Bruce Omori is a photographer based in Hilo, Hawai‘i. Although he has been shooting full-time for just several years, his passion for the craft developed long ago. As a kid, it began as a fascination with the magical ability of film to capture a moment of time, being able to hold it in your hand, slip it in your pocket, and share it with the world.

 

        That fascination is still very much alive today, as Bruce strives to infuse elements of the moment into each frame, such as emotion, energy, and beauty, with the creative use of light and movement. His easy-going, unassuming personality and fondness for the ‘aina are also reflected in his work. From portraits of surfers on the beach to photos of native Hawaiian honeycreepers deep in the rainforest, he captures an integral part of life in Hawai‘i from a local perspective. But the photo that strikes me most is his volcanic photographs. There aren't much information behind each photo. Yet, to me, every single one of them reminds me of my work in unit 1. The magma is frozen and somehow looks like those of a human body. Details of the fold, contrasty and the pace of each movement. His work on contrast is unparalleled, The tone of hot and cold blended in with each other in a perfect composition. Bruce captured the moments of the magma where it almost resembles the skin and what's underneath. Merging the nature and human body altogether in one frame. These visuals also take me back to hypochondria in a way that we might imagined our blood boiling into magma and our skins harden into some form of volcanic terrain, leaving behind only the trace of time left on the frozen surface.