Photograph courtesy of Ruth Ozeki 
NPS Photo, HAVO 17707 Image Collection; Box 14, Folder 5; Image 0002 Kenichi Maehara was the official photographer and photo concessionaire for Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park (then called Hawaii National Park) from 1930 to 1941. He immigrated to Hawai‘i from Hiroshima, Japan in 18961 and grew to become a renowned and respected local businessman whose photos of volcanic eruptions were published and distributed around the world.2 Maehara’s Volcano Photo Studio was his second studio on the Island of Hawaiʻi after his Camera Craft Shop in Hilo. The building was constructed with the approval of the National Park Service in 1930 and was unique for its Japanese style and design.3 The park studio offered visitors “everything photographic,”4 including colorized postcards and pictures of past volcanic eruptions for purchase. If it still stood today, the Volcano Photo Studio would be located near the current Kīlauea Visitor Center. 
NPS Photo. HAVO 16337 Central Files Collection; Box 175, Folder 12 A few months after the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Kenichi Maehara was arrested and detained under suspicion of disloyalty to the United States. Evidence used against him included photos he had taken of the 1935 U.S. military bombing of a Mauna Loa lava flow. Ironically, these photos were commissioned by the U.S. government; Maehara sent one of his employees to capture the photos after receiving a request from Dr. Thomas Jaggar, director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. Kenichi Maehara was declared a security threat because of these photos of “a military classified matter” and for his participation and leadership in the local Japanese Association.5 He was sent to an internment camp in the state of New Mexico in May 1942. The Volcano Photo Studio was demolished by the national park while Maehara was interned. His wife supported the family during this time by colorizing and selling her husband’s black and white photos, including those he took of past volcanic eruptions. Kenichi Maehara remained interned until November 7, 1946.6 After his release, he reunited with his wife on Oʻahu. He would never return to the national park in an official capacity. The retired couple moved to Japan in 1960 where Maehara died a few years later.7
On the 15th anniversary celebration of his Camera Craft Shop in 1932, Kenichi Maehara told a reporter, “I am a happy man today because photographing is both my hobby and my lifework.”8 Ten years later, Maehara’s hobby and lifework were unjustly used against him, and his long and dignified career came to an unceremonious end. A wartime climate of fear and prejudice robbed Kenichi Maehara of the life and livelihood he strove to create in the national park. His life story and eruption photography give us a glimpse into our shared history and invite us to reflect on the powerful and destructive forces that are present in both nature and society.
Photograph courtesy of Ruth Ozeki Where was the Volcano Photo Studio located? 
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Last updated: May 30, 2023