MEMORIES OF OLD HAWAIʻi
Hawaiʻi in photographs
Through the eye of one of the islands' best known lensmen
about the artist
John A. Titchen
Johntitchen.com showcases the professional portfolio of John A. Titchen, who worked as a staff photographer at the old Honolulu Star-Bulletin, a daily newspaper in Honolulu, from 1959-1984. During this time, he also freelanced for publications and news agencies (Life, Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, AP, UPI, etc) back when it was a little harder to transmit photographs. At a time when newspapers thrived -- with robust teams of photographers -- John was famous for thinking 'outside the box.' Frequently, he would get into position on major events and recognize that his images might not be that much different than those captured by other photographers, so he'd switch gears and find an angle no one else was seeing at the time. He became fast friends with a sitting Vice President (Nelson Rockefeller), met Elvis, Janis Joplin, movie stars, and celebrities. His favorite assignments, however, were those in which he was more immersed with 'regular folk' in Hawaiʻi's unique history. He shot images of the Hōkūleʻa on its maiden voyage, was invited to cover Kahoʻolawe protests with George Helm, photographed some of the first big surf contests at Mākaha and on the North Shore, and was generally and genuinely well liked and respected by Hawaiʻi's "powers that be" (including governors and mayors and lawmakers, and bank CEOs, and developers), as well as the every day people he photographed for the pages of the newspaper. He had a keen sense of what was right and wrong, though, and often his images in the newspaper were worth a thousand words of copy ...