book from cover to cover.

It was so overwhelming first learning about this kind of genre, I mean all I knew was portraits, nature, stuff like that, no idea people walked around and took pictures of people going about there day and finding the magic in it. I was so inspired because that was exactly what I loved doing but had no idea others were focusing just on that too ( I really must have lived in a hole). Seeing Joel’s work and seeing that they actually had books on this type of stuff really opened my eyes. And a lot of his motif was this reality is stranger than fiction thing going on and seeing how that’s a big part of street photography by finding that in the everyday, seeing things that most people pass right by. Or even better just capturing it by chance because you where at the right place at the right time.

© Joel Meyerowitz

Months later after picking up this book, Richard Koci Hernandez and Genaro Molina spoke at my school and what did they do between their newspaper assignments? Yep, that’s right street photography, grown men out walking the streets with there camera, and even better they both kept journals, I was hooked and completely inspired and to this day 6 – 7 years later they’re both still some of my favorite photographers. I was so lucky to hear them speak when I did. So all that has shaped who I am as a photographer. Thank you Joel, Richard and Genaro.

In the coming months I’ll be exploring the relationship between the things I find in the street to the photographs I take in the street, and how they blend together in my journals.

“Rummages” is a monthly column by photographer Matt Mallams. He writes about the discarded notes, photographs, and other trash he finds while exploring the streets.

We recently published our annual 25 Most Stylish Bostonians.  It was my 4th year participating in the annual issue and I always look forward to the opportunity to have a little fun shooting less conventional newspaper portraits.

The types of people you photograph range from celebrities, local artists and shop owners, and a few everyday people who may have some kind of hip aspect about their lifestyle.  Some people give you 2 minutes of their time.  Some people give you several hours.

Rajesh was fun to work with because he is a bit of an amateur photographer.  He occasionally did light walks where he’d observe and photograph light.  Natural light is always fun to work with as well, since there’s less set up involved and you can just chase the light.  I liked the fact that the kinds of pictures we made of him that day were the kind of pictures that fit his personality as well.

My colleague Dina Rudick put together a cool video of all of our outtakes.  You can check it out here:

“Napkins and Quarters” is a monthly blog by Yoon S. Byun, Staff Photographer, at The Boston Globe.  He writes about his thoughts, pictures, and observations from his daily job.

Years ago, I was traveling through Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia for two months, backpacking through tiny mountain villages, historic cities, coastal countryside, and into the deep jungles with my great friend Willa on an inspiring trip that forever shaped my perspective of the world. Our home base was with Willa’s husband, Walter’s family in Lima, Peru and I had such an awesome time getting to know his family, the culture, the food, and the land. As we traveled throughout South America we met so many amazing people, stayed with the most kind-hearted families, saw jaw-dropping beautiful scenery, and made lasting friends along the way. Too many wonderful stories from this trip to tell, but one place in my mind stands out above the rest as one of the most magical places I’ve ever been.

Salar De Uyuni

We were staying in a hostel up on the steep cobble stone streets of Cusco, and had heard from some backpackers that we must head South to Bolivia to see a truly heavenly sight- Salar de Uyuni. It didn’t take much convincing to decide to go see the largest salt flat in the world. Created from the formation of prehistoric lakes, the land is covered in sparkling white salt crystals, and all of the hardened salt on the ground is in an octagonal pattern, the texture of this desert earth looks like an Escher drawing. We took a long bus ride from Cusco and headed to Copacabana, spent a few days in the lovely lake town, and then left for Uyuni. Early the next morning we made arrangements to go to the salt desert, taking a land rover with fellow tourists to an island in the middle of the desert and to see key natural attractions in the area for the day. They said we were in luck, it only rains a few weeks out of the year there, and we had arrived at the perfect time.

We drove to the edge of the desert, through salt-mining villages with dry salt pyramids covering the land and past watering holes where dozens of pink flamingos sunned themselves. It was incredible. It had been storming the past couple of days before, so the land was covered in a couple inches of clear still water and reflected the sky infinitely, all you could see for hundreds of miles was white and blue, salt and water, land and sky. It was heaven. The car splashed through the water into what seemed like never-ending snowy landscape. Eventually we stopped at a curious tourist-trap -a hotel completely made of salt, including everything in it- so strange approaching such an isolated building in the middle of what feels like a giant lake.

We arrived at Isla de los Pescados, a tiny island made from fossilized coral in the middle of the desert that is strangely covered in 1000-yr old cactus. It was quite a sight. Fellow tourists wandered around exploring the natural wonder and I wandered amongst them, snapping photos of their perfect reflections and taking in the majestic sight. I explored the outskirts of the island, walking barefoot, wading through the water and feeling the salt crunch under my toes, I found myself alone in the middle of this heavenly sanctuary, completely in awe of mother earth.

After some time exploring around the island, we headed back towards town. Sloshing through the never-ending puddle, somehow our driver knew the way to go, though all we could see was sky, behind us deep purplish-gray storm clouds followed and lightening bolts cracked in the distance. Eventually the car stalled, while the driver fixed the problem, we watched buses and trucks speed across the desert on haphazard routes, and felt the solitude one last time before reaching dry land. 

The next day we decided we had to visit the desert once more before leaving the small Bolivian town. Being the adventurers we were, we decided to take a cab to the edge of the salt flat and start walking. Our cab driver was stunned when we told him to leave us there, the walk back to the main road was long, but cars were coming and going, and we weren’t going to hike too far. We waded through the water into the white abyss until we were far enough from land that the people looked like ants and felt truly in the middle of nowhere. I laid in the water, stared up at the clouds passing and laughed as Willa took my picture. We could hear thunder booming and  see the crackle of lighting from afar, we gathered some fresh salt crystals, took some more photos, and giggled as we hurried back to dry land, for fear of being electrocuted.

When we got back to land, there was our cab driver, waiting for us, he had been worried and hours later still never left! So we headed back into town, picked up some local villagers on the way and crammed into the back of the cab. We passed by a pond full of flamingos and just had to stop and get a closer look, so we got out of the cab and crept up to the exotic birds. The villagers were giggling while hanging out by the car, watching these strange american girls go as far to crawl on the ground trying to photograph some birds that they see every day.

It certainly was a memorable trip.

“Reminiscence” is a monthly column by photographer Elyse Butler, where she shares her memories behind past and present images.

During our Aevum meeting in Boston a couple weeks back we were exploring different themes for me to delve into deeper and I knew I wanted to focus on something more unique than just photography. I’ve been picking up discarded remnants in public places for over 10 years now, and making multimedia journals with those materials and other findings. On one excursion into Copley Square, we followed Yoon to FedEx to send off an assignment, while waiting outside, hundreds of people passed us by, Elyse and Cappy were struck by the afternoon light and the different characters walking by, while I watched the trash blowing in the wind, my eye focused on a weathered paper with an ink stain. I go to pick up the piece of trash that strangers have walked upon all day and the excitement is building in me. The surprise of what is on the other side of these discarded pieces of life is what gets me going. It’s an ink splattered connect the dots shark, cherished by some bostonian kid, now a prized possession of mine.

It never ceases to amaze me what you can find if you’re really looking. I take these findings as a gift from above, like the law of attraction, I’m probably one of the few people actively looking for trash, so sure enough for me, it’s always there. It’s what keeps my journals evolving and my photography moving forward. To me, finding these rummages is just as exciting as making a street photograph. There will be days I’ll walk around with my camera and I won’t even make one picture, but i’ll find a stranger’s old family memory and be just as satisfied. I see these old photographs and notes as a glimpse into someone else’s life, like a good documentary photograph.

Copley Square from Matt Mallams on Vimeo.

Now my excitement for found items has worn off on a few of my friends. On a trip to Iowa City two weeks back I stopped by my friend Denny’s house and he hands me a palm full of old polaroids. He works in construction and while working at a school removing old lockers he found a number of photographs hidden under, not seen by the world for 20 years or more. He knew I would appreciate these more than anything, and I did. It’s funny my girlfriend, Elyse, says I’m the easiest to please when it comes to presents because a couple pieces of cool trash will do just fine.

In the coming months I’ll be exploring the relationship between the things I find in the street to the photographs I take in the street, and how they blend together in my journals.

“Rummages” is a monthly column by photographer Matt Mallams. He writes about the discarded notes, photographs, and other trash he finds while exploring the streets.

My foot is heavy on the accelerator. The RPM’s are up at 4,500 and I’m pushing 85 miles an hour. I never drive this fast, but Mom just called. She said Nick has one of “THOSE” cramps, and that I needed to come home right away. She is breathing heavy, and I hear her fumble something, probably the phone. Abruptly she hangs up. I know exactly what she is talking about.

While I am driving down I-95, weaving in and out of traffic, my mind returns to High School when Nick’s adolescent growth spurts brought on these types of cramps. Each one of us would have to hold him down all at once: Mom, Dad, Deana, and I, or whoever was around, so he wouldn’t hurt himself. He was too strong for us then.

His arms and legs would wildly flail around, sometimes hitting himself, sometimes hitting us, or whatever was in reach of his uncontrolled limbs. His back would arch, his head would raise and then come crashing down onto the floor. His jaw would open wide and then clench down tightly, sometimes on his tongue. We had to allow his body to move, but we had to protect him from hurting himself. I am imagining that all of this is happening right now and that only Mom and Dad are trying to hold his slender six-foot-two-inch frame down, waiting for me to get there. Thank God I’m around.

The drive takes almost forty minutes from where I live in Hamden because of rush hour traffic. Normally it is a twenty-minute ride. I run down our driveway, rush into the house, and find them on the landing at the base of the stairs. Mom holding his legs, while Dad has his head and his arms. Nick isn’t really doing much of anything when I get there. His body is tense and cramped, but he is laying still.

When I take over his legs, Nick’s body twists. I ask if he is all right. He says sarcastically, “What do you think?”

I still don’t know what to say in these moments. I try to calm him down and say things to lighten the mood. I joke that if anyone else were to see us like this, his butt up in the air, aiming directly at my face because his back is arching, while I hold his legs, we would have to do some explaining about the Capozziello twins! He laughs, and so do Mom and Dad.

Usually these spasms end on their own, but he has been like this for almost an hour-and-a-half, so Mom decides to call Doctor McAllister. Nick lifts his head and then, crash; it falls hard on the wood floor. His mouth opens wide, then closes tightly. After a second I can see his tongue sticking out between his teeth. I drop the camera and pull on his jaw then shove his tongue back in his mouth. Now that I have let go of his legs, they are kicking. His tongue is not bleeding.

Mom, still on the phone gets an answering service and tells the woman on the other end what’s happening. The woman asks what all the noise is, so Mom tells her that it’s Nick’s head hitting the floor. “Can you help us she asks?”

She hangs up the phone and waits for the doctor on call to contact us. When he does, he doesn’t know what to tell her so she calls 911.

By the time the paramedics arrive, his body is loosening up. They ask a lot of questions about what is happening before they do anything, and even though his muscles have relaxed, and his body is transforming back to what is normal for him, they urge us to take him into the E.R. When we arrive, Nick and I sit alone in the little room with the curtains drawn open so Mom and Dad can find us. He looks at me with confusion and asks, “What are we doing here?”

Weeks later, he is still only able to piece together certain parts from that night.

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“The Distance Between Us,” is a monthly column by freelance photographer Chris Capozziello about the life he shares with his twin brother Nick. “Initially, photographing Nick was not something I set out to do; but over the years, one picture has lead to another, and a story has emerged. The time I spend photographing him has forced me to ask questions about suffering and faith, and why anyone is born with disease. Nick has Cerebral Palsy. Suffering itself raises countless questions. From time to time, someone will ask if I ever feel guilty for ending up the healthy one. I do. I look at him and think that it could have been me, and am constantly reminded and aware of his struggles. I wonder why he has to be the one who struggles on a moment-to-moment basis. It stirs up this process of grieving that never seems to end, like one long lament.”

This may be a frequent topic of mine.  Much to the chagrin of my girlfriend, I’ve been paying much more attention to sports since moving to Boston.  I tell her it’s mostly due to the fact that it’s so much a part of the culture here, and my first nine months in Boston happened to include: the Red Sox winning the World Series, the Celtics winning an NBA title, and the Patriots going 16-0 (losing to the Giants in the Superbowl).  You really can’t go anywhere in town without referencing how a sports team is doing – or be familiar with players on the teams.

Sports started to filter into my life when I ended up sitting (without a milk crate) at outer 3rd in the 2007 World Series with a 600mm lens in my 2nd month at the Globe.  My interest gained momentum as I started to cover a few more games and spring training last year.  Then came the Winter Olympics, the NBA Playoffs/Finals, and more sports assignments being thrown my way.

I am not by any means a “sports” photographer.  But one thing I’ve been learning about a lot more is – well, sports.  I covered a lot of high school and college sports in towns and cities without professional teams.  That’s really mostly what you do when you’re a freelancer or an intern.  I remember the photo department at the Pilot would alway use the most interesting and creative photo from a sporting event.  Unless you were Todd Spencer or Genevieve Ross, and just nailed everything in addition to being creative.

Being at the Globe has taught me much more about sports storytelling.  I read the story lines in the paper and listen to sports talk radio and try to prepare for games by studying the opposition.  Again, don’t ask me much about my sports knowledge prior to 2007, but I’ve been reading up on the history, so I’ll hopefully catch up to the rest of the sports-appreciating public.

On to the current post (after a rather lengthy intro): So, I ended up being the 2nd photographer at the Celtics-Heat opener yesterday at the Garden.  I don’t know if any of you who shoot sports also feel this way but, I sometimes have a really hard time keeping track of who’s having a hot night, shooting, assisting, rebounding, etc.  I sometimes feel like when you shoot the sport, without the help of the announcer, and an extremely narrow point of view through a telephoto lens instead of a view of the court, it’s actually kind of hard to keep track of the game.  Given that my past basketball prerequisites for a passable photo were, interesting and printable, I felt a moment of accomplishment as I constantly glanced the stats, fouls, and time at the top of the jumbotron.  Rondo had 17 assists, LeBron had 31 points, as a close game came down the final minute, I excitedly pointed out to my baseline colleagues.  With less than a minute remaining “Boston’s Ray Allen #20 drives the baseline before kicking it out to Paul Pierce #34 and getting into position to hit a 3-pointer in the 4th quarter with less than a minute remaining, giving Boston a 86-80 lead.”

Photos © The Boston Globe

It was a cool realization that I’m starting to understand how to cover these games and getting relevant moments.  And as time goes on I’m hoping to become a much more competent sports photographer, not just making photos of moments, but trying to make great photos of moments.  It was also cool to see the game clinching highlight with an unobstructed view when I got home (fast forward to 2:43).

“Napkins and Quarters” is a monthly blog by Yoon S. Byun, Staff Photographer, at The Boston Globe.  He writes about his thoughts, pictures, and observations from his daily job.